I often think about events that have been part of our history and shaped it even, and I feel it’s important that they’re not forgotten. Some of you may or may not remember this. Darenth Woods is an area of approximately 300 acres of ancient coppiced woodland.

 

Situated roughly between Dartford and Gravesend in Kent and adjacent to the A2. It’s near what is now known as Darenth Country park and not far from Blue Water shopping centre. When the local Gypsies were hounded off their small roadside camps and the nearby marshes, families took refuge in a very small part of the Darenth woods.

 

It became home to about three hundred people, made up of small family groups including women, children, the sick and the elderly. The land originally belonged to the Ecclesiastical Commission. The encampment had been tolerated by the Church Commissioners for some time. When the Parish Council bought the land they decided the families had to go. On Wednesday the 3rd of January in 1962, at arguably the worst time of year, Darenth Parish Council in its wisdom....or rather lack of it...gave 300 Gypsies and Travellers seven, yes seven days notice they’d to move.

 

They had nowhere to move them to and no alternative place to direct them to. In the event they were evicted onto the very verge of the busy A2 and simply abandoned. Council employees and local farmers with their tractors, executed the eviction. Dire as their situation was, they did however have one champion for their cause. Norman Dodds, the M.P. For Edith and Crawford wasn’t blind to their plight, although his support of them did little to further his political career.

 

 It’s a measure of the man that he supported them anyway. He repeatedly brought it before the House of Commons to garner interest and support and as a result the eviction was widely reported in the press. The following is a quote from Hansard: “Mr. Norman Dodds (Erith and Crayford) On 20th January this year, the Dartford Rural District Council evicted from the Darenth Woods at Dartford nearly 300 gypsies and other travellers, with about 80 caravans, 26 horses, one donkey, and sundry other things.

 

With few exceptions, those 300 people are still living now, three-and-a-half months later, with their caravans parked on the grass verge of one of Britain's busiest roads, the A.2. On their way to London, visitors arriving at Dover from the Continent see one of the most appalling sights which anyone could ever see in any country of Europe. Indeed, I doubt that such a sight can be seen in any other European country. For three-and-a-half months, these people have been without lavatories, dustbins or litter bins.

 

 There is one water pipe for most of them about a mile away. During the Easter weekend, I saw the amount of litter left at a beauty spot by visitors during a few short days. Is it beyond imagination to appreciate what must be the state of the district when 300 people are living in these conditions day after day? Early-morning workers have told me that they have seen these human beings moving half a mile or a mile away from their caravans in order to attend to the requirements of nature.

 

Many of them, of course, cannot do even that. It seems as though the authorities in this country are paralysed and unable to do anything about this problem. Indeed, it seems that anything which could be done would only make matters worse. There is, in fact, no sign of anything being done to improve the situation.

 

If we cannot solve this problem, I feel that we should give up all idea of overcoming the difficulties facing us in joining the European Common Market. On the Monday following the Saturday when the evictions took place, The Times quoted Mr. Leslie Reeves, the chairman of the Town and Country Planning 1164 Committee of the Dartford Rural District Council, as saying: Once we get them on the main road, they become the police's problem, not ours".

 

It seems that, like Mr. Micawber, someone is waiting for something to turn up. On 14th February last, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said: We have drawn the attention of the council, whom we regard as primarily responsible in this matter, to the fact that these people have been put on the verge of a trunk road without any authority. We must go through the normal processes here, and we have asked the council to deal with the the matter urgently.” “The eviction of about a hundred Gypsy families from Darenth Woods, in Kent, savours too much of parish pumpery at its worst.

 

A bureaucratic machine has been marshalled against victims whose helplessness merits sympathy.…Vague talk earlier about finding alternative sites for at least some of them has evidently come to nothing.” “On this main A.2 road no restriction is placed on the speed of vehicles. Some of them travel past this spot at 80 miles an hour and more. Four dogs have already been killed and on Easter Sunday a donkey was killed. I am amazed that a real tragedy has not yet occurred, but great responsibility will fall on someone if anyone is killed.

 

Already mothers are scared as their children run wild in the woods. There they live, a few feet from the main road. As I say, there is no restriction on speed—not even a temporary one—and only an A.A. sign appears to warn motorists. Should not drivers be given a warning? Many people on holiday from the Continent do not know of these people's existence and they should be warned about them.” Norman Dodds got to know the families, he talked with them, drank tea with them and recounted their sufferings. “I refer to the case of the Bignall family.

 

Since there was a husband, wife and five children living in the existing caravan he wanted to get another because the woman was having another child and could not lie in the caravan without being cramped up. As a result, they got another caravan but within a few hours the police arrived and nine summonses were issued. They had to get rid of the caravan. The woman had the baby after a lot of trouble, but it was born a cripple and died within four days.

 

The chances are that if she had had a bed in which to lie longer the child would never have died. This, in England in 1962—and the authorities are paralysed.” Kent County Council had land at their disposal to rehome the family’s but were not forthcoming, in allowing its use. A farmer by the name of Barden, had a farm at Charing near Ashford, in the past he had allowed between thirty and fifty caravans on his ground, Kent County Council however closed this camp too, despite it having hardstanding and water.

 

 They refused to allow it to reopen. Norman again reports to the House of Commons, his frustration is abundantly clear. “I ask the Minister of Transport to recognise that he has a big stake in this business of gypsies and other travellers. I am not weakening. This thing is going to be won in the next few months, and there is only one way in which it can be done, and that is by pressure. If I am blamed for being emotional it is because I have seen so much. I am disgusted at this country, that this sort of thing can happen here.

 

 This cannot be seen in any other country in Europe—only in England and Wales, and nowhere else. We should be ashamed caravans from the site in Darenth Woods on to the verge of the A.2 trunk road. I understand that the council provided vehicles and drivers to tow away those of the caravans which were not mobile, and local farmers also helped with tractors.” So living on the verge of the A2 trunk road, with all their goods and chattels, are a vulnerable community of 80 vehicles, 60 or 70 families including children, the sick and the elderly, some 300 people in total are abandoned. Their animals and livelihood all placed at risk too.

 

 No privacy, no safety, no sanitation and no water or refuse collection. It is abundantly clear that the Church Commissioners sold their ‘problem’ to the Parish Council, who in turn evicted that ‘problem’ onto the Minister for Transport, who had responsibility for the road and verges of the A2. Norman is nothing if not persistent and we could do with more of his like supporting us today. “Let me pass from the legal complications to the practical realities of the situation. What is needed is a site or a number of sites on to which these people could move.

 

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has no power to provide caravan sites. He is concerned with transport and with highways; he is not concerned with the provision of sites for caravans. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has no power to provide a site or sites. The rural district council has the power; powers are conferred on it under the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, 1961.” And so the wrangling went on, meanwhile the families continued their daily business of taking care of their children and domestic needs and trying to earn a living.

 

At one point a field was suggested for the horses....but alas not the families who owned them. The final words I close with are Norman’s “It is along the lines of trying to provide, first, a temporary resting place off the road and then more permanent sites for them, that the correct solution lies. It is in that direction that we have the most hope.” Sadly as we all know half a century later, nationally, that solution still hasn’t been implemented. (c) Ryalla Duffy 2019.