23/01/2012 Inside Out South East

Could Kent and Sussex strike it rich? Or are the risks to get at

And the extraordinary story of how the people of Sandwich helped as

thousands of men were saved from the Holocaust.

My father spoke a lot about how, when you've been ostracised and

made to feel as if you were dirt, to come to a country where people

don't know you, and are just welcoming - I think that restores

some faith in humanity. I'm Natalie Graham with untold

stories, closer to home. From all round Kent and Sussex, this is

Hello, tonight we're in Sandwich in Kent at the ancient courtroom which

has witnessed 400 years of justice. I'll be back here later. But first

- you may not know it, but underneath us, hundreds of metres

below the ground rock of Kent and Sussex, lies a valuable resource.

Now, local councils must decide whether to allow companies to

extract it, using a controversial new method known as "fracking".

Glenn Campbell reports. For some, it's a dream come true.

You can't comprehend, really. You can't imagine it. I mean it must be

like lottery winners. For others, it's a nightmare

scenario. The worst-case analysis is we will

have explosions, we will have burn- outs, we will have our water

contaminated It's big money in the USA, and now

it's arrived here in the UK. It's already happening in Lancashire,

and now Kent and Sussex could be the next drilling sites.

But what are they drilling for? Well, it's natural gas. And the

extraction method is called "fracking". And it's somewhat

controversial. It's Friday morning in Deal, and

Geoff Ellis is a gas man on his first call of the day. Geoff's been

a gas engineer all his working life. In the past few years, he says he's

seen gas prices on the rise, whilst gas supplies dwindle.

I've been to homes where people have literally had to turn the

heating off, and said they're giving their kids their coats to

put on indoors. That's sometimes how bad it's got. The feedback I'm

getting is definitely that everyone's feeling the pinch.

But here's the irony. Right under the house where Geoff is making his

first call of the day, hundreds of metres down there are actually huge

reservoirs of natural gas. To explain what lies beneath, and

why it's generated such interest, we asked local geologist Alasdair

Bruce to play prospector. Well, we're basically looking at a

structure of the geology of the South East. So we have the chalk,

this wonderful cliff here which goes down quite a way beneath our

feet. We then have a very thin layer of gault clay. And then

beneath that are the roof shales. This is the target rock. This is

the rock that they're after. And if you want to come and have a look at

this, this is a thin layer of coal. Like the kind of stuff you put on

your fireplace. And this is the remains fro 300 year-old bark, look,

there are the scales on the side of this massive tree that grew 300

million years ago, that's quite something.

Those 300 million year-old deposits of shale could be packed full of

gas, and now a new process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking,

allows us to capture the gas and pump it to the surface. Here's how

it works. The drill bores 1.5 kilometres down,

and then horizontally into the shale. Tiny explosions fracture the

rock, and then sand, water and chemicals force open the cracks, so

gas is released to flow up the shaft.

This picturesque village near Sandwich is one of the places where

they want to start drilling. The company behind the proposed venture

is called Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd, and they're hoping there's cash to

be made in Ash. Big pockets of natural gas...

The Richards live in an ordinary house. But one day last spring,

they received an extraordinary letter.

Coastal Oil and Gas wrote to Jack and Margaret, asking for permission

to drill an exploratory borehole on their land. Their aim? To strike

gas. You're going to get some free gas,

aren't you? Be nice if we did! Had the central heating done six months

ago. We might be rich one day! This is Jack and Margaret's plot of

land. It's about the size of three football pitches. But even if there

is a reservoir of gas under his feet, Jack's not going to make

millions. Why? Well, unlike the USA, here in the UK the Government makes

the profits. If gas is found here, Jack will be paid for renting his

land, and after it's all been extracted he'll then go back to

growing asparagus. As we import more and more gas from

abroad, we are now looking closer to home to meet our energy demands.

We are going to need natural gas to keep the lights on. If it isn't

going to be gas from here, then it will be gas from elsewhere in the

world. So why are we exporting money and jobs to other countries

when we need every bit of help that we can get here in the UK?

Of course, one of the advantages of gas fracking in Kent and Sussex is

that we wouldn't have to rely on those all the time. Foreign

shipments of expensive gas from places like Qatar and Algeria.

advantages from this region is that you get jobs and money from people

employed in that industry. You get substantial gas and oil extraction,

which is good from the point of view of the supply of energy. It

reduces energy prices, which is really important given the cost of

filling up the tank these days. And there's also the potential benefit

in terms of getting tax receipts to the Exchequer.

So there's the argument for gas fracking. Lower energy bills, more

local jobs, and extra cash for the Government's coffers. But why are

so many people opposed to it? The anti-fracking lobby in deal are

swelling in ranks and organising themselves for a fight. As far as

they are concerned, when it comes to gas fracking, the negatives far

outnumber the positives. Yes, you know, there would be jobs,

it will regenerate the area. How exciting! And it was only as I

started to inform myself about it, which I did, as I care a lot about

clean energy, that I was shocked to find out how damaging and dangerous

it is. I think it is a threat to all our futures.

So, what are the risks? Well, first off, fracking needs water. A lot of

it. In fact, four Olympic swimming pools per frack. And here in the

South East, we're officially described as water-stressed. Or, to

put it another way, Kent is as dry as Tunisia.

Then, there's another worry. As well as using a lot of water,

fracking also uses a lot of chemicals. In America, there have

been cases of drinking water being contaminated with, amongst other

things, methane gas. Now, the aquifer is so important to us here

in Kent because we use it to extract our water. Something like

80% of our water comes from this ground stored material, this water.

So any potential problem to that is one thing we need to be very

careful of. $$ YELLOW Worst-case analysis is we

will have explosions, we'll have burn-outs, we'll have our water

contaminated. Then you are going to have constant noise. Truck visits -

estimated on the American sample, per well, are around 6,000. You

imagine that on our little roads here. I'm not talking about little

lorries, I'm talking about the biggest trucks you can get on the

road. And as if that lot isn't bad enough,

now fracking has been linked to seismic activity.

Everyone remembers the Folkestone earthquake. But it couldn't happen

here againcould it? You see, here in Kent, as well as

sitting on natural gas, we are also slap-bang in the middle of an area

of unstable geology. It's the rock that gave us the

Folkestone earthquake, unfortunately, a few years ago. So

again, there's a danger whereby if you're fracturing this target rock

with explosives or whatever other methods, you may well aggravate the

systems underneath. So there is the potential for earthquake swarms.

Can you say to the people watching this, the people of Kent and Sussex,

that we won't be having earthquakes because of the gas fracking that

might happen here? I would say that it would be very, very unlikely and

it would be imperceptible. Concerns about its safety mean

fracking has been banned in France, suspended in Lancashire and brought

to court in the US. But Kent County Council thinks fracking might be

part of Kent's future. At last month's planning meeting, they said

Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd could explore the potential for fracking.

So, what does a finished bore hole look like? Well, across the county

border in Sussex, tucked away in woodland near Haywards Heath, I

found this recently completed bore hole, ready and waiting for the gas

drill bit to arrive. You will have one of these drilling rigs perhaps

spread every five square miles. they wouldn't be at all intrusive.

As we can see from here, there's a lot of empty space in the UK.

But one drilling rig every five square miles, that is still a lot

of drilling rigs. Well, five square miles is quite a

bit, actually. You would not be able to see one from another.

But the question we need to be asking ourselves is will fracking

be in the long-term interests of our region?

The shale gas, once we've got it all up, is finished. It's over.

Nothing for our grandchildren or great grandchildren. The wind, the

sea, the sun will always be there. This is the exact same gas that's

underneath the North Sea and that transformed the British economy. It

saved our bacon in the 1980s. The amount of natural gas underneath

the ground here in the UK is estimated to be at least twice the

size of the North Sea. In reality, how near are we to gas

fracking in the South East? Well, the Sussex test site is ready and

waiting to be put into operation. As for Ash in Kent, last month

Coastal Oil and Gas won their application to drill a test bore

hole to explore the depth and extent of the gas reserves. If they

hit gas they'll have to re-apply for full drilling permission. And

that's when Jack will start seeing the money come rolling in he hopes.

It is Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday, but the Royal -- the Rolls

and which played in that period of history never gets told. This time

help save thousands of Jews from certain death.

It was sheer luck or misfortune who got out and who did not make it.

It became apparent to most of us, how lucky we had been. How very

To you and I this looks like an ordinary industrial estate on the

outskirts of Sandwich. But this land has a little known history

that matters a great deal to huge number of people around the In 1939,

this was a derelict military base called the Kitchener Camp - named

after Viscount Kitchener, the talismanic face of the most famous

recruitment poster of all time. It was a relic of the First World War.

But just before the outbreak of the Second World War it enjoyed a new

lease of life when it became a home for thousands of German and

Austrian men. But these men went soldiers, they were refugees

desperate to escape. The lives of more than 4,000 men were saved by

the Kitchener Camp. And yet there's precious little sign that it ever

existed. So how did so many German and Austrian men end up in this

corner of England just before the Second World War? How do the locals

react? What happened to all the men once war broke out? And why do so

few people today know the extraordinary story of the

Monica Lowenberg's father would not have got out of Nazi Germany if it

hadn't been for the Kitchener Camp. Today she's come to see what's left

of a place that so warmly welcomed him more than 70 years ago. They

didn't speak any English, the boys, and yet the local people invite

them over for an afternoon tea. When you have come from a place

when you are made to feel as if your debt, to come to a country

where people don't know you and are not Jewish and not just people

living in the local area, welcoming you, I think that the stores some

faith in humanity. Only a few of the youngest refugees are still

alive today. Men like Felix Burnell And Monica's father Ernest

Lowenberg And Harry Rossney. Harry was one of the first to come to the

Kitchener Camp. He was 19 and had spent his entire teenage life

living in fear of the Nazi regime. One took care not to be noticed.

the night of the 9th of November 1938, the persecution came to a

head. The Nazis smashed up Jewish homes and businesses leaving

pavements strewn with broken glass. It came to be known as

Krystallnacht or "crystal night". We were lucky. We were advised to

stay home and keep quiet. Don't go out. But my father, he was taken to

a concentration camp. Thousands of Jewish men over 18 were arrested

and thrown into one of three concentrations camps - Buchenwald,

Saxonhausen and Dachau. Quite a few never returned because they were

murdered. The ones who managed to get out could only do so under the

promise that they would leave Germany. Felix's father didn't need

any more convincing Every Jewish man was given the same ultimatum.

He said, there is no future in Germany. Thousands had no choice

but to leave their families behind and flee to a foreign land. The

belief was the wives and children would escape from the nursery

regime at a later date. No one thought they would be harmed --

Nazi regime. People firmly believed it was only a matter of time before

they were reunited with their families. If you had cash or

connections, getting out of Germany wasn't a problem. But for those

without prospects, money or relatives abroad, the doors to

other countries were firmly shut. But wealthy American and British

Jews wanted to help. They donated money to the Central British Fund

for German Jewry, which was frantically searching for somewhere

to house thousands of men. Clare Ungerson lives in Sandwich and has

been researching how the Kitchener Camp was chosen. It was all down to

an architect called Ernest Joseph. He remembered that there was this

first world war camp in Sandwich because he had designed, when he

was younger, the dining and cooking facilities. But the intention of

the camp organisers was that the camp should Ready howls men who

otherwise would never have got here -- should really howls. Shop

keepers, commercial artists, they would never have caught here if it

hadn't been for the kitchen the camp. And that means that they

would have been slaughtered -- for the Kitchener Camp. Refugees began

to arrive in March 1939 and were immediately put to work making the

camp habitable so that more men could come. The whole place reeked

of neglect. Things had to be done to bring it up-to-date. We made

roads. As soon as we got it ready, 40 people could come out and live

there. The camp was organised with typical German efficiency. They

even found time to produce their own magazine. It shows what life

was like in the camp and also reveals how grateful the men were

for the warm reception they got from the people of Sandwich.

were told to any speed camera spoken to, keep your hands to

yourself -- To only speak when you're spoken to. They were very

typically British, in a way. There were an awful lot of people in

Sandwich who had probably never been to London, and suddenly there

were all these cosmopolitans on the edge of Sandwich. Hilda Keen's

parents ran the Golden Crust Bakery. When she came home from school one

day it was full of polite but demanding German-speaking customers.

They said to my mother that she should make proper coffee, she

should pride ground coffee -- by ground coffee. Everyone who came

here, they were lovely people. gave concerts, the people of

Sandwich came to our concerts. We had language courses, there was

always -- always someone who could speak the language. The men held

their free concerts at the camp. Another Sandwich schoolgirl, Nancy

Palmer, remembers them fondly. remember going into this hall, and

all the chairs are set up, and the stage was possibly made of trestle

tables or something. Nothing posh about it at all. Then resistance

came onto the stage, about six of them -- the musicians. To hear

classical music was wonderful. had all sorts of talented people at

the camp, and one of them was a photographer. Stella Curzon visited

the Kitchener Camp too. Her father was the postmaster. Today Stella

has decided to tell her grandchildren all about it. Do you

think he enjoyed his time in the camp? To be safe was such a big

thing. Stella got out of Austria five days before the war started.

She was allowed to come to England thanks to two local ladies who were

teaching her father English at the camp. They had heard that he needed

somebody to guarantee a home to his daughter as a means of getting a

visa to live in England. So these wonderful ladies of the junior Home

and my mother came over -- these wonderful ladies offered me a home.

Another person who made it safely to Sandwich was a Mrs Rosenberg.

Her husband had sent a short message to Germany telling her: Go

to the Golden Crust Bakery, Sandwich. Why parents gave up their

bedroom for her and her husband to come and stay with her -- my

parents. We children all pushed up into our beds to make room for

everybody. Just like the Rosenbergs, Felix and Ernest had been lucky.

Their Jewish school had 200 pupils wanting to relocate to England. In

August 1939 they went to the British Consulate in Berlin to have

their passports stamped with a transit visa. Half of them got

stamped, the other half was supposed to get it in a format

weeks. We left Germany and 29th August 1939. War broke out five

days later. For the hundred boys left behind, escape was now

impossible. The remaining hundred boys never made it and perished in

the Holocaust. There was no rhyme or reason for it. For the Kitchener

Camp men still trying to get their families out of Germany, the

situation was now desperate. others, married men left their

families behind, very morose, very depressed. Eva Mendelsohn's father

was one of those men. A former German soldier, he was now trying

everything he could to get his family to England. But the Nazis

were about to take them east to Poland. Eva's mother decided to go

alone, believing her children might still have a chance of escaping.

She knew them in certain death, and that is why she didn't do it like

it. People had to plead with her to leave us behind, but she did it.

Many mothers did not, and those children perish. Eva and her sister

Miriam were hidden until after the war when they were reunited with

their father in England. Records show that her eldest sister Esta

was killed at Auschwitz in 1944 at the age of 18. Her mother had been

murdered there two years earlier. She gave me my life twice, and my

sister. Once when we are born, and this time when she left us behind.

I think it is the greatest thing she could have done. In total, 572

children of the men at the Kitchener Camp never escaped the

Nazi regime. According to detailed records more than half were

murdered in the Holocaust. What became of the others is unknown. By

the time German bombs were pounding the south east in the summer of

1940, the Kitchener Refugee Camp was empty. The British Government

had decided that having 4000 foreign men on the coast was a bad

idea. So the refugees were given the chance to join the British Army.

Felix, Harry and 3,000 others signed up. I was first in and last

out. Six and a half years I worked in the British Army. Because it was

essential the Nazis and Germany had to be defeated. Ernest went to

Leeds to work in an aircraft factory. And I spent the rest of

the war there, helping to build Spitfires, which I'm quite proud of.

It helped to bring about victory in a small way. Perhaps the reason the

Kitchener Camp isn't remembered is because it was a short-lived

transit camp. A stepping stone, allowing people to cross from

danger to safety. And stepping stones are easily forgotten once

you've reached the other side. But without the Kitchener Camp, there

is no doubt thousands of lives would have been swept away. I was

born the day I came to England. Really reborn. I do appreciate and

I do not forget that the British allowed me to come to this country

and gave me the chance to save myself from certain death. It is a

sad place in many ways, but also, it gave us the future. When I'm

older I'm definitely going to speak about it with my children so they

know how lucky they are. And where they've come from initially. Capel-

le-Ferne roundabout Holocaust memorial time, one does think about

it a lot. -- round about. Now, if you want any more

information on tonight's show, you can visit our local Kent or Sussex

websites, and even watch the whole show again by clicking on our

iPlayer. Coming up next week: Is the health of airport workers being

put at risk here in the South East? We have got to make sure there will

preserving that the health of our workers at the airport. Men get

eating disorders too, but is enough being done?