Heather kohn

Until my parents and I moved into the newly built 9 Lawrence Drive, in 1948 possibly, we lived in a Nissan hut in Shorne woods. It was the second or third one on the left as you stood with your back to the A2 and was in the corner of the compound. The huts seemed to me to be huge and cavernous and divided into rooms, which were made in our hut by curtains made of blankets hanging from lines I believe. How we washed or cooked I cannot recall but I know we did.  There were only the three of us. My memories of the huts are limited as I was only 3 or 4 years old. My birthday is in December and I know we were there for at least one of my birthdays, and as I attended Cobham Primary school at 5 years old I believe we were living in Cobham by that time. I can remember a huge pit where rubbish was thrown, and walking with my dad along the A2 collecting manure after the horses had gone past. My dad worked in Chatham Dockyard in number 2 Smithy I think, along with other families who lived in Shorne Woods, and my mum had been a nurse. Like many others they had no real home after the war until Lawrence Drive was built, and my mum always thought that it was because she wrote to Mr A. Bevan that we were allocated the council house. There were many who lived in the Nissan huts who did not get such houses allocated to them she believed. I lived in Lawrence Drive until I left to go to teacher training college in 1963 and my parents eventually moved to Cobham New College where my father was briefly warden before his death. My aunt, his sister still lives in the college. I now live in Meopham and still have close ties with many who live in Cobham and Sole Street. My aunt has a host of memories of life in Round Street where they were brought up.
I attended Cobham Primary school until I moved to St Georges and finally Wombwell Hall Tech. High in Gravesend, and have many memories of living in the village. 
Submitted March 2014