Title 3

my father's parents lived in Monkton being called after two `William's, a `Bernard' and an `Amy', giving the name `Wilbernam' yes we know it's a good name for a firm of undertakers but most funerals were burials when the name was devised, many years ago!

Before that, in the 1920's there was a Post Office run by Mr Packham, who later ran The Stores, now named `Wansum End' and he also owned `Packham's Cottage' at the junction of The Street, The Length and Manor Road.

My Mother was given `The Forge' by my father either as an odd gift or for some tax reasons and we as a family can all recognise the `voice' of the anvil in there. An anvil is cast from a large lump of steel and then its `beak' drawn out, not to any strict dimensions but if it looked right then it was right, and so each anvil is like a church bell having its own peculiar voice.

The last Blacksmith to live in `Forge House' was Percy Gammon but he died in 1969, the year before I got married which was a particular blow to me at the time.

Percy was trained as a general blacksmith and was happiest making rakes and hoes for villagers to use in their gardens or shoeing one of the many farm horses there were around at that time, but that was when times started getting hard and my father wanted Percy to develop some more skills and thereby bring in some much-needed extra revenue, so with a great deal of gentle persuasion, Percy gradually got into doing wrought ironwork and very good it he was too. He even made the gates at Winbrey, The Length.

I was away in the army at the time and engaged to my, now, wife Margaret and I wanted Percy to make me a wrought iron standard lamp which were all the rage then but not so much nowadays, for me to give to her as a present. But out of the blue came the news to me that Percy had died and the village lost a true gentleman and craftsman.

Some years prior to this, whilst I was student at the village primary school my mother decided to put the bottom oven of the Rayburn cooker in `Alpha' to a use other than cooking and she placed three goose eggs in there, to hatch. At the appointed time two hatched, but not the third so my mother said to me `Let's see if the egg is addled', and took the egg down the garden to the concrete post supporting the weather-vane erected by my father. I didn't even know there was a word `addled', let alone what it meant, but I was curious and followed on. I can well remember her smacking this egg against the post and doing it harder and harder, as a goose egg is that much stronger than a chicken's.

Eventually, with a terrific bang it broke and even as I write this I am experiencing the nausea I felt that fine spring morning all those years ago from the smell of its rotten contents, and the answer was `Yes' the egg was addled!

The two goslings grew and got too big for our garden so my parents decided to share them with the other villagers and as Dad owned the plot of ground where the office stands next to the Post Office the two growing birds lived there, until M.Reynard (a fox) decided to eat the female, many people were not too happy with the nasty fox.

However the male, by now called `Charlie' by everyone, lived on for many years fed and watered every day by Percy, and all villagers used to walk up to the fenced off area and call out `Charlie!' and he would call back and run up to greet whoever it was as there may have been some tit-bit available to him.

My father converted `Forge House' into two flats after Percy's death and some six or seven years later (after I had completed nine years service in The Royal Engineers) Margaret and I moved into the ground floor flat, Margaret being several months pregnant with our first child, Nicola. The arrival of the first `Cole' girl for a generation was quite frantic. M went to bed as usual and whipped the bedclothes back and there, on the pillow, was a black spider the size of a small Alsatian dog, according to her, anyway, her waters broke and a few hours later we were parents of a Nicola.

Our elder son, Simon and his then girlfriend Gemma lived in the top floor flat from 1998 to 2002,later joined by his brother,Rob who moved into the lower flat. Some time after that Forge House was sold and it was converted back to a house and brought up to the current requirements for a domestic dwelling.

Pepper Alley is so called for reasons unknown to anyone nowadays, in the past it was suggested to be either because the three original cottages commanded only a peppercorn rent or possibly because one of the residents traded in selling pepper, no one knows for sure so you can make your own mind up on that one. Back in the late fifties early sixties, Sir Bernard Miles stayed in one cottage, whilst planning the re-creation of the Mermaid Theatre in London and also helping with saving The Theatre Royal in Margate. Some time later his daughter, Sarah also rented one of the cottages.

Whilst a pupil at St Nicholas Primary School I seem to remember a certain Martin Reid living in Pepper Alley with his mother who reminds me now with hindsight of Marge Proops with those big thick black rimmed glasses.

We `boys' from the school would sit in his garden doing the things young boys do but only once would we make the mistake of kneeling on the lawn! The reason being that you got a sudden very painful headache from a head but from their goat, tethered in the garden, who felt this challenged his masculinity.

My `middle' brother Chris and his wife Mary bought all of `Pepper Alley' and converted the 3 cottages into one, during 1991-2 and moved there, with their children Julie and Jamie, from Ellington Road in Ramsgate where they had run a home for the ambulant elderly for several years.

`Sea View Cottages' were originally four dwellings belonging to Michael Smith who ran Monkton Court Farm, famous for its white turkeys introduced to Thanet by his mother.

Teddy Burchett lived in number 4 when we moved to St Nicholas and about that time Mabel Baker with her son Roger lived in number 1, they then moved to number 1 `Sunnyside Cottages' from where Mabel used to work across the road in The Bakery for many a year.

However some years later Alf and Valerie Pettman lived in either 3 or 4 and one winter Val's brother Michael decided to throw a snowball at my elder brother Peter, who being an intelligent lad, ducked and the snowball broke the glass in the said window. Val was out like a shot and told both of them off in no uncertain terms as her son Robert was asleep in his bed below the window at the time.

`Rose Cottage' was actually three cottages when we moved here, being occupied by such people as Harry and Florrie Pettman, father and step-mother of Alf, from at least as early as 1934 until 1991 when Florrie, now a widow moved from next door at number 2 to number 3. On the front of number two is the date 1761 and number one has to be the smallest dwelling in St Nicholas at Wade being originally a one-up-one-down house.

There are actually many `Rose Cottage's in St Nicholas at Wade as apart from these three, there is one in Manor Road and another in Potten Street.

Major alterations were made to the northwest elevation, i.e. that on the right as you look from The Length, at numbers 2 and 3, in 1991 when Ken and Judy Gration lived there with their two children.

At one time a new owner applied to the Council to pull down the small cottage abutting The Length to allow the road to be widened but my father, still a Councillor at the time, pointed out that it actually worked as a traffic calming measure. So-much-so that Highways kept `the pinch' when installing the controversial footway from Thanet View to The Oaks, in 2006.

Numbers 1-6 `Thanet View' were the first `Council Houses' built in the village around 1930. At number 5 lived Alf Offen, lorry driver for WS Cole, Monkton (and part time chimney sweep) with his wife, Marjorie and sister-in-law Miss Olive Brockman. `Aunt Olly' was a pure Victorian with all their virtues and values, she ran The Village Hall, and started the weekly Whist Drives to raise funds for its upkeep and they are still going on today.

Olive went into service as a maid but was told by her employer, according to John Land's book on St Nicholas that her name was too grand for a maid so it was changed to Ruth! Would that be considered `Politically Correct' these days I wonder?

She also was the Village Representative for The British and Foreign Bible Society and ran various events throughout the year in their support also. She was also a mine of useful information about the village, but like my father and many others she took a lot of it to the grave with her at the end of her life.

Margaret lived at No.6, with her sister, Carol and their parents Cecil and Peg, until we married in 1970 and Margaret moved out to live with me firstly in Rochester, then various places around the world, whilst I was fighting for Queen and country.

The others carried on living there until after Cecil lost his right arm in an agricultural accident in 1972 when he worked for Rodney, Dick and Martin Tapp, at St Nicholas Court Farm. After the accident, he was employed as a single-handed (although I don't think that is what the expression was actually designed forJ), gamekeeper at Belle Isle, a most idyllic life for him but the ladies of the house found the location a great change from the hustle and bustle of village life in Thanet View, and every trip out meant a car-journey at both ends!

Six weeks after losing his right arm I caught up with Cecil at the edge of a field shooting pigeons, I naturally asked him how he was getting on and his reply of `Not too good I am only getting 7 out of 10', shook me as I replied, `I am lucky to get 2 out of 10!' but his greatest regret was being unable to use his beloved catapult. Many a farm-worker had to buy a new flask after losing a bet with him, as to whether he could hit it or not, at break time in the fields.

Other than his catapult I think there is only one thing he can't do, go on guess what that is. I will put the answer on one of the next pages.

Looking northwest an even earlier photograph judging by the dress of the people but definitely before 1935! As the first council houses have not yet been built.

Next door to number 8 is a small red brick building, which housed the village telephone exchange, where many a happy hour has been spent by the engineers sorting out the various problems of communication to and from the village over the years.

Goodness knows what will happen to this site, in the future, as it may well be the right area for a dwelling but its dimensions are ninety degrees out as it faces the wrong way, but no doubt some high powered lame-brain politician will see fit to allow a block of flats to be built there in the future.

Number 7, where George and Dolly Milgate lived and number 8, where Jimmy and Rosalie Gray lived, were not built until 1948, about the same time as all the houses in Manor Lea Road. They are of a standard Local Authority design as similar developments can be seen in many villages and towns throughout Kent and the rest of the country.

From `Four Winds' (garage added to the side in 2006) to `Sunny', formerly called `Cairness', including all of Bedford Way right back to Manor Farm was the village football pitch, where the home team had an advantage over the visitors of knowing how to use the considerable slope to their advantage! Cricket was traditionally played on `Broadley's Meadow' where Basil Broadley now has the very attractive and popular camp-site.

The development was by `Tazzy' Bedford, a builder from Birchington and they must have been built between 1961 and 1965 as they do not appear in the local Kelly's Directory for 1961 and yet appear fully occupied in the edition for the latter year.

There is not a lot say about this site, no one of note appears to have lived there (except perhaps for Noel Scott a fellow School Governor of mine in the 1980's who wrote all his Visiting Governor Reports in beautifully crafted rhyme) and I was still away from the village at college and preparing to join the army, when they were being built.

Presumably I have now upset about 40 householdsJ. Well it is up to them to contact me with relevant details and I will include anything interesting.

`Sabang' and `Sigli' were built for an ex-merchant seaman who named them after two ports in The Persian Gulf. The pair were bought by Terry Wightman who farmed `Silsoe Court', now named `Little Orchard' along the A28 towards Sarre, to be used as agricultural dwellings but apparently never were.

Next door at `Sigli' lived Ron and Jean Barnes with their children Robert and Janet, the latter being one of Margaret's three bridesmaids, from the late sixties until they moved back to Birchington in 1980. We used to visit most Sunday's after the morning service at Manor Hall when I was stationed at Maidstone for the first six or more years service with the Royal Engineers at 36 Engineer Regiment, in Invicta Barracks.

`Homeleigh' was where Jimmy Castle lived and I remember as a very young child seeing him pushing a big old iron-wheeled truck along the road to repair a pothole somewhere or other. He used to work from a `yard' situated a couple of hundred yards Monkton side of St Nicholas roundabout along the `spur road'.

There are still two examples of these `yards', one on the A28 between Nether and Upper Hale and the other a quarter of the way along the Potten Street Road between the junction of Shuart Lane and the roundabout.

All I can say about `Sea Ridge' is that a nice lady, Mrs Edna Mutton moved there from Summer Road until she went to Marshside to live with her daughter, Pauline in 1986.

My father built `Winbrey', for Win and Aubrey Smith who ran the Post Office when we moved here until they retired in 1960. After they died in 1972 and 1971 respectively, their elder daughter, Audrey (Bolton) moved there with her husband, Sid, who worked as a carpenter for my father for many years.

Next door to `Winbrey' is `Woodpeckers' which was built in 1980 and appears to me to be of a design popular with local authorities who control development in rural areas but whose Officers do not apparently have to live near the buildings whose design they approve. It appears that a Mr and Mrs Crockett moved there in 1980 from Minster.

We then cross the road to `Chalk Gardens', which were originally `Numbers 1 and 2 Chalk Pit Cottages'. The pair were bought on 26 August 1948 for £500 by Bert Smith of Monkton Court.

I seem to remember a Miss Peal living in one of them when we came here in 1954, but I don't have any particular memories of either property. The 1901 Census has a `George and Mary THEOFF', living there. Anyone ever heard of that surname? Is it one of your ancestors? Let me know, please! And what is the origin of the surname?

Currently a single dwelling occupied by Jane Browne who moved there from `Prospect Place', Down Barton Road, with her husband Tony an author and illustrator of children's books and their children Joe and Ellie. Tony even went in with the gorillas at Howlett's Zoo to get up close and personal with the gorillas and his artwork shows the value of taking this risk; it is superb.

Jane has produced many a top rate musical extravaganza for the village primary school for which we parents were/are truly grateful and also has been responsible for many `concerts' in the Village Church and you can always tell when one is `on' as there isn't a parking space left in the whole village.

Since 1979 I have kept a daily diary and noted down the weather for each day (well everyone should have a hobby J) and the vast majority of the time the wind is from the Southwest to Northwest nowadays, but when I went to Dane Court School (1957 to 1964) every day the wind seemed to be in our faces when we walked up The Length or Eastwards. I reckon this is definite change in weather patterns but of course can't prove it.

There is now a stretch of undeveloped land giving beautiful views to The North Sea and St Nicholas' Beach adjoining Minnis Bay, I wonder if all those `Politicos' will ever develop this land for housing? I just hope not! There are plenty of buildings, just make the owners do them up, make them habitable and stop mass immigration! End of problem Mikal's way!

Facing you as you walk down The Length are three (well four really as `Bramble' is connected through the rear of `Kent') terraced cottages but I don't know which was built when or for whom. Manor Farm Cottage, the one on the right, where Ernie and Daphne West live was on the market in 2007 for £369,950. Ernie has his own company, making and installing fitted kitchens.

The middle of the three cottages `Kent' is now as I said, part of, `Bramble Cottage', Michael Smith, the then owner of the cottage had the two conjoined in 1982 or 83 and for the life of me I can't think of anything to say about `Kent Cottage' other than it separates `Manor Farm Cottage' from `Walmer Cottage'. Well my records do show a David (known as `Sparrow') Gibbs living there in 1934 and a George Swain in 1969.

`Walmer Cottage' housed the Harris family when I moved into the village and two of their children were my contemporaries at the village primary school, Betty and her brother, Jimmy. Jimmy, and I hope he won't mind me saying this, was a tractor! Any break time Jimmy would be there, shunting forwards and backwards and making all the appropriate tractor movements and noises around the playground. On the market in 2007 for `offers in excess of £180,000

`Bramble' (and `Kent') Cottage was lived in most recently by Julian and Viv Smith, who moved there from `2 Sea View Cottages', until 2007 when they moved to Monkton Court. Julian is a musical composer and the elder son of Michael and Jean Smith of the turkey breeding fame at Monkton.

That brings us on to `Minnie Cottage' where Albert Foad lived certainly from 1950 to 1969. Albert named it after his wife whom I presume was called Minnie, but for whom it was built is a mystery to me. However it was on the market in 1996 for £64,995, in 1998 for £67,000 and 2001 for £89,995.

To complete our tour of The Length we come to `Elder Cottage' adjoining `Alpha'. When we moved to the village a Mr and Mrs Rayner lived there, but after they left, Ray and Ena Drake moved here from `Detteken' in Manor Road. Ray was my father's bricklayer until he resigned and went to work as a rent-collector for Canterbury City Council in the 1970's, however I was to meet up with him again when I went to work in the Architect's Department of that Authority in 1979.

There is a self-contained dwelling beneath part of `Elder Cottage' called `Gable End' Which was `The Room' a meeting place for The Bretheren; a religious order to which both sets of my Great-grandparent and most of their descendants have belonged to, since. You may wonder at the substantial concrete ramp leading from the road down to `Elder Cottage', well this was constructed to enable my Auntie Elsie to gain access to `The Room' as she was crippled with polio at the age of 16 and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She lived with my grandparents, latterly at `The Paddock', Manor Road, from the demise of her parents until her death in 1970.

The Brethren are not a secret organisation but a Christian denomination, which basically does not have Ministers or Priests but any male who has been baptised into it may speak and take part in the services. However they are very strict on not adding to or taking from the written words of The Bible.

Before converting (sorry for the pun) this building, the congregation met in a room at the back of the Sun Inn and after Manor Hall was built in 1966 by my father `The Room' was part of `Alpha', as we growing youths needed some space. When my mother no longer needed the extra space the room was converted into a small dwelling by my cousin Isabel who lives at Deal, so she has a base in the village when she attends Manor Hall and its Youth Club.

Street lights were installed in The Length by Thanet District Council in 1984 but there was a problem, isn't there always when the council are involved? Being a conservation area, it was agreed by TDC and the Parish Council that old style lamps should be installed rather than any new design. Once the Council had installed the lamp standards they realised some entrepreneurial wiz-kid had some years previously sold the swan-neck tops of the lamps to a local authority in the West Country. So TDC had to go and buy some new ones hence the delay from installing the standards in 1984 to them actually being switched on, on Wednesday 12 March 1986!