Published 15 March 2001

Schoolboys’ tricks on holidaymakers

■HE PICTURE of the crew of the Folkestone fishing vessel Joan of Ark (FE15) in Memories recently was of special interest to Harry John ‘Barny’ Watkins, of Valley Road, Sandgate who wrote to tell me it certainly brought back special memories for him.

“She was built in Boulogne and my uncle, Bob Featherbe, was one of ‘Knockout Spicer’s’ crew who went over and brought her back.

“His wife and Bob lived at 7 East Street (pictured left) and she was known by everyone in the market as Aunt ‘Tanny’ Featherbe. Mums took their kids to her if they were poorly. She would bite hooks out of fishermen’s fingers, and people with poorly cats and dogs would always be on her door-step for advice!

“I spent my summer school holidays with her every year.” But it wasn't all play, she said “because I had to help with the lines and help with carrying the fish from the Slip to the sheds.

“My friends, in those days, were Harry Sharp, Albert Tanner, Ginger Weatherhead, Ginger Spear-point and Stan Sharp, unfortunately all gone now.

“Regarding Ron Hammond jumping off the wall, diving down for pennies, the Londoners used to throw pennies in for us to go down for.

Innocent fun
“Chas Godden and Alfie Walsh used to dive off and swim under water all the way to the other side to the Southern Railway cargo boats.

“The fooled holidaymakers just couldn’t make it out, and were convinced they were ‘gonners’!”

Mr Watkins goes on to tell how, on a Sunday night, the old fishermen would put on their best jumpers and peak caps and would be outside the “Bethel” for a church service.”

And he told how he had to be up early for work.

“In the war I helped “Mochie” Cornish to ferry some crews out to their boats before they went to
TmS picture of a Bob Featherbe (on the left) carrying fish along the quay was shown to me by Edwin Lilley, of Seabrook, who bought a collection of glass plate negatives at an auction. This shot is believed to date from the early 1900s.
MANY thanks to all the Memories readers who have contacted me recently by post and by e-mail with information and photographs. Please keep them coming and don’t forget you can contact me at my home by e-mail if convenient. It helps to ensure accuracy if I have any names in writing or via e-mail, so letters are appreciated, but not essential.

To those readers I am due to visit I can only apologise if I have been slow to get in touch. But I don’t know where the time goes to now I have retired from full-time work! Please bear with me if you will.
Mrs D.M. Cox (nee Hann) of Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone sent me this charabanc photograph, which had been passed on to her, she said, hoping it might be of interest to Memories readers. She wonders if it could be a butchers' summer outing, from Folkestone to Torquay, since her Uncle, Frederick Hann - son of Edwin Charles Hann, who had the butchers shop at 31 Cheriton Road - is seated in the middle of the second row from the front. He is behind the man in the trilby hat, says Mrs Cox. "When the Folkestone shops were sold, my uncle took over the butcher's shop in Lyminge," she told me. I wonder if any reader can recognise a relative in the picture?
sea - sometimes early mornings, 2am, 3am etc.

“I had a long pole, knocking on their windows, waking them up,” he says. “Happy days and, yes, I still get a kick, going through the fish market,” although he added that he was sorry that many people he knew are no longer around.
Soccer appeal
MARTIN and Anne Harrison, members of the Kent Family History Society who live in “sunny Suffolk” sent me an e-mail message seeking information about Folkestone Football Club during the period 1900 to 1920. According to family legend,
they say, Herbert Silvester Harrison, born around 1882, played for the club. Has any Memories reader heard of him? If so, the Harrisons would love to know.

Another Harrison, Frederick Silvester Harrison, had his own dance band called Silvester’s Serenade or Grove Dance Band, which was playing in the Folkestone area during the 1930s.

I am sure there must be a Memories reader who remembers those dances. Anyone who can help can contact Martin and Anne by e-mail on trelawne@yahoo.com - or drop me a line at the Herald office and I will pass it on.
 

60ft carriageway shock plan for Cheriton Road 't Qni * COSTLY scheme was revealed by the JL«S W JL Herald to widen Cheriton Road, in one spot only 20ft wide, to an unprecedented 60ft from the Central Station to the borough boundary at Ashley Grange. Referring to it as an "open secret" the editor said it would involve a massive amount of expense which would have a big impact on the rates. It would, he said, involve slicing off 20ft from the south side of Radnor Park - '‘mutilating the recreation ground” - destroying the attractive trees and shrubs along that route, and the acquisition of front gardens of 25 houses and buying some homes facing the road. Messrs Mount's nursery would also lose land, while further cost of widening would be likely to fall on Cheriton Council for that part of the road In their district We cannot help thinking, he wrote, that the scheme was linked to the Council's Tramway Scheme, which was due to be the subject of a planning inquiry on March IS, and he was sure there would be many objections. The March 2nd Herald was the first Folkestone newspaper to be printed solely by electric power, the Bayle printing works and former offices in Sandgate Road having been converted entirely to electricity:

Good news - steamers to return on Boulogne route «f qa/> THERE was jubilation at the harbour and in some quarters good cause for sinking a few pints in celebration, at ‘getting one over’ on our near neighbours. This followed the revelation that the mail and passenger steamer service to and from Boulogne was to return to Folkestone in May. This was causc for much satisfaction throughout the district, although it was not known if this change was to be permanent. Congestion at Dover Marine Station was given as the reason for the move. This was more or less a return to pre-war arrangements. And work was nearing completion on a covered way to make it more comfortable for passengers transferring from boat to train In bad or windy weather. In the First World War Hythc cinema was encouraged to open on Sunday evenings and it continued to do so afterwards, the cinema being filled on those nights. Then, after 11 years, the church decided to object to renewal of the cinema’s music and dancing licence. It admitted there were no complaints about the way the cinema was run, so it seems remarkable a court then refused to renew the licence. Small wonder then that nearly 1,500 people signed a petition against their decision! But their objection was overruled. Appeal plan to protect Venetian fete’s future

Protests at geriatric unit switch for the Royal ‘Vic’ af n*7£> HERALD readers were being urged to I O swamp MP Albert Costain with protests over plans to relegate the town's Royal Victoria Hospital to a geriatric unit. The same week the MP was calling for a better public transport deal for local villagers. At a meeting at the House of Commons attended by East Kent bus company manager Leo Higgins he suggested there could be “bus days” for the different villages to help people travel into town for shopping. Folkestone based ship’s officers hit out at the way senior management of British Rail ferries were running services at a specially convened press conference. They complained competitors made them look like a "bunch of also-rans”. Marsh ratepayers were protesting that excessive1 extraction of shingle from Dungeness could lead to the disappearance of the peninsula. This followed plans by Southern Water Authority to buy land there in order to take shingle for sea defences in the Camber area. Cllr Claude Conybeare of Folkestone claimed the Council was not doing its duty in protecting bus passengers; from fare increases. His statement followed approval given to the latest rises by traffic commissioners. The council decided not to fight them after financial advice. He said they shouldn’t always accept bus company arguments for increases and another councillor said there was a risk of bus travel becoming too costly.

1 OEM CONCERNED for the future of the pop-JL«7*rXuiar Venetian Fete on Hythe’s Royal Military Canal, a Mayor's guarantee fund was launched to relieve the organisers of the financial worry. Tributes were being paid in the Herald’s midweek sister paper, the Gazette* at the end of February, to another of the town's fishing community ‘Old Spratter' - John Thomas Warman Saunders - who had passed on. He was a local fisherman half a century. His death recalls the loss of the old fishing smack “Good Intent" on the Mole Rocks, at Copt Point, in 1904 and a dramatic rescue of her crew. John Saunders, his father Jack and John's brother Edward, by the lifeboat “Leslie”. The dramatic event, which involved the tragic loss, close by, with all hands of Eastbourne fishing boat Pride of Envy, was featured in Memories over several weeks in 1999 with a photo of the Saunders trio. Those features told of replacement of “Good Intent” (FE 21) after a public appeal for funds, by the 40ft lugger "Happy Return” (FE 5) which has now been restored by Mounts Bay Lugger Association, in Cornwall. First tenants were moving in to the Council’s Biggins Wood estate where many houses had been completed or were nearing completion. The midweek Folkestone & Hvthp Gazette had nictures