Brother Alan’s days as Gazette cameraman

I read with interest about the Gazette celebrating its 300th anniversary, which reminded me that in the early 1960s my brother Alan Fletcher joined the Gazette in the St George’s Place office as a photographer working with Arthur Palmer.

After a good education at Bancrofts College, Woodford Green, Essex, his passion in life has always been his photography. After leaving Bancrofts, Alan settled in the family home in Rough Common. He remained there until he married Diana in the village church at Bishopsbourne in the November of 1965. While at the Gazette a good colleague of his was one Malcolm Mitchell, who also resided in the village of Bishopsbourne.

Shortly afterwards, Alan left the Gazette and along with Diana emigrated to Hobart in Tasmania, where he joined The Tasmanian Hydro Scheme as a photographer. Another big passion of Alan’s was his ornithology and his website in Hobart is current to this day with his photography of all things Tasmanian birds.

Alan and Diana now have an extended family in and around the Bellerive suburb of Hobart and they have travelled back to Canterbury on holiday, and we as a family have visited my brother, staying with them for two weeks at their family home.

Alan is 76 now and still enjoys his camera work and his daily strolls gathering images for his website. Ray Fletcher The Street, Kingston Simon Willis, of School Lane, Wingham, captured gentle giants Sid and Sam in action at the East Kent Ploughing Match was victorious in other naval actions in the Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession.

Rooke has an impressive monument in the Cathedral, but is buried in St Paul’s Church, where Aphra Behn’s supposed parents were married. Brian Hogben King Street, Canterbury