Firstly I would like to congratulate former Director of Dudley Studios Pauline Joyce Panton for being awarded the British Empire Medal for service to the community in Tunstall and Sittingbourne. Very well deserved!
In an earlier part of her life she acted with local drama company The Irene Weller Players, and was awarded the Marlowe Cup for Best Actress by the Kent Drama board in 1973. Pauline was also a cast member of 'You Can't Take it with You,' here in 1960, the year they were awarded the Challenge Trophy in the full-length play festival. Also there is my primary school teacher Peter Lyons who helped me discover my appreciation of poetry and the arts. He is seated at the table with Irene Weller on his left. Pauline is standing behind him.
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This is the Medway Spartans Football Club in 1960.
There is nothing in our records to tell me where they were based so it will be great if somebody recognises them! They were perhaps a team created by one of the local companies.
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At numbers 188 and 242 Luton Road Chatham The Expert Radio Co. were radio dealers and Luton's leading cycle store in 1952. Alongside is Maida Road.
Retailing Hercules, Capitol, and Vindec bicycles, a 50 shilling deposit secured one.They also dealt with repairs.
At 244 and 246 was Sydney Pallant Briggs, pawnbroker, jeweller and gents' outfitter.
Adverts on the wall for Nugget shoe polish, and Redfern rubber heels and soles were on the side of Edward Allen's (rag-dealer) building in Maida Road.
Notice the unchained bikes stored around the shop exterior! I recently saw online a photograph of dozens of babies in prams outside Woolworths. There was never a worry that someone would steal your child, even less your bike. What has happened to our society since those days??
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A Winget pneumatic screed in action outside the Copper Kettle in Gillingham in 1959.
Hopefully its task is obvious to the reader.
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The bar and regulars at the Crown Inn Upchurch in 1952, a pub that owned a prehistoric bone and an extremely eloquent parrot, who was reputed to occasionally turn the air blue, and provided entertainment for the crowds awaiting the annual carnival.
NB: The bone was reputed to be one of many found in 1911 on land belonging to the Royal Engineers in Upnor, further up the river Medway. Fragments were sent to the British Museum who identified them as belonging to a Straight Tusked Elephant which lived 115,000 years before the find.
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