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More to
Come...
This is the first Chat Column for some time and
I have not been able to include all the material contributed by
our readers in the meantime. However, I will make an immediate
start on the next one! I am sorry for the delay.
1st Whitstable
Scout Reunion
Before we start with our articles, I would like to
remind former members of the 1st Whitstable Scouts that the unit
celebrates its centenary in 2009 and the occasion will be marked
by a special event. Lawrence Wells provides the details in the
message below.....
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1st Whitstable
Scouts Centenary
It's the 1st Whitstable Scouts centenary
this year. We are throwing a large tea party for present
& past members on.....
Sunday
14th June at Scout Headquarters.
We wish to contact as many past members
as we can. Please e-mail...
groupexec@sky.com
or write to..
Lawrence
Wells, Group chairman c/o 12 Linnet Avenue, Whitstable
Kent CT5 4TN
Thanks
Lawrence
Wells
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If you were a 1st Whitstable Scout, please contact
Lawrence at the email address provided
Red Spider
Whitstable Natives will love our next two photos
which have been kindly forwarded from Canada by John and Anne
Harman . They were taken by Anne's mum and dad back in the 1960s
when, during a trip to the UK, they visited John's parents in
Island Wall.
The first shows Marine Terrace (foreground) and
Wave Crest (background) looking typical "Sixties West
Beach"....
And, of course, "Sixties West Beach" had
a very important beach resident.... the Red Spider cafe. This is
captured in the centre of the photo close to the rain shelter and
coastguard building. The cafe was removed in the 1980s to make way
for essential sea defence works but never re-instated.
Readers have kindly supplied us with a
number of fascinating photos of the old Red Spider building -
taken from the North.... from the West.... and from the South.
John and Anne have now completed our journey around the compass by
covering the view from the East..... and what a view it is. Take a
look at the enlarged extract below....
Yes it's the sign that remains in all our
childhood memories.... the famous "spider & web"
logo on the cafe wall.
Our permanent West Beach and Red Spider
articles have yet to be transferred from our old web space.
Hopefully, we will be able to re-write the items in the near
future and the new versions will include John and Anne's photos.
Comments Received on Red Spider
Article
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Red
Spider Cafe
Did you know that there were two Red
Spider Cafes in Whitstable in the 1960s? The other
one was at the Horsebridge immediately adjacent to the
Assembly Rooms (on the right hand side from Horsebridge
Road). My great aunt had the franchise for both
cafes.
Julia
Julia Seath
Whitstable
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| Our Reply: Thanks,
Julia. I presume the Horsebridge cafe was the one
between the Assembly Rooms and the Ambulance Station. I had
no idea that it was once called the Red Spider. It had some
other names at various times and it maybe that some of our
readers will be able to recall a few.
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Mystery Football
Club Photo
In our last Chat Column, Chris Nutten kindly
supplied this Whitstable Town Football Club photo featuring his
grandfather George Rowden Nutten (seated on the extreme left of
the middle row).
We believe that the shot was taken in the late 1920s or early
1930s. However, we posed the question... "Was it at an early
photo of the club's current day home.... The Belmont?".
Since then Chris, his cousin Alan and I have
bounced around a few emails and we are fairly confident that it is
indeed a Belmont scene. The big clue is in the top left corner of the
photo where several semi-detached houses precede several bungalows
at the base of the hill. These houses can still be seen today....
on the east side of Millstrood Road - opposite the junction with
Grimshill Road......
Millstrood Road in April 2009
Armed with this evidence, I have used a yellow line to
mark a track on the old photo extract below. This track is a
largely undeveloped Millstrood Road.
Having set this marker, other features start to
materialise from the background haze.... including Whitstable
cemetery and its chapel buildings. Although hidden from view, we
can now also plot the line of the Gorrell Stream at the base of
the hill....
Interestingly, there is no sign of Grimshill
Road in the old photo. Like much of Whitstable south of the London-Thanet
railway, it was still a very rural area in the 1920s and the
Gorrell Stream would have resembled a pleasant country brook
rather than the urban ditch of modern times. However, the
Belmont football pitch and facilities looked far from pleasant in those
days!!!! It makes
you wonder how the club managed to stage its first home FA Cup tie
back in 1910 and accommodate the small matter of 2,150 spectators!
Those fans watched Whitstable sink to
defeat at the hands of Dartford.
Of course, things are very different today. The
photo below shows a similar angle on 29 August 2007 when 1000
supporters watched Whitstable v Dover in the
Ryman League Division 1 South.
Another Football
Club Poser
Having resolved some of the issues raised by
that 1920s photo, Chris has produced an even older shot from the
Nutten family photo album.... probably inherited from his
grandfather George Rowden Nutten who was club secretary and
treasurer for many years.....
| Back row: H Keam,
W Barham (capt), G Hawkes, R Gambrell, F S Gann.
Middle
row: H Tilley, D C Keddie, O Rowden, H Gambrill, W Foad, J
Cole, W Foreman, G Dunn, P Humphrey, S Anderson.
Front
Row: R T Lang (president), W J Foreman, J Gambrill, A Amos, P
Ray, F Davison, W Wyver (secretary), D Ward |
This picture shows the Whitstable side that lifted
the Thanet League title back in the 1908/1909 season.
Surprisingly, there isn't a single Nutten in the shot but just
look at those other local names.... Keam, Gambrill, Gann, Tilley,
Rowden, Foad, Foreman, Amos and Wyver!
By 1908, the club had moved to its current Belmont
ground but was this photo taken there? The heavily wooded
background is very different from the 1920s shot.
The Nutten family contributed so much to sporting
life in Whitstable of the twentieth century and our next Chat
Column will take a look at Chris's fascinating collection of
Whitstable Cricket Club photos.
Coronation
Day?
Chris Nutten has also provided us with a photo
of a children's party that needs some identification.....
Initially, we thought that it might be a photo
of the general VE day celebrations. If that was the case, it
would be the first that we have ever received at Simply
Whitstable. However, after an exchange of emails, we believe
that the ages of some of the children place it a few years
later. Chris tells me that the scene includes a very
young David Butcher (later to become a popular "skipper"
of the 1st Whitstable Scouts) - third from the right. It also
includes Chris's sister Pat (first on the right) and brother Ronnie
(4th from the left).
Thus it seems more likely that it is a
Coronation Day party.... but can someone confirm that?
Fire
Brigade....
I am sure some of our older readers will be able
to help us with our next task! It concerns this photo kindly
forwarded by Chris Nutten.....
As Chris has pointed out, it appears to show the
fire brigade in Cromwell Road close to the junction with Wheatley
Road. The helmeted officer on the left is Chris's Uncle Harold
Butcher who was married to his mother's sister, Phil Foad. They
lived for many years in Gladstone Road. The building on the left
is Elvy's Print works which, of course, produced the Whitstable
Times. The timber yard was (at some stage) operated by Seath and
Sons Ltd (timber and builders merchants).
That's what we know to date. However, there are
some very odd features. The device on the right appears to be a
pump of some sort but it is being towed by a lorry from
Whitstable's very own soft drink company - Star Mineral Waters
of Essex Street. Why would this be when the fire brigade had its own fire engines and vehicles?
One possible answer is that this may have been
the fire brigade's entry in Whitstable Carnival and a real fire
engine could not be spared for the occasion. (In those days, the
carnival assembled in Cromwell Road). However, there are no
crowds and no other carnival entries. So can anyone help explain
it all?
Comments on Fire Brigade
Photo...
Derek Whorlow has very kindly delved into the
Fire Brigade photo and come up with some fascinating information
in the messages below....
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Thye
Pump
It is a draughting pump. See how the hoses
look quite solid. That is to stop them collapsing as water
is sucked through them from a stream, pond or even the
harbour. The water would then be pumped to a fire engine for
putting on a fire. Normally these pumps would not be needed
except where there were no hydrants or if the water supply
was insufficient - and so would be sent for as needed.
If the pumps were green - this looks like 1940s maybe
1950s?? then these would be Auxiliary Fire Service
firefighters (AFS). The AFS was disbanded around 1960 or so
but was used to back up the fire service during the war
See http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/AFSAndNFS.asp
for more info.
According to that site, the helmets date the photo as 1941
to 1948 for regular firefighters issue.
Regards
Derek Whorlow
Deputy Captain, Communications Brigade, Baulkham Hills
NSW Rural Fire Service whose dad was in the London Fire
Brigade from 1936 to 1945, then Slough and Reading until
1977 |
| Our Reply: Many
thanks, Derek. I presume this explains why the pump was
being hauled by a private lorry. I wonder what sort of
arrangement was established between the Fire Service and
Star Mineral Waters. I have this vision of lemonade being
distributed in large quantities.... and very quickly. ;-) |
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The
Auxillary Fire Service
If you have a look at my website www.timescapes.spaces.live.com
, you will
see a feature on the Auxillary later National Fires
Service that provided fire and rescue provision
during WW2.
The Auxillary Fire Service (AFS) was first formed in 1938
as part of the Civil Defence Air Raid Precautions. Its
role was to supplement the work of brigades at a local
level.
In the early days the job of the auxillary units was
hampered by the incompatibility of the equipment used by
the different brigades - most importantly the lack of a
standard size of hydrant valve.
The Auxiliary Fire Service and the local brigades were
superseded in August 1941 by the National Fire Service (NFS).
Members of the AFS were unpaid part-time volunteers, but
could be called up for whole-time paid service if
necessary. This was very similar to the wartime
establishment of the police Special Constabulary. Men and
women could join, the latter mainly in an administrative
role.
The photograph on my website shows the personnel of A1
Section of Whitstable's Auxillary Fire Service. The image
was kindly provided by Chas Appleton, who's father Sid
Appleton was a member of the AFS.
There were a number of other units based around the town
and they were equipped with a portable trailer pump which
was towed to the scene of the fire other incident by means
of a car or van, as shown in the image provided by Chris
Nutten. The majority of the mobile pumps were manufactured
by Beresford.
The pumps would pump water from various Emergency Water
Supply ( 'EWS') tanks that were placed around the town.
Aerial photographs taken in 1946 show EWS tanks at: Castle
Road, Diamond Road, Victoria Street, Gladstone Road,
Tankerton Road, Whitstable Railway Station, Cornwallis
Circle and Essex Street.
Regards
Mark Harrison
Whitstable
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| Our Reply: Many
thanks, Mark. |
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The
Auxillary Fire Service
I have now identified the officers as A1
Section of the Auxillary Fire Service. A1 was based at
Cromwell Road.
Chris Nutten has a relation in the team: Bob Nutten here
are the rest of the unit:
Sonny Stroud
Sid Appleton
? Ross
George Harman
Alf Erricsson
Bert Blagden
Harold
Butcher
Eddie Baker
Fred Rigden
? Ackhurst
Regards
Mark Harrison
Whitstable
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| Our Reply: Thanks
again, Mark. |
George Fitt
Motors Ltd
We are putting together a permanent feature on one
of the town's most influential and highly respected businesses -
George Fitt Motors Ltd. Along the way, I have been amazed at
just how many memories, anecdotes and mementoes have been
contributed by our readers. I thought you might like to see the
latest addition - kindly provided by Ivan Knowles....
We've certainly seen quite a few complimentary
freebies that were given to customers by the company.... but this
is one of the more spectacular. It's a desktop cigarette box
constructed of bakelite. Ivan tells me that he has been the proud
owner of the box for many years. It may well be the only
one in existence.... unless, of course, some of our readers know
different!
Our Thanks
Our thanks for the above material go to...
John & Anne Harman.... Chris & Alan Nutten.... Lawrence
Wells... and Ivan Knowles.
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