The Kent History Forum

Aviation History => Airfields => Topic started by: johnfilmer on February 04, 2020, 03:14:57 PM

Title: Manston
Post by: johnfilmer on February 04, 2020, 03:14:57 PM

I was told that my Grandfather did some fencing at Manston. A postcard, franked Ramsgate 14 Sept 1921 shows The Camp.
Sorry about the corner, people will collect stamps!

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: johnfilmer on February 04, 2020, 06:36:49 PM

This is the other side of the postcard.
Anyone make sense of the message?

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: Smiffy on February 04, 2020, 09:18:10 PM

Sounds like he wasn't too happy with the accommodation! I wonder what a U T Cabin was? Not very nice by the sound of it.

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: castle261 on February 05, 2020, 01:54:42 PM

I looked it up on `net ` -- stands for `Utah ` cabins. Made in Utah.

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: johnfilmer on February 05, 2020, 04:31:49 PM

All I could find was never ending adverts for log cabin holidays, no information that seemed relevant.

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: Smiffy on February 05, 2020, 05:24:03 PM

Perhaps the "U" could stand for "Utility". Not sure about the T though - Temporary?

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: castle261 on February 05, 2020, 06:31:04 PM

I just put in with the cursor.


` U. T. Cabin - 1920 ` - & that reply - came up - with pictures.

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: Smiffy on February 05, 2020, 06:50:45 PM

They're American log cabins though - I don't think you'd see them in England in the 1920's  :)

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: grandarog on February 06, 2020, 10:09:07 AM

I reckon you are all on the wrong track. Bearing in mind the date .He is saying it's worse than "Uncle Toms's Cabin" Referring to the cabin in the best best selling novel in the late 19th early 20th century. :) :)

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: MartinR on February 06, 2020, 11:14:14 AM

I think you may be right Grandarog.  Film versions of Uncle Tom's cabin were released throughout the silent era (but no sound movies).  The book itself was a huge international bestseller until declared non-PC in the 1960s and 1970s.

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: Smiffy on February 06, 2020, 01:40:25 PM

I think you're probably right as well grandarog, although I think it might have been clearer if worded "U T's Cabin".  People were a lot hardier in those days so the accommodation must have been pretty dire.

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: castle261 on February 06, 2020, 03:25:40 PM

Congratulations - granarog - that ANSWER escaped all of us - except YOU !
More power to your quill pen !

Title: Re: Manston
Post by: johnfilmer on February 06, 2020, 04:10:31 PM

Uncle Tom it may well be. Filmer Smitherman was, as I understand it, reasonably well read, and interested in history. He needed to work outside on medical grounds according to my mother (his daughter) but it may just have been that he was then out of sight for a pub visit.
I have found many of the things told me as family history to be *somewhat* untrue, but such a reference would fit. Many thanks grandarog.