Thank you Bryn. Yes, we must have been around Highstead at the same time. It was always known to us and our adults as the 'Chalk Hole', nothing so posh as 'Quarry'! We were forbidden to go anywhere near either quarry - and had to swear on our Mother's grave never to do so - and used to go home plastered in chalk mud.................. We Tunstall boys used to sometimes meet Sittingbourne boys in the old quarry. They came from the South Avenue/Shortlands Rd. general area. Highstead was about the limit of their 'Known World' as Smeed Deans works was the limit of ours. We never had any 'gang warfare' trouble. It was one of the Sittingbourne boys that got killed - he was from the Council School. The army destroyed the engine-house in the old pit leaving a big, vertical single-cylinder steam engine standing exposed in the open air - it was a great shame - it was a lovely thing. In those days the water table was higher and the railway from the second quarry ran on a low causeway between the tunnel and the old engine-house. They were not deep lakes. It was, looking back, quite beautiful down there, with the bushes, the water and the silver birch trees. After that boy was killed we had to swear to a police inspector never to go near the quarry again. This we all did, and obeyed him for, certainly, a whole week. What we never did, ever, was climb up on to the mound of flints the boy was on when the grenade exploded.................... I could take you to within a few feet of the spot - now, so clearly was the incident imprinted in my mind. (Doubtless it's all overgrown now) As soon as the war finished and the massive, national rebuilding scheme started they worked day and night for several years, but only dynamited the chalk face during daylight hours. On a wet rain-filled night I would lie awake and listen to "TAY" struggling to get her heavy train moving from the face. Her cracking exhaust bark would echo and reverberate as she started, then slipped to a standstill only to start again and again.