Treasures recently uncovered in town
The KM reported in January how a unique collection of historic photographs and papers relating to Sir Winston, Lady Clementine Churchill and other famous figures of the 1930s and 1940s has been uncovered by a Maidstone charity.
British Wireless for the Blind (BWBF), based in Albion Place, discovered a treasure trove of items in its archives - including an original gramophone recording of King George V’s first Christmas address to the Empire in 1932.
It had been presented to the charity’s founder, Captain Beachcroft Towse VC, by the King himself.
BWBF, which is based in Albion Place, gives specially adapted radios and computer tablets free to those visually impaired.
The possession’s were found when communications manager Saul Watson began digging through the organisation’s archives to see what he could use to mark the charity’s 90th anniversary this year.
Tucked away in cardboard boxes at the back of cupboards and in BWBF’s safe were notes from Lady Clementine Churchill, messages from Prime Minister Anthony Eden, and the typed script of an appeal, broadcast by Sir Winston Churchill on Christmas Day, including corrections in his own hand.
Lady Churchill was a patron of BWBF, originally set up in Great Portland Street in London, and a portrait of her presenting a radio to a blind person in 1929 hangs in the foyer of the charity’s HQ.