Hook Green Life in the 1940s
Mr Robert Dancy, who lived at the Hook Green Post Office and Stores from 1938 until 1960, has kindly sent us copies of his memories and agreed to share them with us on the website. The first is entitled "Hook Green Life in the 1940s" The second is entitled "Wartime in Kent" and very much focuses on the Hook Green and Lamberhurst areas. It is reproduced here in three parts for reasons of size. Both make fascinating reading. Click on the pdf links below to enjoy these memories. The photographs below are also reproduced courtesy of Robert Dancy.
Hook Green, Free Heath Road (1930s)
View across the heath to what are now Fir Tree Cottage, Poacher's Cottage, White Cottage (then Appletree Cottages) and Durrants Cottage.
On the Road to Free Heath.
(Durrants Cottage on the right.) Note the oast houses! Robert Dancy writes:"houses in those days seemed not to have names - we all knew one another, and they were called after their inhabitants. Even Bull Lane Cottages, which I think were numbered from right to left were not often mentioned in any other way. During the war a single bomb, unusually made of aluminium, dropped behind the oast house in the background of this picture, doing no damage."
Hook Green Post Office and Stores (1940s)
Hook Green PO and Stores c 1952
Robert Dancy writes:
"You can still see the white paint covering up the "Hook Green Stores" sign which had to be covered over in 1940, as with all signs were which might have been of use to the Germans if they had invaded. All signposts were of course taken down, for the same reason.
A 20mm cannon shell from a Hawker Tempest hit the ground just in front of the gate to the shop. A Doodlebug was coming towards us, chased by the Tempest at dusk one evening in July 1944, and the fire of his cannons (mounted in its wings) could be seen clearly as he headed straight towards us. Several other shells hit the trees by the house. Luckily he didn't get the Doodlebug with that burst, or I might not be here sharing the story !! He downed it successfully a few seconds later. At over 400 mph, things happen quickly.
There is still a large anti-aircraft shell in the back garden! During an air raid about 1941 we heard a whistle and a dull thud, and in the morning found a neat hole in the cabbage patch. The army was called, but when a couple of squadies arrived, they pushed rods down, found it was at least 15 feet below the surface, said "That's too far down to dig out, and will be no problem to you". So it's still there.
Mrs Maud Dancy at the south end of the shop, about 1950
Mrs Dancy at the north end, where the sub-post office was. (Note the flowers; she was always very fond of them)
The track up from the shop to the lane.
The pine trees were chopped down about 1951.
The view from the shop window, looking up to the lane, about 1948.
Not a good photo, but shows how open it was then, and facing east gave us a nice morning sun.
Bull Lane Cottages
Seen from an upstairs window at Hook Green Stores. Robert Dancy writes:
My father was the local air-raid warden, and was often chastising the family at No. 4 for not doing a good black-out job, with light often showing. Then one night a fairly low-flying German bomber dropped a string of bombs across Hook Green. I had just gone up to bed, and remember only too well the sound of the bombs coming down (they made a very distinctive loud whistle) and then thump, thump, thump as they exploded, shaking the house. One landed right in the middle of the small garden at No 4! He was not much of a gardener, weeds occupying the ground, and the joke around the hamlet was "He didn't dig his garden, but Jerry did!".
The photographs above are reproduced courtesy of Robert Dancy
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