Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells

The Dogter Will See You Now

How about this for a picture, a baby eating dog food whilst the dog looks on ready to give some first aid.

The ever helpful John Weeks from the NHS tells me:

"Before the NHS the hospital had to raise all its own funds to stay open it was not funded by the state. As well as subscribers, donations, and charges they had regular fund raising including collection boxes door to door and Hospital Sunday each year when a big carnival would snake through the town with floats etc., also pound days when a stall would be set up in front of the hospital when people would donate a pound of flour or sugar etc., in 1934 they had over 500 eggs donated too".

I thought I'd post it up to give you a reminder about my Postcard Blog and also the post below this one to ask what you would like to put into the time capsule at the new hospital.

Remember kids, don't eat dog food. Unless your dog is a trained medical professional.

Wish You Were Over There

Today, thanks to the huge generosity of John Barber, Chairman of the Friends of Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall Commons, we are launching a new and very interesting section to the blog.

This new section is hoping, that's hoping with a large emphasis as it is you who will be helping to make it grow, to one day be the largest resource of postcards of Tunbridge Wells.

This is just the back, click and you might see what's on the other side.

Why postcards? Well they are a wonderful record of the past, the way the town used to be, the way it used to look, and from the stories on the back, how it used to appear to common ordinary people.

So, hesitate no longer and click to visit the Tunbridge Wells Postcards blog or just click on the postcard above.

If there is anyone out there who can donate, and when I say donate I only mean donate for a few days, to the archive then please get in touch. Enjoy!

Wish You Were Here...I Think

I have been very kindly lent a huge collection of postcards to digitise for the Friends of Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall Commons and for the good of the town by the Chairman of the Friends, John Barber. I am hoping to share the entire collection with you with some surrounding history too at some point in the future.

To whet your whistle in the meantime I give you one of the collection I have scanned so far, an unstamped but rather heavily used postcard of St. Mark's Church on Broadwater Down.

Can you decipher any of the myriad of messages? Why not leave anything you can read in the comments below and together perhaps we can read the whole thing.

Front of the postcard.

Back of the postcard.

Also, if you have any Tunbridge Wells postcards and would like to contribute to an archive of them I am creating then please drop me an email.