My Beautiful Kentish Birthplace

A Memory of Rolvenden.

I was born in East House, Tenterden Road, Rolvenden on 2nd November 1938.  My dad was about to join the RAF and I was born in my grandparents' home. There were large cellars below the house - very scarey.  East House and West House are joined in the centre by a 'shop' which was the Post Office and telephone exchange in the 1920/30s.  My mother, Molly Allsop, was one of the operators of the switchboard in the switch room.  Few people had telephones.   My grandfather, Joe Allsop JP, was the village postmaster and the mail, telegrams and telephones were all run from that property.  In the 1930s the Post Office was moved over the road to a small old double fronted shop which faced up the road towards the Recreation Ground and The Bull.  The Post Office then was between Mr Phillips' sweet shop and the fish and chip shop (now a museum).  As a little girl I used to be allowed to help Grandad by dusting his shop. There was a lovely shop assistant called Iris Payne.  Grandad sold pharmacy and chemists sundries and a few sweets as well as having the post office.  He was allowed to run his little maroon Standard 8 car on red petrol, because he delivered telegrams, took people to hospital or even the railway station in Ashford where they could go to London.  My grandmother ran the household, cooked wonderful food and made me dresses, coats and even a 'siren suit' from other people's clothing.  I was never cold.  Grandad had a field opposite East House (housing now) which had a large pond and where he had geese, ducks, chickens and two pigs in the sty.  We had a roast goose every Christmas and plenty of eggs and roast chicken.  He also worked a large vegetable plot behind the Post Office in the High Street.  Tragically, whilst working in this garden he had a heart attack and was found dead.  

I remember one Christmas it had snowed heavily so we all went taboganning on the hill near the Rolvenden Windmill.   Another time I remember a bomb had fallen near Mickeldene (a small private school where Joanna Lumley went) and blown its roof completely off, and the windows out.

I came to Rolvenden in 2007 and, in the churchyard, found the grave of my great-great grandparents, George and Lilla Ruth Weston.   Grannie Weston lived for many years in the tiny gatehouse to Great Maytham on the road to Rolvenden Layne.    Grandad Allsop held the keys to the empty Great Maytham and I went with him to check the place over.  My own grand-children are fascinated to think that I really went into the Secret Garden of F. H. Burnett.   

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