GILLINGHAM

When I was almost three and a half years old my father had a spell ashore and we became a family for the first time.  His base was HMS Pembroke, Chatham and my parents bought 14 Imperial Road, Gillingham, a largish house on three floors with the intention of letting a large room on the ground floor.  I think the house cost £345.

The Medway towns consisted of Strood, Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham.  Rainham and Walterslade which are now part of the conurbation were then quite small and too far out to work for the biggest employers, the dockyard and the armed service barracks.

The Dockyard built and re-fitted ships, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines sailed in them, there was a training school for RN Artificers and the army had a barracks for the Royal Engineers. Chatham was the garrison town and centre for heavy industry. Luton, which was a part of Chatham, and Gillingham housed the dockyard workers and service personnel. There was row upon row of terraced houses all built at roughly the same time, late 19^th early 20^th Century.

Rochester was older with many fine houses clustered around the cathedral and castle.  It was the only area which could claim any architectural merit. Beyond the Cathedral Close new estates of small houses spread into Borstal whilst the other side of the river Snodland, Cuxton, Halling and Strood formed a linear town on the west side of the Medway with a mix of small shipyards and cement works.

If men were not in the armed services proper jobs were making things.  Men were shipwrights, boiler makers, plumbers, fitters, instrument makers, or other skilled trades. Local education was geared to supplying  apprentices and general labourers for local employment.

Council Schools were built at the same time as the houses. Largish two storey buildings labelled Infants, Girls, Boys over the requisite entrances each was an island in the sea of asphalt which formed three playgrounds and the whole was encircled and divided by a pallisade of iron railings.

When I joined Byron Road Infants in 1928 it was unchanged from when it was built, maybe 50 years before.  It was a model school my parents might have attended.

One Hall in the Infants served the whole school. The school had no gym, no laboratory, no workshops, no playing fields or organised games. It was an elementary school in every sense of the word.  There were three of these schools, all built to the same pattern, in Gillingham.

For secondary education the area had one fee paying public school - Kings School Rochester; two grammar schools, part fee paying, part scholarship; two technical schools, part fee paying, part scholarship for boys and girls aged 11-15. The leaving age for elementary schools was 14.  Competition for secondary education was keen. There were few places for many children.

My academic record was not good. My school reports were an embarrassment to us all. Particularly to me who could guess at my reception when I handed over the sealed envelope.  I did have a respite though.  Soon after I had passed my 6^th Birthday Father was drafted to HMS Seamew a gunboat on the China Station so it was only Mother I had to face at the end of term.  Also John was born and there’s nothing like a new baby to divert attention away from anything else.

In the summer holiday we moved to Redhill for about 3 months and John arrived on Father’s Birthday, the 9^th September 1929.

I have been told that I was an easy baby who ate and slept at civilised times and didn’t complain unduly when things were not to my liking.  Mother told me that she had claimed credit for my behaviour. Little did she realise her professional skills would be tested to the full with brother John.  He was a terrorist in the making, timing every unsocial act to cause maximum trouble.  And he carried on in this manner, to the despair of Mother, all through his childhood.  When mixing with other children he would carefully select any of his peers who showed a tendency towards nasty behaviour and imitate that child faithfully.

John also fought, and he usually lost, but that did not deter him. I should think he was fairly easy to beat if the weather was sunny because all one had to do was knock his school cap off.  Not only did he have very poor sight he was particularly sensitive to sunlight so he could be hit and not be able to retaliate.  That he should be a victim, rather than a victor, of his aggressive manner was a paradox John never quite solved.

It is strange that at puberty, when children are normally at their most difficult, John became more and more civilised.

He stopped shouting at everybody, didn’t complain when give a simple household chore and became the son and brother we all wished for.

But back to the early thirties.

Father returned from China in 1931 and with only a few years left to complete his time of 21 years in the Navy my parents decided to sell 14, Imperial Road and move into rented property.

They found a buyer fairly quickly, an unmarried elderly man who was going to share with his brother. Although I was only eight I remember him coming one evening with his photograph album to talk about China. He had been there at the turn of the century and was involved in the Boxer       Rising 1900 where he was awarded a bravery medal.  His album had photos of the Rising and, I remember this well, of public executions.

After China he had joined Scott’s expedition to the antarctic, more photos and medals. Memorable for a small boy.

Unfortunately the man’s brother died before there had been an exchange of contracts and my parents thought he would pull out, but he didn’t. He said “he had given his word and the sale would go through”.  I wonder how he managed on his own in such a large, badly designed house.

We moved to 35 Upper Milton Road Gillingham.  A three bedroomed terrace house at a weekly rent of 15/6 - 77p to you.

It must be remembered that this was at the time of the depression and unemployment was very bad but although Father could sign on for yearly engagements in the Navy Mother thought she had had enough of being a single parent.  Father would come out at 40 and take his chance in the labour market.

With hindsight this was probably a mistake but for people of their generation the thought of another war so soon after 1918 was inconceivable. That others in Europe saw this period as a sort of half time to be resumed under new management as soon as possible did not enter their heads.

Yes, there was trouble in the continent but not war. That couldn’t happen again. Their generation had been decimated, the economy in Europe as a whole was in ruins as well as its fabric.  No war, that was madness.

Meanwhile my parents were trying to look ahead with Father earning a living as a civilian and worrying about me coming up to my first scholarship examination with no apparent hope of succeeding.

I think I was eight when it was discovered at a school health check that I was short sighted and not seeing the blackboard clearly.  This was a surprise to all of us and gave hope to Mother that this was the cause of my doing badly at school. Maybe it hadn’t helped but the real cause was I was slightly dyslexic.  This condition was not recognised then. In fact the word is not even included in the 1957 edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary.  It is something that never completely goes away.  After a working lifetime spent with words I still find myself jumbling up letters halfway through something I know how to spell.  When I was a child this was put down to carelessness, idleness or stupidity.

It still can be an embarrassment in my 70’s. There was another factor that did not go down well - I only wanted to draw. No other subject held my attention like drawing.  It was pointed out to me that drawing was not a real subject.  No one could get a proper job with drawing. Art was something you put on the mantlepiece.  I was 10 years old now and should look to the future.

I failed my grammar school scholarship exam at 11. At 12 the headmaster refused to let me sit the Technical School exam.  Mother was furious and went to the council offices to get the forms.  I sat the exam and somewhere in the English paper, for no reason that I can remember, I put in some illustrations. I passed the written paper.  The astonishment of all was palpable.  The day of the oral exam I was sent off looking as smart as any 12 year old can be made smart and my mother’s prayers for success went with me. When I appeared before the Board of Examiner’s they had my illustrated paper in front of them and I was questioned about it. I had applied for Chatham but was asked if I would like to go to Rochester Tech which was associated with the Art School?

(Art School! I didn’t even know such idyllic places existed)

“Yes please”.  My enthusiasm was heart felt.

When I got home I did my best to answer my parents questions.  I didn’t think they could quite believe their ears but there was written confirmation within days; I had passed.

Mum and Dad were overjoyed but their delight was tempered by a sneaking feeling that I had, if not exactly cheated, it wasn’t right to draw in a written exam.  When I told my headmaster I had passed I expected him to be pleased.  He was not, it was obvious he was angry, nothing was said but I was brushed aside and he stalked down the corridor.  If I recognised his mean displeasure I also saw Mother’s look of triumph when next they met.

I spent two terms at Rochester before we moved to Dartford where Father had joined the Post Office and we had a new house at 166, Wilmot Road

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