Doug Stubbings, shown to the left as a boy in the 1930s, contributed poems and articles to 'Teynham News', the magazine of Teynham Parish Council, for nearly a decade.

Doug's contributions covered many subjects about his life and about Teynham during the 1930's and serve to give a insight to a long bygone age.

His contributions are reproduced here, beginning below with his last one, as 'The Doug Stubbings Collection' for you to enjoy again.

A Beginning and an End

I have often wondered why the school year started with the autumn term and not January. In the rural and country areas could it be connected with Michaelmas when farmers looked for new employees and farm hands chose to change their- employers? In the past children took time off to gather in the crops, and our summer holidays were certainly geared to the hop-picking season, in fact it lasted most of our time off from school. Anyway, at the beginning of the autumn term we all moved up a class and those old enough left school at the summer holiday.

So the work/wage spiral went on until the event of the Second World War. It was then that any ambitions and aspirations had to be put on hold for six years. Some of our generation were married during the war years others wed soon after hostilities ceased. After the war the work/wage spiral started again.

Reflecting upon nearly eighty years there are some things I wish I hadn’t done and others I wish I had done, but the one thing I don’t regret is the ten years I have been allowed to write in the ‘Teynham News’. Now that I have covered all the aspects of life for a boy in the thirties. this regrettably will be my last article.

My thanks go to Chris Mcllroy for all her help in the past and also to the Editor and his editorial committee for the privilege of writing in the ‘News’. I hope that you have enjoyed reading my accounts of life in the village in bygone days as much as I have in writing them.

May I wish you all good fortune for the future?

Doug Stubbings.