Evening all

A lot of people are here.


Well we got first cold nights at last week. The temperature was just a little bit degrees below zero. So the winter is coming.

Yes Ivan, I believe Lymme is still an airport but might have its changed name.
Lydd is in the process of updating longer runway and better facility's if they can get through the planning system.

The Gravel workings when ARC had finished with then became swimming holes naturalised and crystal clear . quite shallow when they had settled so safe to bathe in

Those of us who have visited an English seaside resort with a shingle beach know
How tiresome it is to walk to your deck chair and windbreak feet sinking into the loose pebbles,one step forwards two back if it was a sloping beach. Hastings & Brighton had this problem dealt with in some degree by laying duck boards. . Imagine if you lived with this problem outside your door as the Dungeness people did, you cant compact soil to form a track as it just percolates through the stones
The dungie folk invented a solution “Bats” Sorta snowshoes for shingle. Same principle as snow shoes spread the load.. Transport of goods victuals, drift wood for the fire and so on , loaded on a sledge some residents acquired carts Not like any cart you might have seen before as normal hand carts have narrow wheels
These had wooden treaded tyres maybe 18inches wide, rather like those cable drums you see on construction sites. There were several of these in evidence last time I was down there .One of the weekend “ Nice little earners” was thought up by enterprising locals. When out of towners came to enjoy the seaside views drove off the solid tarmac road on to the shingle alongside. Okay to do that while they kept moving . BUT when they came to return home the car would dig a neat trench.
This is the moment our good Samaritan would appear with his caterpillar tracked vehicle, as I said a nice little earner ………Free stuff available locally SeaKale or
Crambe maritime to give it its botanical name grows all over in the shingle.Looks like cabbage it protects itself from the wind and salty fall out with a waxy surface. the shoots are great cooked like asparagus .Plenty of fish in the sea Cod ,Plaice, Dover sole & Bass. Although there are only a few stunted bushes in the area Fuel is there in plenty in the form of drift wood small bits 2 or 3 feet in length up to eight to ten foot sections of timber that at first when dragged from the surf look dog rough.These lumps are stacked above the high water mark to dry out you have your own pile and its not touched by any one (dry wood isn’t as heavy to carry BTW) Any way when you eventually come to investigate your wood pile its quite likely to be Mahogany
or any number of nice hard woods.The rough timber came from ships going into Rye Harbour, Timber deck cargo chocked with these end up in the Oggin’(Sea)
I often did the walk along the shore you could find all sorts, sealed tins of baccy
Once a 6 cylinder diesel sitting on engine bearers and broken timber all around remnants of a boat. Then there was the group of asian chappies who wanted to know where you could catch the E 13 coach to London !! French fishermen dropped them on shore and left then to find their way to town.

Defence of the realm. When Bonaparte was thought to be a threat to England
The only defence was thought to be the flooding of Romney Marsh trapping and drowning the French army when the powers that be worked out the time scale it was realised that bony would be in London before the froggies got their feet wet
So Plan B was devised Dig a canal making Romney marsh an Island from Hythe in the east 28 miles to the River Rother at Rye The north bank of the canal was built up to a rampart using the spoil from the diggings from behind this a defence could be mounted ,it cost 250.000 quid but was too long in building and by the time it was finished Bonaparte had changed his mind . its now just a leisure facility although it did see some service carrying goods but put out of business by the arrival of the railway

Back on the beech at Dungeness in WWII we had Pluto Dumbo and Bambi No it wasn’t a ENSA. Show sponsored by Disney. PLUTO was Pipe Line Under the Ocean
Dumbo and Bambi the names of individual lines it supplied the Allied invasion force in France with petrol 17 3inch bore lines left the coast pumping millions of gallons a week. From oil depots inland..
Another item from the invasion that remains in the bay. A section of Mulberry Harbour that broke away and sank itself I don’t know if its still there,it was 30 years ago weather and the sea could have done for it The fishermen liked it
Attracted conger. The sea is so powerful it continually removes shingle from the Rye bay side of the point and dumps it in the Folkestone side shore, seen from the Top of the Old light house you can see the lines just like tree rings building up
If you got a job with the Kent river board driving a truck it was a job for life carting the shingle from one side of the point to the other.

The Romney marsh is well known for Tales of Smuggling in the 1700/1800’s
Dr Syn the fictional Parson written about by the author Russell Thorndyke must have drawn from actual events the churches were considered safe haven for contraband
Romney marsh was the ideal hiding place for these activities being so isolated several gangs were known to operate in the area The Hawkhurst & Mayfield gang had free rein at this time the gangs ran Lydd & Romney Smuggling went back to the 1200’s the smugglers were known as Owlers after the sounds they made to communicate with each other Regular smuggling, wool out from the marsh to France and Brandy inward sometimes not enough for them so false lights shown to draw ships on shore The Pilot inn was constructed from timber of the wreaked Alfresia, a Spanish vessel carrying spirits. In the 1800’s 12,000 gallons of brandy were smuggled ashore on the same strip of coast in a single weekend. Rudyard Kipling made his home on the marsh and wrote the following
If you wake at Midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson.
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
I think smuggling was still taking place while I lived there you could often see the coast guard looking out to sea the small local fishing boats only had to sail ten miles or so and meet a French vessel mid channel and pick up what ever

Evening all, been a rough old day up here int norf ! Wind causing all sorts of problems (thats the weather not me!).
Pluto brought back a lot of memories Den, My father was very much involved during the War, He was a constructional Engineer on the Pluto event!

Nice when you find a link like that Ted. The Pluto Project was quite some thing and pretty hush hush no reference to "pipelines" they were "cables" so no hint of what the task was.The manufacture of PLUTO was not as simple as it might be nowdays, the quantity's of raw materials used several thousand tons of lead in war time took some gathering it was a one off as well not something that any one hand made before.

See you in the Morning