into their brick and timber cottage,
set next to the church at the bottom
of Bridge Hill on a barely perceptible
bend. They went there because they
loved the cottage with its long garden
overspilling with hollyhocks, del-
phiniums and London Pride. But
they reckoned without the trucks. In
ll years the Roses’ cottage has been
hit 10 times. They’ve been hit by
trucks, cars, caravans — Bill Rose
once chased a lorry all the way to
Canterbury to retrieve his guttering
from its load. Now they have a red
and yellow striped signboard to mark
the most vulnerable corner of the un-
prepossessing grey cottage (well,
it looks grey, but the last time it was
painted it was cream).
Outside the cottage the pavement
narrows to 15 inches wide.
Accidents were becoming com-
monplace in Bridge and, ironically,
the more there were, the more the
campaign’s impetus flagged. “At one
time a couple of accident-damaged
cars would provoke press comment
and pictures,” says Lewis. “Gradu-
ally the shock value diminished and
people just accepted it as one of those
things.” The six years from 1966 to
1972 would have deterred less dogged
campaigners than Lewis, Putchese
left of the bedroom spilling down
into the gutted nibble of the shop.
This was the emotive trigger that
the A2 Group needed. On the same
day villagers received printed leaflets
with photographs of the crash. Two
days later, 300 Bridge residents sat
down to block the A2. In the same
month, an emergency meeting was
held between the new M.P. David
Crouch and the Kent planners. As
they met demonstrators protested.
Another demo took place at the
Ministry of Transport. And yet
another in Dover, backed by letters
to the transport ministers of all EEC
countries warning them of the danger
to foreign nationals using the Bridge
route.
By now M.P. Crouch was heavily
backing the by-pass campaign, though
not condoning the civil disobedience.
As a result the Transport Ministry
sent an envoy down in September to
report on the A2. Lewis and Pur-
chese sustained the pressure on
Crouch by demonstrating the weight
of support for their cause amongst
his constituents. Crouch may not
have liked their methods-—but he
couldn’t ignore the villagers’ message.
In the same month Lewis and
Purchese placed advertisements in