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Local Matters

Sandgate

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April 2022

This magazine is compiled and edited by David Cowell who is totally responsible for content. If you do not wish to receive these magazines please email UNSUBSCRIBE to him at david@thesentinel.org.uk

THE SANDGATE SOCIETY ARCHIVE TEAM INVITE YOU TO THE

H. G. Wells Exhibition 2022 The Old Fire Station, Sandgate Opens Saturday 02 April and Sunday 03 April from 1030 to 1600 FREE ENTRANCE Refreshments available in the Reading Room (upstairs)

RECENTLY DISCOVERED CORRESPONDENCE ON DISPLAY FOR THE FIRST TIME RELATING TO SPADE HOUSE. VIEW LETTERS BY H. G. WELLS, ARCHITECT C. F. A. VOYSEY AND FOLKESTONE BUILDER WILLIAM DUNK. SEE ALSO DOCUMENTS FROM THE SANDGATE SOCIETY ARCHIVE FILES. H. G. WELLS COMMEMORATIVE ENVELOPE & STAMP GUIDED WALKS For booking information visit www.sandgatesociety.com THE SANDGATE SOCIETY The Old Fire Station, 51 High Street, Sandgate, Kent, CT20 3AH Email: sandgatesociety@gmail.com Registered Charity No. 280497

Coronavirus. Current Government guidelines may apply.

Sandgate Farmers Market Saturday, 2nd April Catherine Jordan Cakes Delightful treats from a professional patisserie

Usher's fruit and veg are based locally with lots of fruit, veg and salad sourced locally. For example their potatoes are sourced from O&P Gowers In Acrise.

Arkwrights Pantry Lovely foodie gifts including a range of Chilli based products from Carrington Foods Ltd. who are based in Faversham.

Anji's Interiors

This Free Spirit

NEW

Working for local, national and international clients and companies from her studio based in sunny Sandgate, on the South Kent coast, Anji creates beautiful bespoke quality curtains, blinds, soft furnishings and interior decor to suit your requirements.

original handmade knitwear, clothing and gifts.

What better time to chat about your energy and internet supply...and a chance to win £20,000

Marsh soap is vegan friendly, made from quality organic products. Each soap is made from 90% olive oil, coconut oil,100% natural fragrances, seeds, petals/buds added for decoration.

We’ve been sourcing ingredients and accessories from expert producers and artisans in exchange for a fair price for over 30 years.

Hand made clothing and greeting cards

Masks wearing will be encouraged and and social distancing observed 2

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Our thanks to the Sandgate Parish Council and the Community Gardeners for allowing us to reproduce this diary page. We hope to make this a monthly feature in the magazine but you can read all the diary entries by clicking on this box.

Sowing and more sowing, tomatoes coming soon and reclassifying snails. The days seem to be racing along, so much to do and little time to squeeze it all in. We did manage to catch up with ourselves this week and finished the list of jobs from the week before. We can tell that the keen gardeners out there are responding to the warm weather and getting tasks done in the garden. Many thanks to Enid, Peter and Isobel for the donations of terracotta and decorative pots for which we are grateful as we are working towards gathering plants for our plant sales later on in the year; larger pots are always useful for displays or some larger plants. Talking of plant sales, our usual tomato plant sale will be announced soon as we will have many spares for sure. This year we have at least ten varieties on the go, but you will need to be patient as we grow for planting outside, and plants will not be available for at least another four weeks. The parsnips all got sown, and the last of the seed potatoes planted. More seeds sown in February are now ready to take their chances outside such as coriander, many varieties of lettuce, mange tout, spring onions, and spring cabbages. Celeriac got sown as did more coriander, and bulb fennel. The purple sprouting is looking fantastic, and in spite of being got at by pigeons along the way, they are producing some lovely broccoli spears as shown in the picture below. This is the first time we have tried this variety called ‘Claret’, and we will be sticking with it for sure when sowing again this year. Some of the kale got completely stripped by pigeons during the winter, but sheltered under some netting, has recovered just in time to give Guerrilla gardening 4

us some more leaves. Some of us have been continuing work on a new patch of land in a back street of Sandgate. It got covered in card and compost some months ago and will soon be ready to be planted up. It is close to one of our gardeners house, and the neighbours have been commenting on how loved it looks already, and appreciate the few daffodils that have popped up there. It is always possible to transform a scruffy overgrown area with a little bit of love Purple sprouting broccoli and attention, it just takes time and the will to – Claret make it happen. Talking of transformations, Fremantle Park just gets better and better. The picnic benches have been in place for a while now, and much appreciated by families and visitors to the park. We have had several comments from locals that they really appreciate the space and how much more attractive it has become with all the recent plantings and care, so thank you to the Parish Council and the community gardeners, the park is a real asset to the area and seems to be very well used. On Saturday afternoon, some of us went to visit a ‘no dig’ allotment at Newington, hosted by a good friend of ours, Erica. It was inspiring to see so many different growing styles going on at the allotment site, and of course, we had to partake in plenty of cake eating, washed down with tea made on site in a little shed with a tiny stove and kettle. The sun was shining and it was bliss. We hope to make more visits to different gardens later on in the year. ITV Meridian got in touch this week and came to Sandgate Community Garden at Enbrook to film a short piece based on the fact that the RHS have decided that slugs and snails are no longer classified as pests in the garden. The article could well be shown sometime next week but who knows! What’s next? • Prick out all the tomato plants • Lots more seeds to sow this week • Start to clear the mustards • Clear the old Romanesco be 5

https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/thesentinelbooks

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From the cutting-edge London design agency Here Design - writer and poet Philip Cowell, and award-winning designer Caz Hildebrand, author of The Herbarium, this playful, original, beautifully designed book brings to life the punctuation marks we use every day, including: The dashing dash So-called "quotation marks" The colon: and on and on. Kindle edition The shouty exclamation! £9.99 Hardback The three dots of... £12.50 (Not forgetting the brackets) Great gift And even more 12

All now available in paperback and on Kindle Set in Folkestone in the heady days of the late 60s. They say if you can remember it, you weren't there!

Two plays. One an imaginary meeting between Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan in a Fitzrovia pub. The other is Caitlin Thomas reminiscing after the untimely death of her husband.

This is the tale of Hana, a young girl who moves from where she was born in London, to the Kent coast. They discover a wonderful area called Prince's Parade which is full of amazing animals, has a beautiful canal and is right next to the sea too! By buying this book you will be helping to protect it. All profits from it will be donated to the Save Prince's Parade campaign which aims to halt plans to develop the area into a housing estate. Very funny, and surreal story about a man and a woman on their first date: Bolton Brady and Veda, set in London, November 2001. Bolton is forty, not into assets, has never lived with a woman and looked into the future and seen loneliness. So he decides to do something about it. He advertises in a lonely-hearts column, and receives six replies, but after experiencing one disaster after another only Veda remains between him and his sanity. As the day unfolds the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred, building to a surreal, yet poignant, conclusion. 14

This walk through the history of Sandgate to the present day was first performed at the Chichester Hall a decade ago on Wednesday, 9th June. It is now available on Kindle or in paperback.

Now available on Amazon. Great evocative yarns of worldly travels.

A Loose Cannon tales of a lapsed activist

Ted Parker

The title of the book hints at how, as a ‘loose cannon’, Folkestone born Ted’s risk-taking got him into trouble on a number of occasions whilst being a considerable advantage in his working life.

As a young journalist, Reg Turnill met most of the prewar political personalities and later became the BBC's space correspondent being the only one in the press room when the historic Houston we have a problem message came from Apollo 11. 15

Us he rs no fru w it a on nd -l i n v e eg

You can now order on-line at: https://www.usherswholesale.com/box

or by telephone on: 07515 529425

DE D

We deliver to Folkestone, Cheriton, Hawkinge, Capel, Alkham Valley, Saltwood, Sandgate, Seabrook, Hythe

SU SP EN

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The editor of The Sentinel is also responsible for sending Hythe, Newington and Sandgate related event information to the Folkestone Herald. If you have an event you wish to publicise it is needed by Tuesday at 17:00. The information should appear in the edition two weeks later although it is not gauranteed.

david@thesentinel.org.uk

for a rate card. Thank you. 16

F O L C A Folca is the old name for Folkestone We celebrate all activities in the Folkestone and Hythe district also known as Shepway See our comprehensive Directory and Blog pages

folca.co.uk

Please support your local Farmers' Markets in 2022

ing le, ll n i n b r u ssi n st p o a ee s p d c k ill g a t an w t on n ke as l wa . r a M for who ade e tr Th side ers t d ou tra th wi

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Time After Time The Chichester Hall in Sandgate was built at the turn of the 20th century by public subscription to commemorate the death in 1911 of Lilla, the Countess of Chichester whose patronage had been enjoyed by the village for several decades. The external clock, was erected in 1897 to celebrate the jubilee of Queen Victoria, Initially, it adorned the Gough coffee Tavern and Soldiers’ Institute nearby, named after John Bartholomew Gough (b.1817). He was a local boy who emigrated to the USA, became a reformed alcoholic and a world famous temperance orator. The Freemasons’ Hall and an antique shop now occupy the site. It was moved to the Chichester Hall in 1913 and renovated, again by public subscription in 1981 and again in 2009 when it was clear that significant work needed to be done as the clock casing and importantly the brackets which hold the clock to the front wall had sustained considerable weather damage causing corrosion to all external metal parts. Funding had been raised to get the clockwork mechanism and gearing working again and then local clock repairer John Carpenter completed this work towards the end of 2009. Then Trustee Richard Grundy undertook the refurbishment of Clock housing and brackets so that the total cost remained within budget.The result was a much more efficient mechanism that employed electronics to govern the time displayed. It did however necessitate a 6 metre climb into the loft whenever the time had to be corrected whether because of the seasonal hour change or a power surge or failure. 22

As a part of his 2020 Hall refurbishment project, David Cowell the Trust's Executive Officer decided to source and install a later model and this has now been done. The Hall is indebted to Folkestone & Hythe District Council administered High Street fund that helped match the Hall's own reserve. The mechanism comprises a small motor fitted inside the roof space which eliminates the need to ascend into the loft as a small control unit sits in the kitchen and can be accessed via a small ladder. David was delighted that Richard Grundy once again gave of his time freely to ensure the project's success and he cannot thank him enough for his invaluable assistanace. It is appropriate that the clock that was made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the thrown should be given a new lease of life in 2022 when the country prepares to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 70th year.

If you would like to submit an article or letter please email it to me. I will print almost anything as long as it’s not libellous, racist or unkind. Name must be supplied but can be withheld if requested. Please put your articles etc in plain text or Word and images should be in .jpg, .tiff or .png. My contact details are: Address: Clyme House, Hillside Street, Hythe, Kent CT21 5DJ

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Mobile: 07771 796 446; email: david@thesentinel.org.uk