It was while 'surfing' the web that I came upon your site, and much to my amazement, saw the photograph of the Police Training class of 1946, wrote Phil Ogison. He was referring to a photo accompanying Archie Greenshield's story under Sandgate, Kent.

My father, Victor Louis Ogison, is in that photo, and eventually attained the rank of Sergeant in the Kent County Constabulary before emigrating with my mother and me to Canada in 1963.

He is in the first row of the photograph, third from the viewer's right, (that is, third from the actual left). What a pleasant surprise to come across this record...my father died in 1975 of heart failure in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. His ashes rest at the bottom of Vancouver (BC) harbour.

My wife and I are considering returning to England (We presently live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and hope to reside in the Sandgate area. Thanks for the memory.

My mother's father, Phillip Bowles Drayner late of Sandgate, Kent, was also a constable in the Kent County Constabulary, and his service pre-dated that of my late father, Victor Louis Ogison.

They were both ex-servicemen, my grandfather having served in the Royal Navy on the HMS Campania, the first aircraft carrier, which was sunk in an accident at Scapa Flow.

My father served in India as a dispatch rider during WW2, and when he returned, he met my mother, Joan Elisabeth Ogison (nee Drayner) and my grandfather convinced him to become a constable.

My father graduated from the Police Training School in Sandgate in 1946, then I was born two years later in 1948!

My mother has told me that it was a very different time for policemen in the late 40's and early 50's, a lot more was expected of them in terms of exemplary behaviour, re: no debts, bills paid on time, etc.

One would hope it is still the same way, although one hears differently!

Policemen were not well paid in those days, however my father eventually rose through the ranks to attain the rank of sergeant, and was stationed at Elham from, I believe, 1960 until we emigrated to Canada in 1963. We were posted to Walmer, Deal, and Gillingham before that time.