More thoughts on Tovil in the past – and a correction
There has been a lot of interest in last week’s article about Floss Calver and her relatives in Tovil, but Jennifer French, from Mote Avenue, Maidstone, wrote to correct us on a detail.
We said the old Victory pub was at 42 Church Street, but Mrs French points out that it was at number 23, She said “I know that for certain, because I lived at No 42, which was on the opposite side of the road.”
Mrs French, nee Fleming, moved there with her parents, Alexander and Irene, when she was a baby in around 1951 and stayed until 1964. She said: “Funny enough, I did stay at the Victory for a few weeks once when my mother was ill. My parents were friends with the landlord Charlie Taylor and his wife Olga.” Mrs French’s husband, Ray, is also a former Tovil lad. He was born on Farleigh Hill. His mother died when he was seven, leaving his father with four children – Ray, his brothers Edward, who was 20 at the time, Malcolm nine, and sister Margaret, 17.
Margaret became the matriarch, looking after the menfolk until the boys left home and she was able to move out and get married. She died on Boxing Day. Edward died in 2010, while Malcolm now lives in Carlisle.
The children’s grandmother Florence Price ran a small grocery shop only a few yards away on Farleigh Hill. It was next to another lost Tovil pub, the White Horse. Mr French, now 71, said: “She sold fresh vegetables, sweets and biscuits. I think the shop closed around 1958 and she died 10 years later.”
Mr French became a groundsman for Tovil Paper Mill with a base in a downstairs room in the building that is now Tovil Working Men’s Club.
He later worked for Reeds Corrugated Cases, the Courage depot at Park Wood and the NHS depot at Allington.