A Successful Trip To Dover

There is a lovely old photograph taken about 1942 of a bookshop in Dover. The shop was called the "Frontline Bookshop". It was aptly named for it lay right in the way of the incoming German shelling and the photograph in question shows the little shop standing firm amidst the rubble of nearby shops that didn't make it. I am pleased to say that i have managed to locate the place where the little bookshop stood. It was No. 173 Snargate Street, Dover. Though Snargate Street still exists much of it has been redeveloped and sadly the little bookshop that stood defiant throughout the war is no more, the site being occupied by Hertz Car Rentals today. We will publish the photograph in due course on our Channel Guns page with the modern view today but this high lights the problems of researching front line towns such as Dover, some 75 years on. You get a sense of disappointment when immersed too long in wartime photographs  only to be confronted by the reality of the 21st Century; time does not stand still.
Our trip was most productive and has yielded alot more material for this website but as always, there is more to do and another trip will be needed later in the summer. For anyone contemplating a virtual trip back into history then Dover is a great place to start for it is a place steeped in the defensive history of Southern England.