Folkestone’s
Member of Parliament and Chairman of the group called ‘Step Short’
and supporter of Sir Roger De Haan’s Creative Foundation, Damian
Collins, announced the building of a McDonalds style stainless-steel
arch memorial, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of
WW1, costing a massive six-figure sum just in time for Sir Roger’s
Creative foundations third Triennial in 2014.
Mr
Collins speaks of fictional tales that:- “The arch represents
the sacrifices of the ten million soldiers who came through Folkestone
during the war”, also “The arch will stand at the eastern
end of The Leas, close to the war memorial and the top of the Road of
Remembrance. The arch stands over the route over the route taken by
the soldiers marching to the harbour and the ships that were waiting
to take them to France and the trenches”.
The facts are that in
1914 troopships used Southampton, not Folkestone harbour. It was not
until the following year that troopships started sailing from Folkestone
harbour.
Many troops arrived at
the harbour, not by marching down Folkestone’s Road of Remembrance,
then known as Slope Road, but by troop trains which arrived at the railway
harbour quayside to join the waiting ships. 100 years later by Sir Roger
De Haan, owner of the town’s harbour, has achieved almost 100%
to destruction of the towns ferry port infrastructure ready for his
proposed housing scheme, and in so doing has achieved what Germany failed
to do in both World Wars.
Also it was not as many
as ten million soldiers who came through Folkestone harbour during the
war, although it was a considerable number, and an amazing maritime
achievement, which should be marked, but not on The Leas, in Folkestone,
but at the town’s harbour. As for The Leas, at Folkestone, the
plan for the unsuitable McDonalds style arch should be dropped replaced
instead by marking true historic events, such as by a far cheaper arch
of “White Feathers”, in accordance with what really took
place there in August 1914.