An audio/visual exhibition to remember the Royal Marines bombing in 1989 has opened at Dover Museum.
Eleven Empty Spaces records the events of September 22 of that year, when 11 members of the Royal Marines School of Music Staff Band were killed by a bomb, planted by the IRA in the Deal barracks recreation room.
The name is from the Royal Marines band’s emotion-charged march through Deal a week after the bombing, leaving empty spaces which would have been filled by their comrades.
Eleven Empty Spaces takes the form of 30 interviews with people involved with the bombing and its aftermath, including Lt Col Richard Dixon, then Commandant of the Royal Marines in Deal, various ex-Royal Marines still living in the area, Marianne McNicholas, Mayor of Deal in 1989, and Malcolm Mitchell, editor of the Mercury at the time.
It also features scores of dramatic photographs, many supplied by the East Kent Mercury.
The exhibition has been put together by Lt Col Mike Martin, Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Royal Hampshire Regiment at Dover’s Connaught Barracks between 1981-82, and Linda Mews, administration officer at Dover Museum, who has managed the project.
Eleven Empty Spaces is at Dover Museum until October 2, after which it is planned to use the exhibition’s panels at schools and other venues in Deal, including the town hall.
For a full story about the exhibition, see this week's East Kent Mercury.