EXTRACTS FROM BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
No 140 February to March 2008

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SOCIETY EVENTS and NEWS	FRIENDS OF ST. LEONARDS CHURCH	TOWN AND AROUND
SOCIAL HISTORY	PLANNING MATTERS	CORRESPONDENCE
	ARCHIVE OF PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.

SOCIETY EVENTS and NEWS

Firstly, there are two important dates for your diary. The Annual General Meeting will now be held on 13 th May ( NOT 6 th May as in our current programme) at 7.00 pm in The Town Hall. We would also like to give advance notice that our annual Members' Lunch will be on Saturday 11 th October 2008 .

Regarding the A.G.M. we would particularly like to invite members to suggest topics for the Agenda. Please send them to The Secretary before 31st March at the address given below.

We would also like some more volunteers to join the Committee. We shall especially need some help for the team that arranges the winter talks. It is a very interesting but not too time-consuming job. Please will candidates contact the Secretary or any member of the committee as soon as possible..

Our talks continue on 12 th February when one of our members, Dr John Woodward, will give an illustrated talk entitled “The Muse Across the Marsh” describing the lives of a dozen well known authors who lived between Sandgate and Rye. On 26 th February we are in the same locality when Jo Kirkham, an historian, Town Councillor and former Mayor of Rye will talk about this fascinating town during the Middle Ages.

On 11 th March Bernard Mundel will relate some of his experiences at the German P.O.W. camp in Ashford while on 25 th March a famous puppeteer, Alan Stockwell, tells the story of his performances in front of children from many cultural backgrounds when he did a tour “From Borneo to Brazil and Beyond” at the behest of The British Council.

We would also like to remind members that their 2008/9 subscriptions (only £8 per address!) fall due on 1 st April. Please have the money ready for your deliverer when they call with the next Newsletter.

At our very well attended Christmas Open Evening there was a lively discussion of the problem caused by Aldi not apparently wishing to be part of our High Street and it was clear that this upsets many of our members.

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FRIENDS OF ST. LEONARDS CHURCH

Dates of concerts by The Salvation Army Band and Christine Stevenson, piano, will be announced soon.

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TOWN AND AROUND - HYTHE IN BLOOM

After five successful years - which have seen Hythe ablaze with colour from floral displays, HCS Committee members Tony Hill and Sally Chesters have decided to stand down as leaders. Sally will take a supporting role with Reg Belcourt, former Chairman of The Hythe Chamber of Commerce, as co-ordinator in chief. Thanks to a surplus from fund-raising activities last year, and a grant of £1,000 from H. T. C. this year Hythe will again have floral displays along Prospect Road and the High Street.  However, this will use all the reserves so, unless there is more generous funding from H. T. C. or more sponsorship, the future is uncertain.

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SOCIAL HISTORY

Our article in NL139 about The Unknown Warrior reminded Mike Umbers of some further details reported some ten years ago (NL85) when Hythe Civic Society asked the HQ of the Royal British Legion how the Remembrance Service took shape and what genius had had the idea of using the middle verse of Laurence Binyon's poem, making the line ‘ We will remember them' a refrain for the congregation?  The RBL told us ‘It was probably a committee'!  It was Lord Clarke of Saltwood who wrote ‘ Everything of value that has happened in the world has been due to individuals, not to committees, still less to governments.'  For once, we think, he was wrong, for the Committee which devised that format was surely inspired!  Yet it seems that its Members' names and the Minutes are lost.

We do however know more about the Cenotaph itself.  In 1919, Lloyd George asked Sir Edward Lutyens to design it, and he sketched it there and then in the PM's office.  It was a timber frame with a canvas and plaster cover and draped with three flags. Lutyens also suggested that this structure be named the Cenotaph: the empty tomb .  In July of that year 16,000 troops marched past it, but in 1920 it succumbed to wind and weather, and, by public demand, it was replaced with the stone obelisk we see now, in time for the unveiling by King George in the presence of the Unknown Warrior on the way to his interment in the Abbey.  Another local man present at the ceremony was the Grandfather of the late Frank Martin, a Gunner officer who was part of the Firing Party.

It had been planned that the grave of the Unknown Warrior would be closed after three days but the response of the people took the organisers completely by surprise. Once the ceremony was finished the thousands of people who had lined the streets began to queue to pass the Cenotaph. Most of them had brought wreaths or bunches of flowers to place at the base of the memorial. At least 40,000 people then passed through the Abbey before the doors were closed at 11.00pm an hour later than the scheduled closure time. The pilgrimage went on throughout the weekend and up to the time the grave was eventually closed a week later an estimated 1,250,000 people visited the Abbey.

The epitaph ‘Known unto God' was written by Rudyard Kipling, the unofficial Poet Laureate. A recent television programme told the story of his son John. Almost ironically his parents never knew how their boy died or where he was buried, and Kipling was particularly haunted by the thought that the enemy might have denied him treatment or deliberately mistreated him because of his name. He spent many of his later years scouring the battlefields in search of his son's grave. What the programme did not reveal was that in 1992 a researcher at the War Graves Commission discovered a clerical error, and a certain tombstone at Haisnes was changed to read:

Lt John Kipling, 27 September 1915, aged 18

and the badge of his regiment, The Irish Guards, was added.

Mike also writes that the Cenotaph was unveiled for a second time, by King George VI in November 1946, after the addition of the dates of the Second World War.  So far it has not included those who have died in combat since, but that may yet happen. Hythe has already pre-empted this idea with the ceremony in the Town Hall which precedes our public Remembrance Day service, and in which a commemorative wreath for victims of recent conflicts is placed on the original Gilbert Bayes figure of Victory recovered from the Canal after being vandalised. Last November's Service was particularly moving as those who have recently died and whose comrades are serving in danger still were also remembered.

The former Army Padre's original idea caught on, and many other countries have taken it up, although they almost universally commemorate The Unknown Soldier. It was surprising to read recently that the Americans have actually identified their Warrior, using DNA techniques!  This surely completely negates the anonymous principle which is at the very heart of the idea.

The Hythe Recorder of 1908 continues to provide some interesting contrasts with present experience. Apparently crime was relatively rare and almost completely confined to petty vandalism, mainly committed “under the influence” with an occasional breach of the peace. One of the paper's correspondents noted that in spite of the large number of hostelries in Hythe there had not been a single conviction for drunkenness in six months! Another significant difference lies in the huge amount of public works that were being undertaken by the Town authorities. A new water main was laid from Bluehouses, many roads were being tarred for the first time and new roads built such as Brockhill Road for the Sandling Estate. Tenders for the latter were received from over a dozen contractors. The winner, at £1591.12s 7d, was a local firm called Stickells and Reeve who “had the advantage of owning their own quarries and horses and carts.” The paper commented – “In a few years time we may expect several valuable houses to be erected on this road.” It is clear that the rapid development of the Town at this time was creating strong increases in rateable value which was in turn helping to fund local infrastructure.

The papers also record the appointment of Lord Brassey as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. The Mayor proposed sending a letter of congratulation which was seconded with the hope that he would take more interest in the area than his recent predecessors! This may in fact have been realised because when he became Earl Brassey in 1911 he took the courtesy title of Viscount Hythe and in 1913 he was made a Freeman of the Borough.

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PLANNING MATTERS

The Lydd Airport Action Group have announced that British Energy have now objected to the large scale development of Lydd Airport, mainly because Dungeness is amongst the top four sites being considered for the new nuclear build programme. It is therefore considered   that having an Airport so close to nuclear facilities presents an unnecessary risk . Partly due to this intervention, S.D.C. has postponed its formal consideration of the relevant planning applications until March or April

CORRESPONDENCE

We are known all over the world. You may be surprised to learn how many people visit our website (Bob Gayler who hosts it reckons HCS pages get about 100 hits a month) and they come from all over the world. A lot reach us via Google from people searching for information about their family, or Hythe contemporary history, often related to time spent here for military service, or publications (Richard Scarth's book, sadly out of print, has a lot of interest).

Whenever possible, we help with information from our archives or local knowledge gleaned from members, the Town archivist and local historian Miss Rayner.  One request that is taxing us hard is for information about Henry Mackeson, born in Deal in 1739, and one of his sons, William Mackeson who died in 1821 in Bath.  We have had lengthy exchanges with a lady in Australia who is the spouse of a direct descendant of William.  We have given her a lot of information about his brother Henry Mackeson, and Henry's son Henry Bean Mackeson and his descendants, but cannot find out anything about William. Even sorting the Henrys out has been difficult – we can now see the merits of numbering the generations I, II, III etc!  Our correspondent in Australia believes that William was a partner of Henry (II), and although he was born in Deal, his Will cites “This is the last Will and Testament (dated 1821) of William Mackeson of the Town and Port of Hythe…..Brewer, now residing at Bath….”  Other facts about William are that his four boys were born in Hythe and educated at Kings School, Canterbury.  The school records note William's profession as Brewer, formerly Surgeon.  But so far we have not found out any local references to him.

If any of our readers have any knowledge about William, and/or his father Henry (I), please let the Society know ( tel: 239587, or e-mail: hythecivicsoc@tiscali.co.uk ).

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ARCHIVE OF PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.

We have often referred to the excellent work done by volunteers in recording the personal recollections of some of Hythe's senior citizens and we shall occasionally bring you some extracts from these. One of the most vivid recollections was recorded by Mr H. A. (Bert) Coe of Lynton Road in 1986 when he was 82. The tape of this interview was transcribed by Mrs Ann Hurd and will form part of the HCS archive.

He starts by talking about what we know as the Fishermen's Beach and says: “…….during the first World War some of the buildings that are there now were erected by the Royal Naval Air Service for the purpose of manning what was known as a balloon base. Now in those days there was chain that stretched right across the channel from England to France, right to the bottom of the sea. It was held on the surface by the glass balls that you can still see in antique shops in nets. There were literally millions of them. The rough seas could break them away and we boys used to smash them on the beach by the hundred. There were two openings [ in the chain ] through which all ships had to go and they were constantly manned by destroyers from the Dover Patrol. Overhead flew the dirigibles affectionately called Queen Bees, from Capel, spotting for U-boats and the balloon base aforementioned worked in conjunction with them. What it was, was, they had buoys hauled out into the sea several miles and the ordinary gas-filled balloons with a basket underneath held a crew who used to be out there with telescopes and binoculars working with the dirigibles in U-boat spotting Wonderful times, and some of those buildings are still there.”

In 1913 Hythe was visited by the sea in the greatest catastrophe that ever has occurred from the sea in Hythe in living memory. It was at Easter time, we had a hurricane and there were no houses there then. just a tower and at the back of the wall in the road was a huge dip and its still there. And the houses that have been built there now (somewhat erroneously in my opinion - probably the owners are of the same mind now) they go right down into this dip and their garages are 10 feet below the level of the ground…… But at this particular time the hurricane drew the shingle out from under the wall from St Leonard's Road to Stade Street and left it suspended in the air and in consequence it collapsed, the sea broke through, smashed the road to pieces and in St. Leonard's Road. as an instance. it reached almost to Windmill Street. And it flowed down roads like Cobden Road, Ormonde Road…….. It flooded Stade Street as far as the bank. Now that bank, to me, is full of interest because it's a shingle bank and its part of the banks of shingle that [ once ] formed the inlet to the harbour……. Anyway, the whole of this road wall collapsed and it was really dreadful, and it took years to repair because in those days everything had to be done with tides, by hand…. they had huge hammers which they used to wind up and knock these pilings in but it was all sheer hard work that did it and it took a long time. We've never had anything quite like that before but it is always liable to happen……… If ever such a thing happened again, we've got ourselves to blame for it. We had ourselves to blame for it then for why on earth they wanted to build those immense houses. literally on the beach instead of about 50 yards back, and build walls around them and build them on solid foundations. beats me. But they will go in time because the sea gets more immense because the water content of this earth is always increasing by virtue of the north and south icebergs. snows, etc and they all flow south”. ( Interesting comment foreshadowing current climate concerns – Ed.)

Bert's reminiscences continue…  “Anyway, coming back to Hythe we proceed along as far as Four Winds Café. Now Four Winds Cafe is built on solid concrete foundations that were put there prior to 1913 by Mackeson's Brewery. The intention was to build either a hotel, or just a pub perhaps, but they are still there underneath. And when they decided against building it, in consequence of this [storm ] damage I've no doubt, they filled it up with broken glass from the brewery - tons and tons and tons of it are underneath there. One day, somebody found a gold coin among the glass. Then it became known as the Hythe Gold Rush and I believe there were over a hundred coins, half sovereigns and sovereigns found among that glass, chiefly by the sons of the fishermen of Hythe who lived in four cottages where Stade Court now stands. They were really rough old cottages but then their life was really rough; they lived on the sea, by the sea [and] leaned up against some old wooden shelter when it was too bad to go to sea”.

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