Apparently
it was as long ago as the fifteenth century that collective nouns emerged as
being all the rage. We are all familiar
with a Gaggle of Geese, a School of Fish and a Pride of Lions but many equally
colourful terms have been lost over the superseding centuries. Few
of us would be equally familiar with a Smack of Jellyfish, a Business of
Ferrets or an Impatience of Wives. I found
myself particularly taken with a Rascal of Boys and could almost see the exasperating
bunch of them – I certainly could hardly wait to resurrect a Worship of
Writers! Along with a Gang of Labourers
and a Sentence of Judges it does seem an inordinately apt piece of jargon.
Writers, would-be-writers
and once-were-writers are everywhere of course but from time to time over the
years it is those of Kent I find myself to be particularly drawn to. The county has spawned a great many
outstanding wordsmiths over the centuries.
Despite Mr Jingle’s observation in The Pickwick Papers,
that Kent was primarily known for its apples, cherries, hops and women, that is
not altogether accurate.
Dickens was
the first local writer of note that I became familiar with and this was
precisely because so much of his work was set in the countryside around me, the
towns and villages I already knew well and his characters reliably could be
found favouring the very same taverns and ale houses supported by members of my
own family. This admiration of all
things to do with Dickens was fostered by local schools so that there were few
North Kent children who were not completely comfortable with the early life of
Dickens by the time they were eight or nine years old even if they were not yet
mature enough to read him for themselves.
Primary school excursions in the final term of the school year had
already ensured that most of us knew about the little row of infant graves in
the churchyard of St James Church, Cooling that we thereafter identified as
Pip’s Graves, giving us relatively painless access into Great Expectations and
we certainly became more and more familiar with A Christmas Carol each year at
the appropriate time. So firmly was
Charles Dickens linked with the local area that I was surprised as I grew older
to find him also inextricably connected to London and even more startled to
learn he had actually completed David Copperfield in Broadstairs which to me at
the time seemed a great distance from the Thames Estuary.
Eventually I
discovered John Buchan also favoured Broadstairs as a writing environment and
produced The Thirty-Nine Steps whilst convalescing there. In fact the steps down to the sea from North
Foreland provided inspiration for the title.
Considering all that maybe it
wasn’t too bad a place despite all the unpleasant things my mother had to say
about it but it was never going to be listed among my favourites. I was always much more comfortable in
Ramsgate and Margate so when I found that well known writer, Frank Muir who
I greatly admired, was actually born in Ramsgate I of course immediately read
his autobiography – A Kentish Lad.
Later I learned that he was in error with the title and it should have
been A Lad of Kent since Ramsgate is definitely east of the Medway. Perhaps that simply didn’t matter.
Another Man
of Kent, Arthur Thorndike, lesser-known brother of the famous actress Sybil
hailed from Rochester and used the Romney Marsh as the setting for his Doctor
Syn books. I have never read these
books but apparently Dr Syn was the vicar of of Dymchurch parish by day and the
leader of a gang of smugglers by night, and known as The Scarecrow. I’m told that in Dymchurch there is still a
Day of Syn festival during each August of even numbered years where locals in
costume re-enact scenes from the books.
They sound worth reading don’t they?
Over time I
have become increasingly fond of the great Romney Marsh and delighted that it
is really and truly part of Kent, if somewhat distant from Northfleet and
Gravesend. I fully expected to find
that one of my favourite childhood writers, Monica Edwards was actually from
one of the little marshland villages and disappointed to learn that she was in
fact born in Belper which is near Derby.
She certainly wrote very convincingly of the area so I refuse to believe
that she had no connection with the marsh at all.
With Monica still
lingering in mind it was reassuring to learn that Dymchurch was a favoured
holiday destination for E (Edith) Nesbit and that she lived for several years
at Halstead where she first devised the idea for The Railway Children. The local station was originally called
Halstead for Knockholt and became Knockholt in 1900. Although her writing for children is Edwardian
in nature for the majority of young readers then and now it is more than stimulating,
Edith herself caused a great deal of comment and gossip whilst living on the
Marsh. Her domestic situation would be
considered scandalous even by today’s standards but in the early nineteen
hundreds must have caused endless comment across the marshland villages. It is said that some time passed before St
Mary’s parishioners would allow her grave to be indicated in any way. This was a pity because by the time she died
the more disreputable aspects were well and truly in the past and she was
contentedly married to a decent, doting man, Thomas Terry Tucker, who gave her
his total love and attention. His
enduring love must have felt quite unfamiliar after years of marriage to Hubert
Bland who demanded a great deal and gave very little to the relationship other
than the children of his various mistresses some of whom were dutifully brought
up by the ever-faithful Edith.
Noel Coward
also lived on the marsh at one time but when his house was requisitioned by the
army during WW2 he moved on to St Margaret’s Bay, Dover having purchased a
house aptly named White Cliffs. He
eventually sold White Cliffs to Ian Fleming who used it as a weekend cottage
and did a fair amount of writing there.
Various references to Kent appear in his books including the local golf
club in Goldfinger, although renamed.
I very much
wanted to find writers with more direct links to Gravesend and I spent a lot of
time searching for them, largely without success. Strangely I even failed to find any writing
groups, get togethers for those interested in writing although there were
plenty of people who will help you with your writing if that’s what you want,
ever helpful and checking spelling and sentence structure. Do the residents of Gravesend and its
environs not encourage writers? It was
almost discouraging enough to turn me back in the direction of Dickens. But casting him firmly aside because he gets
altogether too much mentioning without really trying, I found that Joseph
Konrad meandered in and around the town when he was busy producing Heart of
Darkness and seemed in fact quite familiar with the place. The town is given more than a casual mention
in the book. That was immediately
heartening of course and I can’t think why I wasn’t aware of it when I first
read the book as a teenager, possibly I thought he was referring to another more
exotic Gravesend perhaps the one closer to New York.
Eventually I
came across Angela Young’s Hollow Victory which I rather enjoyed, particularly
her descriptive passages about the town and the river. I also enjoyed J.J. Irwin’s Once a Boy which
is a memoir about growing up in a house in Waterdales in the 1950s and full of
reminiscences that are immediately familiar to any of us growing up nearby at
the same time. Then I found all the
detailed booklets by Alex Pavitt concerning his own memories of the local area
of his childhood including fascinating history of the various streets and
shops. His photos and the illustrations
within add a great deal of extra interest to these jam-packed volumes. Lynda Smith’s book on Rosherville Gardens,
The Place to Spend a Happy Day is also an informative read.
Try as I might though I could find little or no fiction other than Hollow Victory mentioned above, which was disappointing. However, before I turned somewhat reluctantly back towards Dickens, I was somewhat comforted by the fact that Jennifer Barraclough, who grew up in one of what I most definitely regarded as the very grand houses on The Overcliff is still writing. She is most definitely from Gravesend and what’s more her last book was set on the marshes close to Gravesend and called You Yet Shall Die. I’m not completely sure what she is writing at the moment but it’s certain to be worth reading!
Really interesting, thanks Jean
ReplyDeleteReally interesting, thank you Jean
ReplyDelete