Post by Les on Dec 15, 2017 19:07:37 GMT
Maidstone I remember it well: Gabriels Hill - Next to Cornell's Jewelers at i6 Gabriels Hill was The Chalet Tea Rooms owned by my parents, Ernest and Beatrice Alldridge. It must have been about 1945 when they started the restaurant there as I have an old photograph of some of my family at its entrance and I look to be about two and a half years in the photograph. Opposite was the entrance to the alley that led into King Street. Going up the hill, after Cornells there was a hairdresser, or as she liked to called, a coiffeuse, Estelle Houbigant, a friend of my mother. Mille Houbigant was a Frenchwoman of mysterious past. She was a also a scandal as she lived above her shop, without shame, with a another woman's husband. Above this was an excellent and popular shop selling giblings, savaloys, pies, sausages, bacon, you name it - it would horrify our darling dieticians of today. Tell me, how did all of our generation manage to survive into our 70', 80's, and 90's?? Perhaps it was because the next shop after that was a greengrocer always filled with bright colourful fresh produce brought up from the Kentish market gardens each morning. I think I would back this diet against the mucky, pre-digested, over sugared, fast food with one lettuce leaf on top. Opposite all of us, across the hill below Ambrose the furniture store was, of course, The Bull. This ancient hostelry was so imposing, so busy, - remember the horse drawn drays delivering barrels there every day? - the beautiful Fremlin Greys with their bright harness - and they were so proud of themselves! Even as a child I loved those horses. Below the man that sat at the entrance to the alley was Maison Jean, another hairdresser. The next shop I recall was the Golden Boot on that side, and opposite that was the Playhouse. This was, as well as somtimes running as a cinema, a theatre for visiting repertory companies. The actors, if they were paid at all, were paid just pocket money. They were hungry people. My mother in her restaurant, The Chalet, a couple of doors away, liked the way they were dedicated to getting on. She herself had managed to climb to her place as restaurateur from an alley in the backstreets of Maidstone. She often gave them breakfast if they had no money. I remember two names from one of the companies, David McCallum and Neil McCallum. There was also a woman who made it into films but at the moment I cannot remember except that her first name was Jean. - was it Alexander?
The monumental masons at the bottom of Gabriels Hill was Beale's.
Lens and the Granada have been mentioned. Does anyone remember being taken to the yearly Pantomime put on there? Also other than the Pantomime, I was taken to see the Walt Disney film at Christmas. There was Snow White, Bambi, Jungle Book, and the one that made the most impression on me, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.I have had a love of that kind of music ever since. Wouldn't the children these days also love it?
I was a boarder at The Maidstone High School for Girls, St Michaels Road, Maidstone, 1945 to 1950