SPUTNIK IN KENT

In the 1950s my wife and I and our two children went on leave from Hong Kong to the UK. It was my first leave after the four-year tour in Hong Kong with the Colonial Administrative Service. As I didn’t own a home in the UK (or anywhere else for that matter), I had leased a house unseen at Bethersden in Kent. It sounded countrified enough with plenty of cherry orchards to provide space for recreation. Wartime austerity was to some extent still apparent. But the countryside was charming and there was lots of space for the children to play out of doors. My leave was for six months, most of it in winter. In those days, heating in houses tended to come from fireplaces in a few rooms. Coal was expensive, very noticeable on my modest salary, so as part of our recreation we searched the countryside for free fallen timber.

Our part of Kent had numerous hop fields, and thus there was a continuing need for hop poles. This resulted in lots of woods with hazel which was coppiced to provide the poles of a certain size. We combed these woods to collect the unwanted offcuts, although hazel did not give off much heat, but it was free and gave us pleasure hunting for firewood.

It so happened that our time in Kent coincided with the first space travel. A Russian spacecraft named Sputnik successfully circled the Earth a number of times. The local newspaper gave details of its final circuit close to Earth. So my wife and I went into the garden at 9 pm to see the brightly lit spectacle of Sputnik, low on the horizon on its last trip aloft.

At other times, we went to Bedgebury, with lots of space, hardly another soul and stately trees. Six months flew and it was time to return to a different life and climate in faraway Hong Kong.

Brian Wilson, via email