Welcome to Twydall Tales

For a kid growing up in the 60s, everywhere was a playground and there was no better playground than the Twydall Estate. If I wasn’t out with my little brothers and the kids from Crundale Road, I was out with my friends from Twydall Junior School. I played on the swings at Woodchurch Crescent. I played football at Beechings Way. I picked buttercups for the do-you-like-butter test on Petham Green, and I ran in the daisy field off Broadway. I played on the big mound of earth that became Harbledown Manor and, just once, I played in the newly built Benenden Manor – one peep over the balcony had me hugging the wall all the way back to the staircase. Crossing the top road was out of bounds for most of us but through arrow chase (a trail of arrows chalked on the pavement) we knew every street, short cut and alleyway from there to the Lower Rainham Road.
 

On the grass at the bottom end of Hawthorne Avenue, the Battle of Rorke’s Drift was re-enacted with freshly painted cardboard shields, and on a mountain of rubble where the Tech now stands, I got a sizeable lump on the head when defending Pork Chop Hill in a stone fight. When they built the Catholic school on Romany Road, I played in the foundations. Sharps Green? Yes. The chalk pit? Yes, and scrumping at the farm on Pump Lane, and finding rhubarb in the allotment off Lower Pump Lane, and getting up to rude but innocent things with the girls in the long grass opposite the golf course on Beechings Way. Yes, I did those things. And I once strayed beyond the forbidden zone, crossing the top road to visit the glorious Darland Banks, where I whizzed down the slopes in an upturned car bonnet.

And sometimes I picked the wrong company, as happened on the way back from the Lower Rainham Road one summer evening when the big kids I’d tagged along with came across some gypsy caravans. From a crouched position behind a hedge it was suggested we all gather a handful of stones and on the count of three, let them have it. I played my part but in the milliseconds it took for the hail of stones to clatter the caravans, I was already up and running.

Happy days, mostly, and I’m going to talk about it all; people, places, and life at Twydall Juniors. As I couldn't possibly tell my story without telling some part of yours, I hope you won't mind if your name appears here. Each chapter is listed in its correct sequence in the left hand margin; click any title to read.

Gerard Lynch

August 2022

twydalltales@gmail.com