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'Don't forget Knockholt Carnival Saturday 17 July- parade at 12 noon'

Knockholt Parish News
A quarterly newsletter is prepared by the Parish Council to update local people on matters of interest to the village. Copies of the newsletter may be viewed by clicking on the date of the document you wish to review in the table marked Knockholt Newsletter, below.

Councillors write a short update on village activities each month. The current article is shown below. Previous articles can be accessed by clicking the date in the table marked Parish Council News Headlines, below.

Knockholt Village Allotments were formally opened by Matthew Wilson on Saturday 5th June
Please click this link to see photographs and narrative

DON’T FORGET upcoming village events – see the What’s On pages.

Please See the Chairmans Annual Report given at the annual meeting on 19th April 2010

At the Annual Parish Meeting on 19th April, Alma Saker gave a talk on her experiences at Court Lodge and the Fairbridge Society.

On Wednesday 3 March this year I was listening to Radio Kent and Andy Garland the presenter was asking about John Howard Mitchell House. As it happened I knew quite a lot about this house. It had been bought by a wealthy benefactor for the Fairbridge Society in memory of her son. We knew it and still know it as Court Lodge, the house next to the Church.
This is really about the lost children of the Empire – children who had emigrated through the auspices of various societies to Farm schools in Canada, Africa and Australia. A lot of these children, obviously now adults have come forward to tell their stories of slave labour, of lies and of ill treatment.

Kingsley Fairbridge the founder was born in 1885. In 1909 at the age of 24 he had an idea – a vision – to people the British colonies with children who stood a poor chance in the prevailing conditions in England and so help them – the children and the Empire. Such was his faith that he persuaded 50 fellow undergraduates of the need for this idea, so much so that they formed a committee of The Futherance of Child Emigration to the Colonies. Kingsley Fairbridge was instructed to carry this idea forward, to collect money , to find a way. His fellow undergraduates each promised 5 shillings old money = £12 plus!

In less than three years he and his new wife founded the first farm school in Western Australia at Pinjarra, a small village about 55 miles from Perth. His aims for underprivileged children were:

1. that children of all denominations were received into the society and the Society would provide for each one in the faith to which he/she belonged.

2. the happiness and wellbeing of the children were the first considerations of Fairbridge

3. Each child was given the opportunity of being trained for any occupation for which he or she was best fitted

4. There was a system of after- care which provided fro the well-being of all until the age of 21 and after that if required.

In fact, ninety –eight per cent of those sent to the Commonwealth made good. This report was written in 1951.

I joined Fairbridge during the summer of 1951 as assistant to the Matron, Mrs Reeves. Court Lodge was, and still is I am sure, a beautiful house. We worked hard to make it into a comfortable home – if a little stark. We made up beds – and I don’t just mean making them up with clean linen – I mean starting from scratch – they had been delivered in flat back form and we actually made the beds.

By late Summer of 1951 we were ready to receive the first party of children. Theey came in 1s and 2s and in one case a little family group of 3 children. By the middle of October we had 20 children plus 3 adults, who were, in fact, Australian, and were going to escort the children to Australia. Here, at John Howard Mitchell House (as Court Lodge was then called) the prime object of the reception centre was to let the children get to know each other, to learn to live together and to adapt to their surroundings. Most of them having come from life in a crowded town they had no idea what life in the counry was like so Knockholt gave them an inkling of the countryside.

In the very early stages of the children arriving, Mrs Reeves and I did all the chores, but, thankfully she was soon able to employ a lady to cook and another to clean. We were also fortunate that some kind person donated an automatic washing machine – a Bendix no less! Of course there were some children who were homesick and needed extra TLC but my instructions were to mother them not smother them. Matron also made a couple of rooma available to parents who wished to visit their children before they sailed to Australia. Fairbridge children were NEVER told that they were orphans or unwanted as some authorities and societies had done.

That first party of children was given a Royal send off. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester came on the 5 th November1951 to officially open Court Lodge as John Howard Mitchell House and to talk to the children and have tea with them. A few days later the children sailed from Tilbury to Australia to embark on a totally new way of life.

Knockholt Parish Council Meeting – Monday 5 th July 2010-07-08

Talking with Councillors from other Parishes from time to time, it is not unusual to learn that their monthly meetings go on for hours and hours, and indeed up to and pass the midnight hour I have even heard of.

It perhaps is yet another indicator of just how efficient your Parish Council is when I report that the meeting started at 7:45pm and finished just 1¼ hours later with all business being concluded, something that is not at all unusual for us.

So down to the business – less members of the public this month – just 4 and interesting that despite the Youth Marching Band having been back since the last meeting, there were no further complaints about the Sunday afternoon noise, nor any comments from dog walkers.

We had received a letter from Knockholt Society though, in which they were enquiring about the various poor road conditions within the village, and about the ‘speeding' of vehicles through the village. The Parish will respond of course, but for all it is perhaps worth reporting that Kent Highways are slowly but surely getting around repairing all the Kent roads including those in Knockholt. This is something that the Parish Council monitors on a very regular basis and is able to do so via the various reporting mechanisms we use with Kent . It perhaps is not happening at the speed we would wish for in our own ‘patch' (sorry for the pun there!), but it is happening. That leads us to speed. As you will recall, as a Parish Council we have adopted ‘Speed Watch', that requires members of the public to assist us in monitoring vehicle speed. We have on a regular basis sought volunteers to assist with this, and on a regular basis have received little if any response. We will in our response to Knockholt Society therefore be seeking them to more actively support this initiative. Some will say not our job, it is the job of the police – well yes and no – but on the yes side – you will perhaps be pleased to learn that our allotted PC has undertaken the most recent speed gun training, and has already deployed that within Knockholt. He does need further training so that evidence can be produced from the new speed gun device for presentation in court, which of course means he will be issuing more than ‘warnings' to those he stops in the future.

We had a very interesting discussion about traffic in the village later in the meeting, where we wish to be proactive and avoid any situation where an accident may happen, but at the same time maintain our village ambience by not introducing ‘urban' items such as double yellow lines; flashing speed signs; etc. It is a ‘thin line' we tread, and actually is something that YOU can help us with by not parking on junction corners – not parking across path ways (the best speed deterrent on Main Road is parked cars it really does slow down the traffic – although perhaps not so good for wing mirrors!) – spreading the word that by keeping to 30mph you do actually still get to the school/station on time and all the other good stuff that ultimately will avoid those urban items mentioned above becoming part of our village scene.

Staying on ‘traffic' the Council have joined the J5Slips Lobby Group. This is a group that has been going for many years to try to improve the M25 Junction 5 situation. By joining this group we as a village maintain our profile in much the same way that we do with Biggin Hill or Fort Halstead for example.

The BIG village clean up – was well at the best - little. We wonder why, when we live in such a lovely village we had such a poor response to the call for volunteers to help for just a little of their time to litter pick. We will try and find out, but if you have any ideas why YOU did not attend do please let us know.

The plant growing season is on us, and may we request all property owners to keep hedges and other growth in order particularly where it abuts footpaths or other areas of public access.

Reminder for those who have a ‘bus pass' and catch the 402 from Knockholt after 09:00, the pass is valid from 09:00 not 09:30 as some drivers claim.

For those with a computer – a reminder - http://www.knockholtparish.org.uk/ - check it out!!

Next meeting is on Monday August 2 nd at 7:45pm in the Village Hall – YOU are welcome and will have the opportunity (twice) to tell us what you think – do come along – we look forward to hearing from you.

Bob Martin

Vice Chairman

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Parish Council News Headlines