Richard's memory lane trip. March 2015

The trip started in the village of Rotherfield in Sussex, seven miles from Tunbridge Wells, where Richard grew up. This was the first visit back since his mother's death in 1985.

Rotherfield 

The basic structure of the village was little changed since his childhood in the '50s but behind the conservation facade obviously quite a lot had. Many of the shops were now private residences as was one of the three village centre pubs -the  George. In the picture the building on the corner used to be the petrol station, which Richard's father bought when he moved to Rotherfield in the 1930s, living in the flat above until his marriage in 1937. In the 1940s serious illness forced a sale of the business. There used to be a butcher's shop on either side of the petrol station and a bakers opposite.
The main difference now though was the traffic and the parking.  The village discounted a bypass so with satellite navigation the shortest route does often indeed pass through its heart.

St Denys Church

As his father was Churchwarden at St Denys parish church in the late ’50s and early '60s Richard spent a lot of time there. The church is unusual in retaining all enclosed boxed pews and in having the west end stepped to accommodate the slope of the hill on which it is built.

The medieval wall painting above the chancel arch has survived well. R sat through many sermons trying to work out what it actually depicts!

Thorn Island

In his late teens in the 60s Richard spent several summers as the boatman on Thorn Island off the south west coast of Wales at the mouth of Milford Haven. The fort, one of several built in the 19th century to defend Milford Haven and the approach to Pembroke Naval Dockyard was, at the time, an hotel.

The island is no longer an hotel so it was not possible to go over to it but we viewed it from the mainland. The 80’ concrete barge that was towed there and sunk in 1964 to provide a low water landing stage remains there, although it looks as if it has moved slightly in a storm - as it did a few weeks after its initial sinking.

West Angle Bay - hotel guests were picked up from here