Hythe
September 2019 This newsletter is compiled and edited by David Cowell who is totally responsible for content. If you do not wish to receive these newsletters please email UNSUBSCRIBE to him at david@thesentinel.org.uk
What is plastic pollution? Plastic pollution is any plastic that ends up in the environment – from bottles and bags to less obvious sources like teabags and clothes. In the past 100 years humans have produced a lot of plastic. It's cheap, strong, light and versatile. So it's not surprising we're using tonnes of the stuff. All of it eventually ends up in the ground, in the sea and even in the air . Our plastic waste has invaded the highest mountains and deepest oceans. No one knows how long it will take to disappear – but at least hundreds of years.What is plastic pollution? Plastic pollution is any plastic that ends up in the environment – from bottles and bags to less obvious sources like teabags and clothes. In the past 100 years humans have produced a lot of plastic. It's cheap, strong, light and versatile. So it's not surprising we're using tonnes of the stuff. All of it eventually ends up in the ground, in the sea and even in the air . Our plastic waste has invaded the highest mountains and deepest oceans. No one knows how long it will take to disappear – but at least hundreds of years.
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This is the new Pilates' timetable and it will start Monday 2nd September, check out a couple of new venues and a few changes to classes and times. Any questions give Julie a call on 07825109670
Just click here to see all the planned bird walks
SANDGATE CREATIVE WRITING GROUP We meet on the fourth Thursday of every month at Sandgate Library from 1000-1200. There is a 'theme' for each month, but this is not compulsory and you are welcome to write a short story on any subject. Poetry welcome too! For more details please contact 07443 896422. 7
Support your local Farmers' Markets
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Great range of bread, pies, fruit & veg, meat, eggs, cheese, savouries and quiches, cakes, preserves and chutneys, gifts, jewellery, homewares and plants (stall holders may vary between markets).
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Sandgate Library is open Mon, Fri & Sat 9:30 1:00 and 9:30 - 5.00 Tues & Thurs (closed Wed). For more information call 01303 248563 (mornings only) Sandgate Library, James Morris Court, Sandgate High St. CT20 3RR
Why not hire the Chichester Hall for your children’s party, activity or event? Go to chichesterhall.co.uk/to-hire for more details
www.thefrenchpodcast.com www.facebook.com/thefrenchpodcast 8
No job too small Please call to discuss your needs If you have any photographs of the area either current or past do send them to me by email and I will feature them in future editions. If you just have prints do drop them round to Clyme House (see back page) and I will scan.
Hythe Farmers Market
Takes place on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month from 10am to 1pm. In the Methodist Church Hall, Chapel Street, Hythe. Parking is available nearby. For more information call Eric Chauvel Market Manager 0781 7521312 eric@thefrenchdelicatessen.co.uk 9
I am delighted to inform you that three electronic editions of The Sentinel are now published. We now produce a Sandgate, Hythe and a Newington version each month. If you would like to receive a copy of any please email me at:
david@thesentinel.org.uk and put the name of the version you require ie The Sentinel Hythe or The Sentinel Sandgate/Hythe etc in the subject line.
Over 55? this blog site might just be for you
To advertise in three The Sentinels with circa 3580 targetted readers and growing please email me at:
david@thesentinel.org.uk for a rate card. Thank you. 10
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If you have any comments to make about this publication please do email me. I would be very interested in the things you like and the things you don't like and the things you'd like to see included. Thank you.
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CRAFTS
2019 at The Grand, Folkestone Arts, Crafts & Vintage Fairs
Bank Holiday Monday 6th May (Nostalgia Day) Bank Holiday Monday 26th August (Old Timer’s Rally)
Arts & Craft Fairs
Sunday, 13th October ★ Sunday, 10th November Sunday, 8th December (Christmas Fair) Only quality goods hand-crafted by the stallholders on sale
®
FREE ENTRY 10am to 4pm www.caranoevents.co.uk CaranoArtsCraftsFairs @CaranoEvents
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The frustrating thing I find with diaries and notebooks is that I either don't have a pen or the pen I stick inside the book eventually breaks its spine but not anymore. The Bobino slim pen solves this problem, sitting comfortably either as a page marker or in the specially provided holder. I have pestered Clive and Helen at Artwrite for ages to stock them and now they do. Only ÂŁ5.99 they don't take refills but they last for years.
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Paul worked at Crundens and since its closure has provided this excellent service.
The editor of The Sentinel is also responsible for sending Hythe, Newington and Sandgate related event information to the Folkestone Herald. If you have an event you wish to publicise it is needed by Tuesday at 17:00. The information should appear in the edition two weeks later although it is not gauranteed.
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Support local events
WOW Design-led gifts and interiors 76 High Street Hythe Kent CT21 5AL 19
We are pleased to announce that BAFTA award winning Folkestone actress Jessica Hynes has agreed to be our special guest Judge. Jessica wrote and directed The Fight, which was filmed almost entirely in our seaside town.
If you can get a group of ten together then you will get one ticket free. Use the code MASC at either the box office or online. You can see details of the finalists at: http://thesentinel.blog/the-sentinelmagazine/ 20
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Folkestone and Hythe Cats Protection operates a Lost and Found service for anyone who's cat has gone missing, or if a stray cat has been found. Contact 0345 260 1253 for further information 22
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Celebrity Hythe – by golly, it does you good. by David Cowell The world celebrity is often used nowadays to categories the media manufactured, marketing executive created, over night success where the skills of the managing agency seem to far exceed those of its client. It is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as a famous person, especially in entertainment or sport. This falls far short of what I want this article to address so I looked further for a suitable definition and found it as a famous or well-known person and gives synonyms such as distinction, note, eminence, stardom. So that is where this article will travel to find some of the Hythe residents who Pencil drawing of Ken have been successful in their chosen fields both Colley by local artist Malc in the past and contemporaneously. Ritchie
At the start of the second world war, Hythe residents would have seen the familiar sight of Daphne du Maurier walking the byways of the township. Daphne, who was already receiving literary acclaim as the author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and two biographical works and her husband Tommy Browning lived in Hythe when he was posted to the Small Arms School as Assistant Commandant and they were given the Commandant’s House on Sir John Moore Avenue. The prospect of the impending slaughter prompted her to say that “we ought to give up trying to make money, trying to be successful, trying to live by the values of the world and get back to simplicity in all things, kindliness and simple faith……selfishness is the root of Daphne du Maurier’s house in Hythe all evil.” Today their quarters are divided into flats and a large part of the garden has been built over to house Sainsburys. In a letter to her sister Angela at this time Daphne wrote regarding the early days of the war in Hythe “It is heavenly here and I’m sure we should have loved it but for all this.” Then the following spring she wrote “This is a good place in the summer, anyway 24
for the children and they seem so happy that I see no point in suddenly upheaving yet awhile. The kitchen garden too, bursting soon with produce! But of course if raids start I should shift.“ By May 1940 Tommy had been posted elsewhere and Daphne and the girls, Tessa and Flavia, left Hythe for Hertfordshire.
Ken Colley
In 2010 the author of this article wrote, produced and performed in a production called Sandgate in People, Prose and Poems at the Chichester Hall. Hythe resident, the actor Ken Colley, generously agreed to play the part of the first narrator, the voice that leads the audience through the production. Ken did this with all the confidence and skill that 40 years in the business allows. It is very easy to think of Ken only as his appearance as Admiral Piett in two of the Star Wars’ films. He has the distinction of being the only actor, other than the main characters, to appear in more than one of the series and he still regularly makes appearance at Star Wars’ conventions where he is much sought after by the attendees. He has starred with many big names in the world of film prompting him to say that “in one year, I worked with Clint Eastwood, Gregory Peck, and David Prowse. I got a crick in my neck from always looking up toward the stars!”
Ken is also a seasoned stage actor who has performed in Shakespearian productions as well as regular appearances on television programmes. He directed Ben Shockley in the horror film Greetings in 2007. Ben, whose real name is David White, was born and grew up in Hythe too and has an impressive list of film and television credits to his name. In the audience on that night in June 2010 was a fellow actor and Sandgate resident George Irving who recently played the eponymous role in Julius Caesar at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. He is well known for the part of Doctor Anton Meyer in Holby City and Casualty. Following the 2010 production the two enthralled the group that adjourned to a local watering hole with their reminiscences of their early days in the business. When hearing a comment that the Guinness family had been good to Dublin, the ribald Irish author and 25
playwright Brendan Behan asked that those listening should remember that Dublin had also been good to the Guinness family. The same claim could be levelled at William and Henry Mackeson who opened their brewery in Hythe at the turn of the 19th century, A hundred years later the company introduced a milk stout for which their name is now synonymous. Although Whitbreads purchased the concern in the 1920s, brewing continued in Hythe until 1968 just a month before the company’s 300th birthday. Readers of a certain age will still remember the actor Bernard Miles telling us from our television screens that it "looks good, tastes good and, by golly, it does you good." The family vault can be seen at St Leonards Church and their buildings still sit at the western end of the High Street and now houses the popular antique and bric a brac shops. Their family home, The Maltings, has now been converted into apartments. They were probably the biggest employers in the area and underground tunnels provided the perfectly naturally refrigerated environment for storing the popular libation and served the local population well as an air raid shelter in the second world war. Like many businesses, the brewery prospered during the early 1800s as the military personnel used canal and martello towers to halt the threatened Napoleonic invasion that never happened. For most of his life, controversy surrounded Sir Francis Pettit Smith because of his claim that he invented the screw propeller and although the Hythe born inventor was one of a number who saw the alternative to the then ubiquitous paddle wheel, there is no doubt that Smith was the first to raise the necessary funds to take the idea from drawing board to full production. The son of Hythe’s postmaster, Francis Pettit Smith was born in the town on the 9th February,1808 and, as a boy, he made model boats and this interest accompanied him into his adult life. In 1836 he took out a patent as the result of his experimentation into propeller driven vessels. Cynicism accompanied his invention and it was not until Isambard Kingdom Brunel converted his ship, the Great Britain, from paddle wheel to propeller that it received popular support. This culminated in him being appointed the curator of the Patent Museum and in 1871 he was knighted. When the patent ran out on his invention he returned to farming and died in 1874. Brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey lived in Hythe until their late teens when they left for London. The former is a lyricist and producer and the latter a multi instrumentalist and when they met Skye Edwards at a party and 26
heard her sing, Morcheeba was born. They eventually signed to China Records and, in 1995, they released their debut record Trigger Hippy. A number of albums followed but in 2003 the band split up, citing creative and personal differences as the cause. They all went their separate ways but six years later they reformed and continue to perform together to this day with a dedicated Facebook and web site. If you do an iTunes search for Morcheeba you will find their song The Sea with Skye’s smoky voice creating a wonderfully evocative and captivating sound. It was written by the brothers whilst visiting Bar Vasa on the Sandgate Esplanade. No account of the people of Hythe would be complete without mention of the pivotal role played by the fortress that sits above the town and has done so for over a thousand years. Saltwood Castle and its occupants have made a significant contribution to local history over the centuries. A castle has been on or near the site since 488 CE but it was in 1170 that it achieved its first act of recorded notoriety. Owned by the King, Henry II, he had given it to a Baron, Ranulf de Bloc. At the end of that year, the four knights that murdered Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, are reported to have stayed at the castle the night before the deed was carried out. Following the assassination, the castle became the property of the Church but continued to be associated with the struggle between Church and State. An earthquake in 1580 made it uninhabitable and it was not until the 1800s that restoration work was carried out and the gatehouse has been occupied ever since. Luminaries such as Bill Deedes grew up in the Castle. Bill had the dubious distinction of being the only member of the Cabinet who was also the editor of a major daily newspaper (The Telegraph). Deedes would boast that a member of his family had been a parliamentarian every century since 1600. He was the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh’s hapless character William Boot in his novel Scoop and achieved even greater fame as the target of the satirical magazine Private Eye’s cutting humour in their Dear Bill series of articles which lampooned the husband of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. In 1955 the historian Kenneth Clark purchased the property and it has been in their family ever since having been inherited by his son Alan who was described by one fellow member of Parliament as "the most politically incorrect, outspoken, iconoclastic and reckless politician of our times". Since his death in 1999, his widow Jane has continued the family’s occupancy. So attractive an estate and building caught the eye of the senior Nazi officer, Hermann Göring who ordered the Luftwaffe not to bomb Hythe as 27
he wished to live in the Castle should they have successfully invaded this island. How differently things could have turned out! And finally, a famous Sandgate resident was H. G. Wells who, having rented two properties in the village, eventually built Spade House. Space does not permit more about Wells in this article but you can visit an exhibition about him at the Sandgate Library. Any article restricted by space runs the risk of offending by omission and should there be famous Hythe resident who you feel should be acknowledged do let me know. This article first appeared in Hythe Life, issue 3, published on the 2nd December, 2014
If you would like to submit an article or letter please email it to me. I will print almost anything as long as it’s not libellous, racist or unkind. Name must be supplied but can be withheld if requested. Please put your articles etc in plain text or Word and images should be in .jpg, .tiff or .png. My contact details are: Address: Clyme House, Hillside Street, Hythe, Kent CT21 5DJ Mobile: 07771 796 446 email: david@thesentinel.org.uk