Salamander Issue 4

MEMBERS & EVENTS

Kent Firefighting Museum

During 2012 Past Masters Jeremy

Beech, Alan Wells and Liveryman

Howard Myers, with others,

negotiated with the Kent Fire and

Rescue Service to ensure Kent’s

firefighting heritage was preserved.

A charitable trust was formed and

fortuitously we were offered some

buildings at Woodlands Garden

Centre at Ash near Brands Hatch.

The museum was formally opened by

Baroness Blackstone in August 2014.

Woodlands is a family run venture,

by Kim and Wayne Barr. Kim’s father,

Harry Knox was a former firefighter.

The garden centre partnership works

well and is very successful. Since

opening more than 26,000 people have visited the museum and donated a little over £15,000. Presentations

and displays of artefacts are given to outside organisations and clubs and many groups visit the museum.

The museum is well represented on Facebook and Trip Advisor and open seven days a week from 10.00

a.m. to 4.00 p.m. with a brief winter closure period from mid December until the following March. To help

support this enterprise please speak to Howard Myers about becoming a Friend of the museum for just £12

per year.

Gerry and the Peacemakers of 1918 - 2018

Founder Master Gerry Clarkson, in his other role as Leader of Kent’s Ashford Borough Council,

engaged with the City of London Corporation and The US National WWl Museum and Memorial

to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War with an open air photographic

exhibition in Guildhall Yard during May.

The exhibition “Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace: 1918 – 2018 “, highlighted the global nature of the conflict.

The exhibition subsequently came to the Memorial Gardens in Ashford throughout June. There integrated

with complementary floral displays it was a masterpiece. The use of sandbags reflected the sombre battle-

torn mood of 1914-18 amidst the green and colourful garden setting. The displays featured a silhouette

sentinel by a symbolic grave of a fallen soldier and a decorated miniature replica of a tank, echoing the real

one which has pride of place in the town. The real one was presented at the end of WWl in recognition of

the town’s contribution to the ‘National War Savings Appeal’. Congratulations Gerry to you and your fellow

sponsors!

Past Master Alan Wells

www.kentfirefightingmuseum.org.uk