Published 20 June 2002

Bob note. Gibbons piece repeat of previous week.

Their song
THANKS to Memories readers I have been able to pass on to Margaret Haisell, of Orpington, some of the words for the old Mundella School Song.

Mrs K. Taylor (nee Kent), of Avondale Road, Capel, says "I started school at Mundella infants in 1941 aged five. In 1944 I was moved to St Mary's, and back to Mundella Girls' School in 1947."

The words she remembers are:

Mundella School Song

Mundella's the name that we all now are singing, the name of our school near the hills and the sea. Where we learn of the joys of which young life is bringing,

and aim every day better scholars to be.

We strive for our school, our country and King, and while we're at work in our hearts there will ring the name of our school,

Mundella, Mundella, Mun-del-lar.

Reader Betty Ward, of Minter Avenue, Densole gave the verses she remembers as follows, but thought there could be others:

Mundella's the name that we all now are singing, the name of our school, near the hills and the sea, where we learn of the joy with which young life is ringing,

and aim every day better scholars to be. Mundella, Mundella, Mundella, Mundella.

Time passes quickly and soon we'll be leaving.
our school and our friends for a wider world, we will be older and wiser and bolder, but memories of schooldays will still guide our wills.

Mundella. Mundella, Mundella, Mundella!
Can you help?
Memories reader Mr L. Gibbons, of Canterbury Road, Etchinghill, is appealing for help in finding someone who recalls the Folkestone Dolls Hospital.

He says he understands from older members of the family that his great uncle, Thomas Lewis, who was the superintendent of the tennis courts and croquet lawns at the old Pleasure Gardens Theatre, also operated a tennis racket repair shop.

His wife Susan apparently ran the dolls hospital from the same building - 39 Castle Hill Avenue, or "Rink Lodge" as it was known - living there up until about 1915, according to a Kelly's street directory, but after that no other entries have been found.

Mr Gibbons would also like to know if anyone remembers his uncle's brother John. He ran the Turkish Baths, in Ingles Road, up until the time "he was invited by King George V to 'take advantage' of facilities at Pentonville Prison, in 1920."

After that, says Mr Gibbons, he thinks John Lewis ran a gymnasium in St John's Church Road, aided by his son Frederick. It was also suggested he might have run a charabanc service between Folkestone and London in the 1920s.

I made a quick search through a privately produced manuscript I have about the history of Shepway bus and coach services, but I have not been able to find any mention of John Lewis running charabancs.

Perhaps a Memories reader can throw some light on the matter. If so they can contact Mr Gibbons on 01303 862583.
ARCHAEOLOGY degree course student Mr C.R. Jeffreys, of Shorncliffe, is seeking information about “Roman Folkestone.” He is focussing on the historic Roman villa under the parkland at Wear Bay Road but would like to know of any Roman finds made in Shepway to plot them on a map to show how Roman Folkestone may have been structured and also to illustrate day to day life of Romano-Folkestone citizens. He has been to Folkestone Museum which has a few items found during the 1924 excavation by Mr S.E. Winbolt, but is pleading for more help from readers’ via Memories.
THIS photo, above, of what appears to be a miniature submarine on the seafront near the present amusements park was shown to me by local postcard collector Peter Hooper. But apart from the fact it was taken in the early 1900s I have been unable to find out anything about the crude looking craft.

FIFTY years ago this month the Herald featured this interesting photograph, left, marking the 21st anniversary of Bobby’s store (now Debenhams) in Sandgate Road. The picture was of the firm’s first delivery van being used in Folkestone 40 years before.
 

Herald urges better fire escape to save lives QftOTHE Herald told of a man named West, “no stranger to Folkestone," who saved several women from a fatal fire In a high-rise building in London in which eight young women and a lad died. West's sister was a Mrs Perry of Manor Road, Folkestone. The editor urged the Town Council to heed the danger and back the Watch Committee which had voted to buy the latest, 63ft fire escape for the local fire brigade, pointing out that their Borough Engineer had frequently pointed out how inadequate local fire fighting equipment was. The Pleasure Gardens Theatre was about to be greatly enlarged to seat double the number of people, at a cost of £20,000. This, said the Herald, would make Folkestone's provincial theatre one of the best in the country.: The architect, Frank Matcham was responsible for the London Hippodrome and a hundred other theatres and music halls. Special feature was to be a row of sumptuously furnished boxes at the rear of the dress circle and the work was to be done without closing the existing theatre. The grounds incorporated a gym and 14 tennis courts, where an open tennis tournament was to be held in August. Sir Alan Cobham suggests Shepway municipal airport

>f NINE airmen, including Sir Alan Cobham, JL9<Ci ( famous for his ''Flying Circus” events around the country, were among 100 prospective members who put their names down to form a local Flying Club with Mr R. Dallas Brett, of High Street, Hythe, as secretary. Sir Alan Cobham wrote to Mr Brett supporting plans for a flying club at Lympne, but urged that Folkestone and Hythe should get together and establish a municipal airfield to serve the district, as well as backing a light aircraft club. In Lympne they had the advantage of an airfield already built. Local resident Francis Gane was blaming the decay of Sandgate Castle squarely on the shoulders of the Railway Company whose trains served Shepway towns. He claimed the castle was secure until the railway owners, receiving only a nominal rent for it, allowed it to become undermined. Local postman Mr H.S. Herd had a lucky strike on his allotment at Morehall, finding a 240-year-old Charles II florin which was in good condition and worth a tidy sum. Local councillors complained it was common for buses to race between Seabrook and Brewer's Hill or Sea Point. Meanwhile, passengers were kept waiting and then two or three buses would turn up. They advocated ‘‘surprise visits” by police to stop it.

Bobbys, dating from 1906, toasts its toming of age’ <| afa LOCAL: MP Brigadier H.R. Mackeson •L«/0»was settling down in a new government post, as Secretary for Overseas Trade, dealing with exports and travel. Bobby’s, one of the most popular stores in East Kent (now Debenhams), was celebrating its “coming of age" with special offers and decorations. It opened in Rendezvous Street in 1906, but soon moved to Sandgate Road as business grew. (See photo above.) There was a police warning to motorcycle race meeting crowds not to walk home across fields, because of the risk of spreading foot and mouth disease. The Mayor of Folkestone, accompanied by a handful of councilors, joined a hundred or so children of the Sir John Moore School, who paid homage to soldiers from Canada by laying small bunches of flowers on the war graves at Shorncliffe Camp cemetery, while a boy and a girl placed a wreath on the war memorial. Among those watching was Miss Elizabeth Quin, a former teacher at the school, who had attended every wreath-laying ceremony since the first in 1917. Home from Canada on holiday after 33 years Mrs Lilian Roberts also laid a spray of lily-of-the-valley on the memorial; Her late husband served with the Canadian Ornance Corps in the First World War.

Firm prediction of 300 new jobs in the Shepway area <f Q*7“T THREE hundred new jobs for the Shepway mL%J I t area In the next 18 months were forecast by a man brought in to help boost employment and commerce. Leonard Piper, a consultant with a £20,000 plus budget, said the job prospects were brighter than many people thought. He said Folkestone had not been competitive enough in its attempts to attract industry and business. He also pointed out that of 2,000 registered as unemployed only about 500 were actually classified as “employable.” Some 6,000 local people, he revealed, left Shepway each day to work outside the district. Centenarian Mrs Emma Sims, who was 12 when Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, in 1897, was among those in Hythe who celebrated the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. She could not get out for a street party but friends, neighbours and schoolchildren in fancy dress, who visited her, ensured that she was not left out. The young winners of a fancy dress contest presented her with a big bouquet. Rats of Jubilee week in Sandgate were thieves who stole a very special Union Jack from the Sandgate Scout headquarters. The 8ft flag had been flown in action during the Second War aboard a destroyer and was presented to the Scouts by a Royal Navy captain. It was the Scouts' prized possession. Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway staff used sawdust to damp down a blaze caused by paraffin used to clean engines.