People were asked to tear up sheets for bandages
The film Dunkirk has been sparking memories among the older generation across the county. Daphne Parvin, a former Mayor of Maidstone Mayor, of Meadow Walk, wrote in with her recollections. “The start of the film took me straight back to Margate seafront in the day the Little Ships were returning with their cargo of bedraggled and injured soldiers.
I was six at the time. We all knew what was happening. The air raid wardens and police were cycling around the streets with loud hailers asking for residents to tear up sheets to make bandages for the nurses to use on the wounded. The rolled bandages had to be taken to the sea front at once.
“We walked down to the promenade opposite Dreamland. All the shops and amusements booths were closed.
“The tall rolls of barbed wire all along the front to stop any invaders had been rolled back to allow the troops to be taken off the boats into the harbour, then up the slipway where the Red Cross, WI and many others were waiting to hand out tea and sandwiches – usually just bread and marge as food was in short supply. The injured who had been to ill to walk had been carried up and laid three abreast on stretchers, with nurses doing what they could.
“They stretched from the lifeboat memorial, right along the front to the clock tower.
“One poor chap had lost all his clothes and was dancing in between the stretchers, wearing a top hat.
“The film was such a vivid reminder of those unforgettable scenes. It was such a genuine portrayal of what happened to those young men, some just out of school.”