YOUR CONTACTS Corrections & clarifications JOIN THE DEBATES

Editor Joe Walker 01227 475915 joewalker@thekmgroup.co.uk News editor Lowri Chant 01227 475901 lchant@thekmgroup.co.uk Chief reporter Gerry Warren 01227 475908 Reporters: Joe Wright 01227 475928 jwright@thekmgroup.co.uk; Anna Macswan amacswan@thekmgroup.c

Write: Room B119 Canterbury College, New Dover Road, Canterbury CT1 3AJ Phone 01227 768181 Email: kentishgazette@thekmgroup.co.uk Website kentonline.co.uk Text: Text GAZETTE followed by your message to 87474. Please include your name and postcode. Messages must not be more than 160 characters and will be charged only at your standard network rate. Please visit kentonline.co.uk/terms for texting terms.

n We can postulate till the cows come home as to what Churchill would have thought about Brexit, as do Peter Hutchinson and Michael Steed [Letters, January 31] but we cannot know - he’s been dead for 50 years, I can remember his funeral. Thursday, February 7, 2019 Kentish Gazette (KG)

n

From page 19

n I am sorry that Huy Kyffin [Letters, January 31] missed my original letter of January 3 where I stated that I was born in 1934 in East London and lived through the London Blitz in his otherwise excellent letter, particularly as my views are similar to his. I spent some time in the Armed Forces and later became a London-based civil servant. I worked with ministers in both Houses of Parliament and apart from the overly ambitious headline seekers, have retained the greatest respect for the vast majority of our MPS. I also worked on a number of EC Directives, all of which were to protect workers’ rights and patients from harm. There is also a recent letter which condemns a Remain MP for not following the wishes of her constituents. As we cannot have double standards, this condemnation must equally apply to Mr Rees-mogg whose constituency voted by just under 60% to remain. I found Mr Topple’s response to my original letter very interesting, particularly his references to both historical and literary sources. Our respective experiences are different as I see the problems from a very different viewpoint. I still work and continue to represent our country at a number of international negotiating meetings. My views of the future of our country have obviously been coloured by discussions with colleagues from many different countries and observing their media. As January was Burns month, it is appropriate to say that I had a chance to see ourselves as others see us. Hence my concern about the potential loss of any definitive influence in world affairs and defence. Equally, I would not want to see the troubles starting up again in Northern Ireland.

Here are seven Kent pioneers that put their county on the map with their exploits and achievements that helped shape the world today.

WILLIAM PENNEY Mathematicians are not the first people you associate with clandestine operations which have, ever since, left the world a safer - or perhaps more terrifying - place.

William Penney was born in Gibraltar, but raised in Sheerness - with a fascination for science at Sheerness Technical School in the 1920s.

Eventually becoming professor of mathematical physics at Imperial College London, he would head the British delegation working on the Manhattan Project - a Us-led secret programme started in 1942 to design the atomic bomb.

His work went towards producing the first British atomic device in 1952. During the end of the Second World War, he was a key part in the US plans to drop atomic bombs on Japan.

It was he who suggested the targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - even flying in an observation plane to see the second bomb being dropped. He died in Oxfordshire at the age of 81.

FRANK SMYTHE If Frank Smythe had followed his parents’ advice, he would have pursued a career as an electrical engineer. But it’s fair to say he had rather loftier ambitions.

So lofty, in fact, it led him from his birthplace in Maidstone, in 1900, to standing higher than any other man ever had.

Absorbed by the majesty,