Crockham Hill Jul/Aug 2025 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 26
became your Sevenoaks District Councillor and was asked to help with the
Church Fete programme.
It seemed to me such a waste to produce a one day throw away for the
Fete and that's why we started the Year Book, bringing all the village
activities and societies together. That had to be a joint effort, and who
better than Freda who knew so much about the village - as we read about
in the June Newsletter. A few years ago I asked her about it. We both still
had pristine copies, and then when I asked her about the CH Cricket Club,
Freda opened her handbag and produced, there and then, the last ever
fixture card with the match results written in!
Barbara Mitchell's piece about the war years told me something that I
didn't know - that Acremead was requisitioned by the military. Then Rod
Cooper's brief history of Oakdale Lane raised two points: Captain Michael
Prest was a regular at the Royal Oak on Sunday evenings. He enjoyed a
good debate and had very firm points of view. We still enjoy a good debate
at the RO on Sunday evenings.
I didn't know that Michael Prest had followed Sandy Woodward as Captain
of HMS Sheffield. Sandy was Admiral during the Falklands Campaign and
on retirement, the Royal Navy presented him with his personal broad
pennant that had flown at
the masthead of HMS
Hermes throughout the
campaign. It's very sooty and
threadbare. How do I know?
Because on retirement, he
bought a Sonata sailing yacht
and used to campaign it at
the Royal Southern Yacht
Club. One day he told us that
he had this flag in his attic and didn't know what to do with it. 'Give it to
us', we said, and we used it as the Trophy for annual matches with the
Yacht Club de Dinard, but just like the Ashes, even if they won the match,
they couldn't keep it (they never won)! Then last year, we re-united
Admiral Woodward's pennant with his flagship HMS Hermes's paying off
White Ensign and our late Patron Prince Philip's personal standard at a
Service of Remembrance, 40 years on.
All this emerged as feedback from just one issue of the Crockham Hill
Newsletter. More please.
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