Friday saw us heading round & into Kent, initially heading for Herne Bay followed by Reculver, RAF Manston & Plucks Gutter (honest!) before ending up in Canterbury for the evening.

We’d decided not to eat at the hotel & instead, once round the south of London on the M25, headed off the motorway in search of breakfast; this was an excellent move as we ended up in the village of Merstham & more specifically a charming cafe called, appropriately enough: Hunger’s End. Breakfast was absolutely huge, but with a sensible price tag & meant that we didn’t need any more food until evening!

It was then back on to the carpark that is the M25 for a slow trip around & up into Kent; the delay being caused by a broken down boat!

Herne Bay, Reculver & Dambusting

Our first stop in Kent was at Herne Bay. It’s an area I’ve always wanted to visit with nearby Reculver as it was here that some of the final testing of Barnes Wallis’ “Bouncing Bomb” was tested… Reculver is the place where Gibson meets him & they watch a ‘plane come in & drop the bomb & the casings keep breaking up. In the original film, they actually used archive footage of the original tests, ‘though the bomb was subtly altered (to a circle, rather than the actual oil drom shape, as it was still on the Official Secrets list… despite the Germans finding an unexploded one the day after the raid & complete drawings of it a few weeks later after it had been examined by German scientists.

There is a nice little museum/visitor centre in Herne Bay & then we had a wander around the town & I managed a swift half of Shepherd Neame’s Celebration beer for the Queen’s Jubilee in The Prince of Wales ; a wonderful old pub & very nice it was too!

So, we then moved on to Reculver, itself & after a brief look at the vistor’s centre, walked up past the “Reculver Towers” & down onto the “promenade” which overlooks the actual beach where the tests took place; a brief photo session before the rain started & a gentle walk back to the local pub (quelle surprise!) – The King Ethelbert

RAF Manston & “John Harder’s pub”

Next it was on to what was RAF Manston which is now an international airport. However, back during the Second World War it was initially a Battle of Britain fighter base & then later, the runway was extended & strengthened to cater for damaged ‘planes – mainly bombers – returning from missions over Europe needing to land as quickly as possible. It was here, in October 1945 that Flt Lt John Harder was stationed after the war. It appears from his logbooks that he was present during the air speed record test with Gloster Meteor jets, but due to his increasing unhappiness with post-war RAF life, he soon resigned his commission.

At the site, today, are two interesting museums… the RAF Manston museum and the Spitfire Muesum the only downside was that neither had any real information on the squadrons that flew there post war… however, as Glyn noticed marked on some of the exhibits, lots of stuff had been “saved from the skip” & we suspect that, immediately post war, people just wanted to move on…

.. and so we did, too… for a beer (I know, more beer… but it’s a tough job doing this research & as someone’s got to do it, it might as well be us!)… but there is a further “Harder” link… on 29th December, 1945, John harder sent a postcard from the Dog & Duck pub, Stourmouth (Pluck’s Gutter to be accurate): “Hello Mother, just down at the local pub for Boxing Day, Cheers Jr” so as we were near, it seemed wrong not to visit… & it doesn’t seem to have changed.

What was a nice surprise was the hand pulled beers inside!

So, thirst quenched & history suitably nodded to, we set off on the final lap of our day’s travel to the Cathedral Gate Hotel in Canterbury.

Canterbury

The “blurb” from the hotel indicates that it’s in a reasonable location & this proved to be the case with clear views from each of our bedrooms of the Cathedral, itself as the hotel literally was on the edge of the land that surrounds it. You have to bear in mind, however, that the building dates back to 1438 when people were smaller & had less luggage to carry up winding staircases! But it’s a brilliant place to stay & really atmospheric… “quirky in a wonderfully British way”… even down to the shaped windows to cope with past subsidence!

An evening meal in a local Italian restaurant (this was to prove the start of a trend for this holiday) & a beer in a city centre brew pub – The Foundry –  finished the night for me, ‘though Glyn did sample a couple more beeers.