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MIKE HAS PLANS FOR CANS AT WAR AND PEACE AND THAT'S FLAT
BAPTIST minister Rev Mike Stanbrook is a passionate rock and
roller. He's leader of the Rock community church at Chattenden, near Rochester,
and devotes most of his spare time to Moby Dick, the 97-year old steamroller he
keeps at Chatham Historic Dockyard.
Now Mike plans to re-enact part of his steam machine's
wartime role as a can crusher, at the War and Peace Show, held at The Hop Farm,
Paddock Wood, in July.
 The re-enactment was inspired by a picture in the Medway
Messenger of Mike's steamroller flattening tin cans during the Second World
War, when it was owned by Tunbridge Wells Rural Council. It was an early form
of recycling. The cans were later melted down to make armaments.
"I recognised the steamroller as mine straight away," said
Mike. "Not least because it carries the registration number FX7014.
"She was built in Strood by Aveling and Porter in November
1913 and sold to a company in Dorchester. In 1922 she was sold to Tunbridge
Wells Rural District Council and still has their name plate attached."
The can crushing photograph came from the War and Peace
collection of glass negatives owned by the Show's organiser Rex Cadman, and
when he learned the steamroller was still in Kent, and in good working order,
he invited Mike to re-enact its wartime role.
"It's an example of what was happening on the home front
during the War," said Rex, who owns a pair of Aveling rollers used in Normandy
after D-Day. "Besides the display will be great fun for visitors. We are
amassing cans as fast as we can for crushing."
Rev Stanbrook inherited his interest in steam engines from
his father, who was a mechanical design engineer, and supervised the pipe work
for steam boilers in a number of Kent power stations, including Kingsnorth. 
"He used to take me to rallies in the 1960s and 70s," he
said. "Then a friend of mine at a church in Surrey got me interested in the
Hollycombe Steam Collection at Liphook, where I learned to drive a Burrell
traction engine.
"When I moved to Medway I became involved with the people
who run the steam engines at the Dockyard, never thinking that I would end up
owning one. But I received an unexpected inheritance, and Moby Dick came onto
the market, so I bought it.
"I am thrilled to be taking her to the War and Peace Show.
In addition to the can-crushing display I'll give her a trundle round the show
each day, so lots of people will be able to see her."
...end
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