One of the things I did this summer was go and see my parents whom I have seen little since early 2020 because, you know, Covid and pandemic. It was nice to travel out of Kent for once and see them. It turns out my father is somewhat interested in history which, much like his love of frogs, is something that I was never really aware of, it is something he has rarely ever spoken of. Anyway, a local, MR, gives walking tours of the village with history talks and as much as he wasn’t doing one this day, my mum had been on the walk and so we covered the same grounds.
The huts you can see in the picture are the remains of a World War 2 prisoner of war camp that housed around 1500 prisoners. It’s about four hundred metres from the house where I grew up and I can’t believe that, as a kid, I never trespassed and explored, but I didn’t! There were plenty of other places in the village I explored but not this. There are quite a few links to blogs and such like from other people who have explored this urban land and so if you just google POW Camp 116 you’ll see loads of results including national news about a planning application being turned down [good].
It would be a shame for these buildings to be demolished. I would hope that somehow funds are raised to at least preserve them as they are as a monument to the folly of human interactions and power seeking. I write this as Afghanistan descends into hell after the US and UK completely pulled out. I’ve been adding information about years of the twentieth century to my communications and it is quite clear to me that global politics has never been stable and it’s all about power and wealth for the few.
This is communication 1926 and so here are some of the things that happened that year:
- Marital Law in the UK following a General Strike.
- Portugal has a military coup.
- Women are banned from holding public office in Italy.
- Deutsche Luft Hansa is founded.