William Gilbert Gardner

Known as Bill he was a renowned orchid grower. He married Marjorie Setterfield in Oct 1932.

Bill Gardner: “We had every explosive you could think of. I had a pass that allowed me to do anything. I would drive to the airfield in full evening dress with my car loaded with explosives. If the Jerries took over the airfield we were to blow the bloody lot up. Jerry was no fool, however. It would be lucky if we did survive. They would have found us. It was no joke. It was serious. It was frightening.”

In 1982 he was interviewed by Peter Williams for his TV programme Gherkin and Truffle go to War.

After the war Bill Gardner kept some explosives for use on his farm at Upstreet to blow up trees. He once set a booby trap to stop a thief stealing his broccoli but injured himself in the arms and groin when the trap went off.

In 1984, Bill Gardner's house, Garfield, in Green Road, Birchington, was sold to a Mr. Eric Griffiths. Mr Gardner was 77 at the time and had just moved into Turret Court nursing home at Westgate. The contents of his old house were put up for auction. An arsenal of detonators, explosives, cordite fuse and phosphorus grenades were found in the garage and garden shed.

Two hundred people were evacuated from neighbouring streets while bomb disposal experts made the area safe. The munitions were moved to Grenham Bay, Birchington, where they were destroyed by controlled explosion. A newspaper article of the time quotes Bill saying: "I didn't mean to cause a fuss but it was such a long time ago that I had forgotten about the buried explosives".