Dungeness Days
When I was a very young child our family spent two weeks each year at Dungeness, on Romney Marsh in Kent, in a converted railway coach named “Clare Shack”. The coach was divided into four rooms: two bedrooms, one fairly large sitting/ dining room and a very small kitchen. Lighting was by oil lamps and candles, cooking was done in a “Beatrice oven” which resembled a metal box on two oil burners, and a Primus stove for boiling water and cooking vegetables. For the first few years water was obtained by throwing a bucket on a rope down a well, but eventually the permanent residents who lived in the next bungalow had a pump installed, which made life easier. The toilet facilities were of course very primitive: a chemical bucket that had to be emptied at dusk each evening. That of course was father’s job, carrying the bucket some way from the shack across the beach and digging a hole to bury the contents. Goats roamed over the scrub part of the beach and were really quite tame. My brother and sister would feed them by hand, but their faces frightened me when they looked down at me, and I always ran away. I believe some of the permanent residents actually milked them, but I never saw this happening.
We had a marvellous time running free in old clothes; it didn’t matter if we got dirty. One thing we really enjoyed was walking along the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway lines — we could see trains approaching from a great distance so it was quite safe. My brother and sister knew the names of all the engines and could recognise them when they were a long way away.
We also spent many hours trying to master the art of walking on “backstays”, which were pieces of board with leather straps fixed to them to hold them on the feet. The local people used them to walk on the beach and they could move across the shingle very fast.
Each morning my father would take us to the little general store — which was by the railway station — to buy the daily paper, our comics, our children’s books, milk, bread and groceries, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables from the Kentish farms. We were also allowed to buy “muck” (according to my mother): sherbet fountains, liquorice wheels, gobstoppers, aniseed balls etc. The shop also kept really tasty ice cream: soft, yellow and very custardy.
Fish was delivered to the door by the local fishermen. The fish was in baskets hanging from a wooden yoke carried on their shoulders.
On at least one day we would take a picnic and walk over to the rocks — where the power station is now situated — and spend the time scrambling around looking for crabs and starfish and playing hide and seek under the rocky projections. On the way home we would probably pick blackberries and perhaps buy local honey from the lighthouse keeper’s wife as they had their own apiary round the foot of the lighthouse.
At other times father would fish from the beach. We played in one of the sea-water pools formed by the undulating piles of stones, as it was far too dangerous for us to go in the sea because the currents were very fast with a strong undertow, as well as the beach falling away very steeply.
One day each year, when the tide was out, we would paddle along in the sea as far as Greatstone where we would spend the day playing in the sand dunes and eating sandy sandwiches. Dymchurch was another day’s outing and the trip on the Miniature Railway even more exciting.
Sometimes we would go to Hythe to visit our great-great-aunt who always
took me up the garden to the hen house to collect lovely brown eggs from the chicken nests. She would then boil them for our tea before we returned to Dungeness.
There are certain things about these holidays that made them very special…
The early morning walks through the fields at Woodmansterne, on the way to the station at the beginning of the holiday.
The egg sandwiches we had on the train — they always tasted different from other times of the year.
Watching out for the first glimpse of the sea, seen through the carriage window.
The guard of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway running along the roof of the carriages to drop our luggage off near Clare Shack.
The first exploration round the shack, looking to see if we could find such things as pretty shells, coloured stones and pieces of driftwood stowed away both inside and outside.
The sound of herring gulls’ feet pounding along the roof early in the morning.
The sound of the foghorn when there was a sea fog. It was very disappointing if it was clear and sunny every day of our two weeks’ stay.
The light from the lighthouse circling the night sky.
The cones flying when there was a gale blowing. My father, brother and sister went out if the cones were up but I was too small for such adventures.
Climbing up the old lighthouse — I think I was carried up most of the way. I also remember swinging on the guard rails at the top, but fortunately my father was close behind me hanging onto my shorts.
Sometimes the maroons would sound, and we would try to get to the lifeboat station to watch the fishermen’s wives moving the sleepers down the beach to form a slipway for the boat to slide down into the sea. One year we watched the ceremonial launch of a new RNLI lifeboat, which of course is always a festive occasion in a fishing community.
These were very happy and carefree holidays, which I shall never forget, and I feel can never be surpassed by any other type of holiday, however exotic.