News

Dear Editor,

Re: Your Village Needs You!

Having read the story I feel that a few issues are misrepresented.

The Hawkinge Fun day is an annual event like any other village fete, it is a day for the local families to get together, share activities and meet others from their village.

This year due to the 40th anniversary of the film 'Battle of Britain' which was partly filmed in Hawkinge, it was decided to give a theme to this annual event and thereby hopefully attracting the interest of the younger generations.

I live in Hawkinge myself and have been very disappointed that, when Spitfires and Hurricanes do a fly over, kids don't even look up anymore, likewise you do not see many teenagers visiting the fantastically informative Battle of Britain museum.

I feel therefore that this is a great way for young families and young people to actually learn something about what happened in the exact place where the fun day is held during that fateful summer.

To say for people to go and visit the Battle of Britain Memorial is, in the real world, not something many youths will ever do out of themselves.

Although the title 'fun day' could perhaps have been better chosen, let's not forget the aim of this day and be positive about this event and try to ignite a spark of interest in this subject amongst our youth, rather than have this kind of negative outlook.

For kids it needs to be fun to be interesting, this is why they like to build model aircraft kits, and have colour charts with war planes, war flight simulators. Could these all be classed as disrespectful as well?

As a last point, it would always be nice for those who will financially gain from this event to show their respect, perhaps by donating to the local Battle of Britain charity, the Kent Battle of Britain museum.

Rob