Sign ins

Before my granddaughter interrupted me I think I had just reached the fact that Whitbread's very soon produced a second series of fifty inn signs. By the end of 1952 I had collected several, but matters were put on hold for pretty much all of 1953 while I was away at school on the Isle of Wight (which is an altogether different story). The third, fourth and fifth series were produced in cardboard, and there was more information printed on the back. It wasn't until the fifth series came out (must have been 1954 or 55) that some of us twigged on to how best to collect them. Our father's had, of course, been encouraged to visit all the local outlets, a task taken up more eagerly by some than by others, but as my father was away with the Navy I wasn't able to adopt this approach. But for the fifth series, I somehow managed to obtain a complete list of the pubs covered. It was then a simple matter to write to the licensee of each pub, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope, and ask for an inn sign. Most were happy to oblige, or, if not exactly happy, they did oblige anyway. But some stuck to the letter of the law and refused to hand over a sign without a drink being bought. There were, I seem to remember, three of these, and each of those three pubs was in a pretty inaccessible spot as far as we Medway-towns-ites were concerned. I remember that two of them were the Red Lion at Stodmarsh and the Ypres Castle at Rye, but I can't remember the third. But there were ways and means.