“Back in the summer of 1989 “recalls Graham, “I was working as the early morning newsreader at Invicta Radio in Canterbury. I had the idea of interviewing people about their war memories and making a documentary, but the radio station wouldn’t pay me to do it. They said it wasn’t their cup of tea because they were a pop music station.
“So I decided to make the programme anyway in my own time. I would get up at 4am, read the morning news and finish work at lunchtime. I spent my afternoons and evenings researching and driving around Kent collecting the interviews.”
“After I’d made the documentary, the station said they liked it and paid me a few quid for permission to broadcast it on Christmas Day 1989. They were looking for filler material because the disc jockeys had the day off. I expect one man and a dog would have been listening! Apart from that no one has ever heard these recordings”.
Now Graham, who is currently head of Video Marketing & Video Production at Maidstone based Kersh Media, is making his unique archive of memories available to the public to raise money for charity.
“When I realised the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of war was approaching I wondered if I still had my original tape. I turned the house upside down and finally found a dusty cassette at the bottom of a box of junk in the attic!
“It was amazing to find it, especially as we’d just hired a skip for a big clear out and the box was destined to go on it!”
The hour long documentary, which also contains rare archive sound recordings and wartime music, will go on sale for £8.00 and is available from a special website set up by Graham’s company Kersh Media. The website is: http://www.second-
All profits from the sale of the CD will be split between the Royal British Legion and the Chart Sutton War Memorial Pavilion Fund.
“My favourite interview is with Kent wartime fireman, Ted Bishop, who told me how he was woken up in the early hours of the morning with the news that Canterbury was being bombed” says Graham.
“Ted describes driving a fire engine along the A2 from Faversham and, as he came over the hill, seeing the city completely ablaze. Later, when he saw the number of bombs that has fallen all around the cathedral, he couldn’t believe the ancient building hadn’t been hit. Ted’s voice choked up as he talked about it. I’m glad I recorded that memory – no one else has.”
The Second World War Remembered CD is being released to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. Photos available on request.
The Second World War Remembered CD contains memories of life in Kent UK during World War Two. Kersh Media is a Kent Video Production company specialising in video production and video marketing in Kent, London, UK, Europe and World Wide.
# # #
http://www.second-
