Peter Chapman's photos from the Hut camp
Baby Peter in his winter clothing
Thanks to Peter Chapman
Peter and his dog outside their hut
Thanks to Peter Chapman
A baby boy with his dog
By Chris Rogers
Email from Peter Chapman, 11 September 2009
"My parents & I were housed on the common in the post war years, I was just a baby at the time The attached picture shows me with my fathers dog and our hut behind (parents names Ronald Chapman/Bridget Mullan)."
Just after the Second World War Ronald Peter Chapman with his wife Bridget and their first son Peter were living on Hothfield Common near Ashford in Kent. They were there, in hut 926, from April 1949 until September 1950.
The site had previously been used to house troops, post war it was home to gypsies and the homeless. The Chapmans lived in a Nissen hut, a prefabricated structure made from sheets of corrugated metal bent into a half barrel shaped semi circle. Sewage services were external to the hut. Heating & cooking was provided by a coal or wood fired stove. Some newspaper reports described life there in idyllic terms but others present a tale of some hardship; extensive condensation and the inhabitants sharing their living space with amphibians.
Ronald Peter Chapman's sister Betty lived on the same site with her husband Len and spoke fondly of her time there. "We moved straight in after our wedding in 1949 and thought ourselves very lucky to have a place of our own. We had three rooms, kitchen with range and tap, living room and bedroom. The loo was an Elsan outside. The rent was ten shillings a week. We always had plenty of logs, a man used to come round selling them, it was always nice and cosy, lovely in the summer."
For more of the Chapman family story please visit their own pages by clicking here.