Kentish Express Ashford & District
Memorial unveiled to commemorate victims of bombing
The only civilian casualty in the First World War from Ashford has finally been remembered on a new memorial unveiled exactly 100 years after her death.
Gladys Sparkes, who was just 18, died on May 25, 1917, when German bombers attacked towns in east Kent, killing 97 people across the county.
She lived with her family in Providence Street and died when she was struck by shrapnel from a bomb which landed near the railway works in Newtown.
A memorial service was held at the Folkestone Methodist Church and Garden of Remembrance in Sandgate Road last Thursday – on the centenary of the raid – attended by nearly 80 descendants of victims.
Among them was Gladys’s nephew, Gerry Allen. His mother, Minnie, was Gladys’s sister.
Gotha planes targeted Folkestone that day after heavy cloud cover over London thwarted their attack on the capital and they used the railway through Kent to guide their way home dropping bombs on Ashford, Hythe and Folkestone.
It was Folkestone where most damage was done, killing 18 soldiers at Shorncliffe Camp and claiming the lives of 79 civilians.
Of those, 61 were killed when a single bomb fell in Tontine Street outside the Stokes Brothers greengrocers which had just received a consignment of potatoes that afternoon and queues of women and children were out getting some shopping before the weekend.
It was the first time in history aeroplanes had been used to target Britain and Gladys is thought to be the very first victim of a bomb dropped from a plane in British history.
A memorial commemorating all those who died was unveiled by 92-year-old Ted Cotterill.
He is the oldest surviving relative of the oldest victim of the raid, Isabella Wilson, who was 80 when she was killed.
A service was led in the church by the Rev Sam Funnell, where a display of photographs of victims and events from the day was also on show.
Afterwards, relatives gathered around the new plaque listing all the names of those who perished.