wanston battery

[theartist]

for those interested the national trust have puchased a large block of land at dover. this includes wanstone farm battery. my guess is it will be open to the public but you will have to pay.

 

[Dirus_Strictus]

You may well be correct, but it will only happen after a very involved and lengthy Health and Safety 'Public Access' Risk Assessment has been carried out and the 'Powers That Be' have stopped crapping themselves over any perceived risk to Granny! First saw this place as a young boy, whilst on one of those 'what did you do in the War Daddy?' holiday tours with two of his mates, who were stationed down there. As on all military coastal sites in the very early '50's there was lots to see and much stuff lying around, but all of it beyond the comprehension or real interest of an eight year old. My lasting interest in military detritus started when I was sixteen - a farming relative had finally got land, commandeered for airfield construction prior to WW2, back. On this land were the backstops from a sighting-in range for fighter machine guns and cannon, and although the firing point had been well cleaned up, spent cartridge cases from the 303 machine guns and 20mm cannon were still occasionally turned up and collected by a now interested teenager.

 

[smiler]

Yeah, you're right S, we had the best of it and didn't know it, pillboxes, aerodromes, homeguard posts, manor house's and the freedom to be kids, Bloody good fun wasn't it.
You got to make the next meet, I'll even buy you a drink

 

[Dirus_Strictus]

It was smiler - those school summer holidays went on and on. Never bored, never wrecked anything, but on looking back, I always related to something that became an interest in later life. Case in point; for the first eleven years of my life we lived in the same first floor flat that Mum and her Sister-in-Law lived in through out the war years, whilst Dad and Uncle were away. When I was about nine or ten I discovered in the main cellar the mesh fronted food cupboards- still half full of tins of canned meat and fish etc and in the corner of the cellar was the old, open topped heated copper, still chock full of raw eggs in their shells, preserved in isinglass. Memories of that find in later teenage years made me realise just how fraught a time my Mother and those women like her must have had - menfolk away for God knows how long, black out and bombing raids.Thus I became really interested in the 'home front' and started to research local involvement in WW2 at a time when nobody else was really interested in this aspect of local history - still too raw a subject; I suppose on reflection. I realised long ago that I was given far more freedom than my parents got from their parents. Many things changed after WW1, but it took WW2 to really get things moving - for better or worse, depends on one's point of view!

 

[prettyvacant71]

I see what your saying theartist, encouraging us all to do naughty things, I appreciate that