Above photo, 1901.

Above photo, kindly sent by Tricia Francis, 21 March 2015.

From an email received 17 April 2021.

Your site shows John Blundell, b1854 d1919, partner Mary Ann Bradshaw b1856 d1924.

John Blundell and Mary Ann Bradshaw had a daughter, Ethel Blundell b1887 d1965 who married Hugh John Thomas McCaffrey b1888 d1964. Hugh John Thomas McCaffrey and Ethel had three children, Ivy b1910, Joan b1917 and Hugh John Blundell McCaffrey b1931 (Blundell was used as a middle name)... Joan was my father's mother and she was either born in the "Rock Tavern" or born elsewhere in Malling but at the time when her parents had the "Rock Tavern."

I believe her mother and father took over the running of the pub from John Blundell who you have listed to 1903.

H. J. T. McCaffrey fought in WW1 alongside his brother. I'm not sure which but one was recovering injured soldiers in no man's land, he took refuge from enemy fire in a crater and found an injured man already in the crater.... he carried him back to their own lines only to discover it was his brother.

Apparently his voice never broke and he sang at the Royal Albert Hall, must've been a sight.... a 6'7" guardsman singing with a high pitch voice!

He then joined Kent Police and was known as the tallest policeman in Kent.

I presume they moved out of the Rock by the time he joined the Police and then transferred to Stockport at some time before 1931 as H. J. B. McCaffrey was born in Stockport.

Above is a picture of him as a policeman and therefore after he was the landlord of the Rock.

To carry on tradition, his son, H. J. B. McCaffrey was a policeman, two of Joan's sons were R.A.F. Policeman (including my Dad) and I am in my 28th year as a police officer in Bedfordshire.

Coincidentally, Joan's husband, my grandad Walter Charles Andrews, was also born in a pub, the Navigation Inn in Gnosall, Staffs and he and Joan went on to run several pubs in Manchester, Liverpool, Chester and North Wales.

I hope the above has been of interest.

Steve Andrews.