Can anybody help clear up this Battle of Britain mystery?
Trevor Sidley needs help, but it will have to come from someone with a long memory.
Mr Sidley lives in Tonbridge Road, Teston, and owns the field below his back garden that extends down to the Medway Valley Railway Line.
Last year he went to a talk given at Teston History Society by Yalding resident Geoff Cox, who spoke about his memories as a 12-year-old growing up in the area during the Battle of Britain.
In particular, Mr Cox recalled a dogfight in August in which a Hurricane came down and slid on its belly across two fields below Tonbridge Road before coming to rest “in the embankment of the rail-line”.
Mr Cox and his chums who had set off in pursuit saw the pilot emerge dressed in khaki instead of the usual RAF uniform.
It transpired he was a Frenchman, who was promptly whisked off to the North Pole by a local farmer, Mr Cooper, for a drink to celebrate his good luck in surviving the crash. Mr Sidley was intrigued by the story. He said: “There isn’t really an embankment for the railway at this point.
“The line does go through a small cutting at the bottom of my field and I wondered if this is what he was thinking of.”
Unfortunately, Mr Cox has been unable to be more exact in his recollections.
Mr Sidley said: “I’ve been interested by the story ever since. I’d love to know whether this crash was in my field. I’ve asked everyone in the village I thought might know, but no one remembers the incident.
“My neighbour, three doors away, had lived in the village all his life.
“He would have known, but sadly he died three years ago.”
The French pilot was whisked off to the North Pole by a farmer to celebrate surviving the crash