Post by Les on Jan 24, 2018 5:39:30 GMT
Maidstone I remember it well:
I lived in Ringlestone until aged 9 when I was told we were moving to one of the new houses being built on the Shepway estate. The year was 1953. Ringlestone being close to Drakes zoo meant that on summer evenings we heard the roars of lions and Hyenas echoing across the river.
The same river we used to swim in or watch drowned sheep float past before being caught in the locks at Allington. I remember Mrs Ring from Egerton road where I lived a widow always dressed in black waiting on the river tow path with her sack shouting to the men on the coal barges to throw lumps of coal to her as she followed them slowly up river where they would off load the coal at the gas or Electricity works in Maidstone.
I remember us kids picking up some of the coal to take home ourselves only to be shouted at by her to leave the coal alone as it belonged to her. I remember looking for lizards and slow worms in the Allington quarries amongst the corrugated iron and battered and rusty rail trucks loaded with rocks leading from the quarry to the river where they discharged into barges.
As a kid I remember being shown around Mason’s brewery which was situated in the same road as the swimming baths just past the Fremlin Bridge. I remember lunchtimes coming from Maidstone College seeing coopers making wooden barrels for Style and Winch.
They worked in a building on the London road adjacent to the road bridge that spans the West station railway line and on sunny days would sit outside and work. After moving the huge building site that was Shepway was paradise for us 10 year olds growing up.
Encircling Shepway at that time was continuous woodland and farmland immediately beyond. The woods stretched from the county police station on Sutton road, through to Otham village then all the way down to a quarry at the entrance to Moat Park at the bottom of Willington Street. As kids I remember us stalking a herd of deer that had amongst it a white Hart. A good mate of mine at the time was Norm Geering “Maidstone I remember it well 15” we lost touch after he left for Australia some 47 years ago. So Norm if you read this contact me through Friends reunited