Step Short
Step short” is the working title given to a project to
renovate Folkestone’s Road of Remembrance and prepare for the centenary of the
outbreak of World War I in 2014. It is taken from the order given to a marching
body of men at the top of a hill. Reducing the length of pace from 30 inches to
12 inches has the same effect as changing to a lower gear in a car. A shorter
pace reduces the impact on joints and makes it easier to prevent the whole
column speeding up as they go downhill.
It is only in recent years that the true history of our town has started to
emerge, a town that has played an important part in all the major historic
events of the nation. It is not too surprising that most people have
concentrated on the first and second world wars of the last century since
veterans and living relatives of those who fought are still around. As well as
this, the wartime history of the town is everywhere on the streets of the town
for all to see.
The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and is the year of the
second Creative Foundation Triennial festival so it would be a tragedy if the
town didn’t make the most of the opportunity to stage a range of appropriate
tourist activities and to benefit from the possibility of regeneration of an
important part of the town.
There are four major planks to the project:
· Events and activities to celebrate the centenary
· Regeneration and redevelopment of the Road of Remembrance
· Inclusion in the seafront development plans
· Integration and cooperation with the Creative Foundation Triennial
The key to the whole project is the Road of Remembrance, which is well known
locally, nationally and internationally. The project plans to turn the road into
a living museum by the inclusion of a timeline marking the start of WWI in 1914
at the top of the hill and the end of the war in 1918 at the bottom.
That timeline would be marked, as you descend the hill, with the various major
battles that took place in the war all at the appropriate point along the
timeline. At the side of the road, information panels would provide greater
details such as the regiments that took part and the casualty figures.
The war memorial is long overdue for a cleaning and the provision for the
addition of other names from latter-day conflicts would be welcomed. When it was
erected, it was built in the middle of the junction in county lanes. Later on it
was turned into a roundabout in the middle of a busy intersection. More
recently, it has almost become a nuisance in the provisions added to stop
night-time racing in the area. The project also suggests that some consideration
be given to looking at the traffic aspects of the whole area in light of the
other suggestions in the project.
Approximately half way down the hill is a concrete structure from the Second
World War. This was communications centre that was probably part of the network
feeding information from shipping in the channel back to the Enigma project in
Bletchley Park.
This complex consists of five large rooms with connecting passageways. As with
all such buildings, it is showing signs of decay from neglect. Should we wait
until a future version of “Time Team” digs up what is left in the year 2500 or
should we invest time and resources into preserving it now – before the decay
has gone too far? This building should be converted into a proper military
museum dedicated not only to the part that the town played in the wars, but also
to the function that it actually carried out.
One
or more of the rooms could be dedicated to the part that the Canadians played in
the Great War since this could be a major tourism incentive from that part of
the world.
The Go Folkestone Action Group has been in negotiation with Roger De Haan to
discuss the possibility of acquiring components from the harbour and the
stations when the redevelopment starts. These are: the doors and door frame from
the old customs house and any of the original cast iron pillars that can be
recovered from the station canopy.
It is hoped that the former could be used as the frontage to a small building at
the bottom of the hill. It is becoming apparent that a number of veterans’
organisations are folding as their members die off and there has been some
indication that local churches would be reluctant to “lay up” their banners in
the traditional way. Thus this building would be a representative “end of the
road” where some of these banners could be stored and where a modern book of
remembrance could be started to hold the names of the dead in conflicts since
the second world war that are not included on the war memorial.
It has been suggested that the pillars recovered from the railway station could
be put into a decorative structure in the small garden just along the road from
the bottom of the hill. Other suggestions have been made that, if the large
anchor from the Harbour entrance is going to be removed, that it could be
included in some kind of dedication, in the same garden, to the marine forces
(Royal Navy and merchant fleet). “Step Short” needs to be considered within the
context the Fosters Plan for the seafront development from a traffic perspective
as well. Is there room for turning the Road of Remembrance into a one-way street
or pedestrianising it completely?
The effect of this would allow for the widening of the pavement and easing the
access into the tunnel museum. At the top of the hill, there is considerable
scope under improvements to the war-memorial for better landscaping to remove
the memorial from the road altogether, into a pedestrianised area that will
allow better traffic flow into the roads that remain. Complete pedestrianisation
would allow a lot more scope for building a suitable structure at the bottom of
the hill since the space occupied by the pavements and road junctions etc is
quite considerable.
The transitory remembrance events laid on for 2014 should in no way clash or
interfere with the more permanent, ongoing Remembrance Day ceremonies that
precede or follow the centenary.
The main kinds of event that should be considered are:
· Remembrance/religious ceremonies
· Re-enactments
· Exhibits/displays
· Military parades
One suggestion for the last of these, for example, would be a large parade of
regular, territorial and cadet forces which sets off from the top of the hill;
stops at each battle on the time line on the way down the Road of Remembrance.
As they do, various members of the parade would (as prearranged) remove their
berets (or some other gesture) to show that they had “died”. By the time the
parade reached the bottom of the hill, spectators would have a greater
appreciation of the number of casualties that the Great War cost us.
How about street theatre portrayals of the troops returning
from Dunkirk or the Belgian Refugees? Any other ideas out there?
Terry Begent
Step-short Awareness Weekend, 3rd- 4th
October 2009
Article from Go Folkestone Newsletter March 2008
