Read MarkG's excellent account of his boyhood in Deal

Cliff Hatton

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http://www.fishingmagic.com/feature...s-fishing-magic-boyhood-memories-of-deal.html

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What a wonderful article from MarkG...real atmospheric stuff!
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maceo

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Brilliant story. I know Deal very well indeed, as my mum's side of the family are all from the Kent coast - merchant seamen mainly.

As a kid, I used to get taken down there by my grandparents, to stay a couple of days with my great-grandmother. Many fond memories of chucking stones off the pebble beach into the sea and watching the lifeboat go out down the ramp. I was a bit too young for fishing, but we used to collect winkles off the rocks and take them back home for my great grandma to boil up with vinegar - lovely!

Similarly, I got to know the Kent miners very well in later years - many of whom were also fishermen. There were three pits: Snowdon, Tilmanstone and Betteshanger.

At the time of the miners’ strike I was living with a girl who’s dad was a miner at Tilmanstone. As railwaymen we were very involved in trying to support the miners anyway, so I got to know many of them very well indeed during that difficult year. As the writer observes, they were tremendous people and admirably militant. Even when the rest of the miners went back, Kent stayed out. Unfortunately, like all the other collieries around the country, those mines are just a distant memory now.
 

no-one in particular

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Brilliant story. I know Deal very well indeed, as my mum's side of the family are all from the Kent coast - merchant seamen mainly.

As a kid, I used to get taken down there by my grandparents, to stay a couple of days with my great-grandmother. Many fond memories of chucking stones off the pebble beach into the sea and watching the lifeboat go out down the ramp. I was a bit too young for fishing, but we used to collect winkles off the rocks and take them back home for my great grandma to boil up with vinegar - lovely!

Similarly, I got to know the Kent miners very well in later years - many of whom were also fishermen. There were three pits: Snowdon, Tilmanstone and Betteshanger.

At the time of the miners’ strike I was living with a girl who’s dad was a miner at Tilmanstone. As railwaymen we were very involved in trying to support the miners anyway, so I got to know many of them very well indeed during that difficult year. As the writer observes, they were tremendous people and admirably militant. Even when the rest of the miners went back, Kent stayed out. Unfortunately, like all the other collieries around the country, those mines are just a distant memory now.

Thanks Maceo, glad you enjoyed the story. Yes, the mines have all gone now and the marines. I once worked in the Port Arms on the sea front for a spell and got to know many of them and I shared a lot of experiences with them. And then there was the proper old boatmen of the town as well, full of stories of Dunkirk etc.
Some of those pits went a mile out under the sea so the miners both worked under it and on it. Yes they were a militant bunch but the other side of it was they were great family people, hard workers and extremely kind and generous, very tough but with real character in all senses of the word. Thought I would put a little article together to try and convey that and what the fishing was like.
For a little town it was good place with many different groups of people and going out in those little boats was always an adventure and some unforgettable fish....
 
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Cliff Hatton

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Lovely article, MarkG! I'm sure many others would join me in asking for more. Wonderful, isn't it, how every region has its own unique flavour?
 
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