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June 2024 June 2024

FUNERAL TRIBUTES

The family of Christopher are most grateful for the support
given to them by members of the village community and
also for the fabulous attendance at his memorial service.

Lieutenant Commander Christopher Maunder MBE RN(ret)
Father was born in Hampstead, London on
30 October 1930. He was the youngest of
three, Derek his older brother and Pat, who
he always referred to as his ‘big sis’. After
Hampstead the family moved to Kent and
settled in Snodland, a village near
Maidstone. It was Snodland that formed the
backdrop to Dads wartime years, and
where his father owned a shop and a small
printers. Father attended Maidstone
Grammar School making the journey twice
a day by steam train. This probably set the
foundation of his fascination and love for all
things steam powered that continued for
the rest of his life.
As a teenager he would also help out on the
farms owned by family friends which were
located in the local area.
Father, in a similar way to all children who lived in the areas surrounding London
during these wartime years, spent much time watching the enemy planes pass
overhead enroute to bombing London. The dogfights of the Battle of Britain
and later the London Blitz formed the backdrop to his early teenage years.
It was, however, later in the war, with the commencement of the V-1 rocket
campaign by the Germans against London and the South-East, that he got to
experience enemy action rather closer than he would have wished.
In July 1944 Father, now aged 13, experienced a very close shave. A V-1
targeting London had managed to fly into the mooring cable of a local
barrage balloon which was protecting the Maidstone area. Father was in a
nearby field assisting with the haymaking and enjoying the excitement of
seeing a V-1 pulsing its way across the sky. He witnessed it become snagged on
the mooring cable. It descended down the cable and could have had

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