i Q “Be positive: never take no for
 an answer - and never let up, other-

 wise support W111 fizzle out.
A7 Lewis and Purchese admit to a
l sense of unreality now that the 14
jg years of effort are finished. “When

walked into Bridge the day the
 traffic was switched away, it was like
l 'ce and the other side of the look-
I ing glass,” says Purchese. Lewis just
 felt completely flat. “I couldn’t
 believe that we’d actually done it.
p Even a fortnight later my wife said,
~ ‘Yon’re still planning that wretched

 road’. And it was true .. . .”

i,  Five months after the by-pass
i opening, Bridge is a different place.
 It may not yet resemble that sepia-
} tinted Twenties’ postcard, but the
B‘ transformation is tangble. Next to
» e church the Roses’ cottage shines

k with new Snowcem. Hawkins’s news-
» agents has its long promised face-lift.
3; So have the two hairdressers’ shops
an
» d a scattering of little cottages
g closest to the narrow section of the
village.
J And was it just a diplomatic ges-
F
 ture on somebody’s part that Bridge
We has just received an award for the
F best kept large village in Kent ?Q