On their bikes

The Durham miner project has some personal histories ,I liked especially the diary of Joseph Pickering.

Joseph Pickering doesn't leave the north, but he moves from coalfield to coalfield in the period of slump in miners' employment that lasted from the general strike until the war, and describes the black listing of some militants - the conditions driving the migration to the kent coalfields.

Even so, after coming to Kent, many left again, 300 families within the first two years alone- the heat of the mine, the lack of amenties, the chaotic frontier feel of the new town all contributing-

Grandad - A Vigilante?

I've ditched a personal visit to Kew to find Grandad's service records. I can ask a researcher to find it for me, and if I'm lucky, and he's quick- may cost me just 15 pounds. Less then a trip would cost, even given that I'm going to the UK anyway.

Also plan to order Uncle Reggie's Inquest report from Kent Archives.Sure I've got the newspaper report( linked in the sidebar) -but I need to tackle the question I have been avoiding up to now-was my family protecting their crops or were they out for trouble?

I don't think so- but then I wouldn't? would I?

I have only the vaguest memories of Grandad in early childhood-the family blamed him for these events,I think.-(interesting that Aylesham-ers remember Misery farm as a place where a father accidentally shot his son)

I have got to like grandad, his comments seem dignified here and he is not tempted to use Reggie's death to inflame the situation . We'll see.

Go tell it to the Marines

Dissatisfied with my sense of Grandad's character,I decided to get his military record, expecting it to come easy, after all,I have his military number.

My search took me to the national archive at Kew.Spent an hour or two fruitlessly, but persistently entering William Clark's service number, name, birthdate etc into the Royal Naval Seamens records online, before realising that marines records were not included.

I have learnt a lot researching this story, that's possible because I started from a base of astonishing ignorance, with a history education mostly by Hollywood.

Hollywood confused me because how could Grandad have been in a marine band? , he wasn't American!

But I learn- marines are naval soldiers who defend their ships, (American or not even the ancient Athenians had marines.) They were generally considered an elite force, but you have to counter that with one of my maternal grandmothers favourite sayings, 'Go tell it to the marines' (19th century British seaman thought Marines to be gullible).If Gran was also comenting on her daughter's father-jn-law, I can't say-it's possible she was a sly one.

Grandad must have run away and joined the Navy in the 1880's, the Royal Marine Band was not formed until 1902, up until then he would have been part of one of several naval bands.

I hope to get to Kew when I visit Mum shortly and find Grandads service record.

Well, now I know that Grandad ended up in Kent because it was the Royal Marine band's base , there he met Amelia, and retired to farm life, an old soldier's dream...

Victorians with 'Tude

I've put some more photos in the library, my grandmother Amelia's parents marriage certificate and their grave in Ospringe churchyard.

But the only picture that sheds light on character in this saga is I think this grim picture of William Clark's parents whom he abandoned in Scotland when he was a boy.

See Miners Sword Dance!

British pathe have a wonderful collection of old films, you can download previews for free. One public information short for farmers on'Speeding up agriculture' (1916) which involves a puzzling pythonesque finale with explosives, also an' elder' miners choir, miners performing a sword dance, ladies in bonnets learning to race tractors, a couple of films aiming to recruit miners post nationilsatio/. I particularly liked the one which ended: 'Join the miners, the skilled men the nation will always need' and a school for young miners, and they look way too young. It took me hours to drag myself away.

But the potato farming films would not download, which is a tragedy. my writing is cruelly hampered by my lack of knowlege of potato farming techniques in the twenties..

My fictional miners are becoming a bit too sarcastic about the cluelessness of my fictional family..

Trouble at the Pit

Some notes on the trial of Hughie Owen cited by miner's leaders,Turner and Lawther here


On July 6th 1929 Hughie John Owen was tried for assaulting John Allcock, a deputy at Snowdon. He was sent to stall 105, he refused, he could not get on with the other men, they were from Derbyshire, he was Welsh. After arguing a little he left the pit.

When the deputy left Owen followed him to the railway bridge, where Owen said he tried to talk to Allcock. Allcock wouldn't listen:" Don't bother me." Another miner gave testimony against Owen, (this seems unusual)

The account says Owen struck a blow that caused Allcock's nose to bleed for sixteen hours, then hit him in the face again when Allcock was lying on the ground.

I don't have a transcript of this account, the gadget fur copying microfilm wasn't working on my second day in the library. It's a pity as my notes, taken from the Express trial report differ in two respects to the report linked above (written the following month), firstly the Express in it's later account claims a chest blow as well as the facial blows in my notes, Lawther says he got 2 months hard labour, I noted one month.

Both newspaper accounts make the assault sound brutal, but of course,the reporter is not on Owen's side. The incident also illustrates another difficulty facing the newcomers, miners were coming from depressed coalfields all over the UK.

Radio and mass transport were only just beginning. Some areas of the UK were still very isolated, not only were they coming to a 'strange land', but the other miners were foreign too, with many different dialects and ways. Some would have left their home village for the first time.


It's also possible that Owen was being baited, perhaps because he was a Welshman, perhaps because he had been mouthy,he may have been deliberately given a stall where he was unpopular. Unwanted stalls were sometimes a method of punishmentl.

Misery Farm- a Recap

This is the beginning of a recap of the Misery farm Story.I intend to finish it and cover Snowdon and Aylesham in 1929 when I get back.

13/8/06

Strangers in a Strange land- The Story so far

Title is stolen from Arthur Cochlin, an miner, who, at the conclusion to the inquest into his wife's suicide (debt and illness)held in the Greyhound Pub, Aylesham in May 1929 quoted the bible:” I am a Stranger in a Strange Land.

A Family Myth

My Dad’s funeral in 2001 did not run smoothly, Mum’s dementia and my grandchildren’s ADHD/aspergers all happened to be at their loudest and most disruptive.I’d best not mention the shenanigans with Auntie Z and the priest, I have yet to scatter Dad’s ashes because I want to be sure they’re his- but I guess who ever it is in the box on top of my wardrobe deserves a better view.

.

In spite of all this was a bit of quiet time for conversation , plus the best gluten free buffet ever, the pace barely interrupted by Mum removing her incontinence pad.

It was then that the talk turned to a tragic episode in dad’s adolescence, a story Dad never told, one the family was so reticent about that my cousin(son of another brother) said he had never heard it.

An incident to which the family ascribed - (without ever mentioning or clarifying the Incident- in that clever way families have), any character defects perceived in Dad; his shyness or forgetfulness -

It went like this-

Points every story teller agreed on (but not necessarily true)-

1/ One night Dad was camping with big brother Reggie

2/ Dad was 13 years old

2/ Reggie, was handsome, cool and Reggie Clark would have taken Hollywood by storm had he survived that night.

3/ Uncle Reggie was shot.

4/ The family had a farm

5/ The shooting was accidental

Where the storytellers conficted

1/ The farm was on Dartmoor .

2/ The farm was in Kent

3/ Or Maybe Devon (Anyway Somewhere South)

4/ The Brothers were on a pleasure trip- hunting, perhaps OR

5/ The brothers were defending their crop from striking miners.

6/ A mine had opened at the end of their farm, or maybe housing for miners.

7/ A dog knocked over the shotgun causing the accident.

8/ The Dartmoor version , was especially touching-it was a dark and stormy night, the brothers were twenty to a hundred miles from help. And poor 12 yr old Dad could do nothing as his brother bled slowly to death.

That year my cousin tracked the farm down to Ackholt in Kent. The mine was Snowdon, adjacent to the farm.The village of Aylesham was built to house the miners in 1927 The year of the accident was 1929 ( puzzling as there was no strike that year.)

Last summer(2005) I returned to this story.(perhaps in an attempt to make up to Dad for the funeral business)

Ackholt farm and Nonington 1821

Canny Poacher

I have grown fond of Basil Newington ,the poacher . He is older, wiser and cooler then the other miners hauled before the courts that week. The youngsters are angry, in the press reports their anger is used to make them sound foolish,he knows confrontation will get him nowhere. His friend gives a false name and gets away with it, that ploy won't work for Basil, the police and game keepers know him. But he maintains the fiction of 'Jackson's name.

Interesting that the courts never make an issue of miners naming the ones that got away.

Both the apprehended poachers are off sick , I'm guessing it would be really tough to put in a full week at Snowdon, even for a man just a bit under the weather. And there were severe pay penalties for missing a day.

I suspect that Basil is now a semiprofessional poacher, providing the miners families with the rabbit, which East Kent Memories would suggest was the major protein source for Kentish miners in the twenties and thirties.

His laconicness makes him seem different to the other miners, the Aylesham miners are extraordinary: a never ending source of energy powes them, they work in those conditions and then they come out and play football and cricket, the brassband, whist, garden, box, run a half marathon, drink, protest, sing the red flag at a Nancy Astor meeting, go to church, these guys have some mythic source of energy, but my Basil's energy reserves are running low.

Could the heat of the mine speed their metabolism? Or were all miners like this?

A fictional character based loosely on Basil has started to take root for me.

He's currently called Edmund, he was once active in the union but is tired , rather then disillusioned. He's canny,and a countryman, a birdwatcher, he has have been around a bit. Got a Flemish widow pregnant in Ypres, stayed there for a while after the war, tempted by a cow , a cottage , a horse a field. I'm not sure yet if he has returned to his English wife, or brought the Belgian girl to Aylesham.

So he has learnt some farming, is careful about crops and sheep, until that disastrous month Basil may have benefited from some of the farmers toleration. It may not have been easy to have the landowners protected game on their fields.

Maybe they even tipped him off in a manly sort of way:" if you are walking near old court tell Mr Hope(gamekeeper...)"

He will offer a more modern viewpoint off the other characters, he has the ability to lead to smooth things over a bit, I'm not sure he will, he is his own man.

Call Bird: the Crow, the Human Being

My guide to Kentish dialect says that scrumping kids appointed a look out called a call bird, after the habit of jays and other crows of having one bird on guard when feeding on a crop.

It brought back to me wryly the confusion at the inquest- if the shot gun was to scare miners or rooks?

In this story of migrants, subject to prejudicial judgments, fuelled by economic necessity- birds are a metaphor of sorts-

From the condemnation of magpies on circumstantial evidence damning them for songbird declineto to the destruction of skylarks nests as the economic rewards for industrial methods by farmers intensifies(In Kent in the twenties farmworkers marked the position of the nests.)

Miners, small farmers and many bird species have this in common, they have passed through the mill of the twentieth century with their numbers in steep decline.

The Super Incredible Shrinking Pay Packet

There were national miners strikes over reductions in miners pay in 1920 and, later in 1926 In 1922 Snowdon mine was on strike over reduced pay locally.The company went into receivership. Pearson Dorman and Long took over and planned a new miners village. Work was started auspiciously in 1926. In the General Strike of that year Snowdon went back earlier then the other Kent coalfields.( possibly since the mine had only just reopened they had fewer resources to survive on strike pay of a 1s a day} .

Miners militancy that year brought a lively fear of revolution to the wealthier classes, more so than in any other year last century.

By the end of 1928 snowdon miners were on strike again. They had been promised a higher rate of pay in Snowdon.- A guaranteed rate of pay of 11sh 6d per shift working 5 to 6 shifts a week, the district rate was 11sh 4d a shift or less. The higher rate for Snowdon reflected the greater depth of its seams, the shift rate was for an 8 hour day but did not include travel time, which could be considerable when the seam was 3000 feet down. Also the rate reflected the conditions of working and difficulty of mining those seams

The strike began on 16th November 1928 , the company reopened the mine 10 days later- 96 men reported for work passing a bitter crowd at the pithead,a blackleg was injured, despite 70 strong police protection the next morning just 40 men reported for work .

By midJanuary of '29, the pit was back at work, forced to accept lower pay. But rumours of another strike ballot persisted through the Spring, Tillmanstone and Chislet decided not to join Snowdon in another strike, they were afraid it would provide an excuse to attack wage rates further. Frank Turner, never one to resist a challenge, wanted to take the company to court on behalf of the men on reduced pay.

1929 was for Snowdon , a year as bitter as '26.

Aylesham Romeo lived next door to Grandad

Clive Webb of the history of Nonington site has clarified some points for me:-

• He is clear that this picture is not Ackholt farm , he says- farm house looks nothing like. land too flat. he doesnt and there are no buildings such as the ones shown.

He adds:-

I have seen a copy of this photo before, neither myself or my late father, who was born in the parish in the 1920's, nor my mother, who lived in Aylsham in the 1930's have been able to identify the view.

Thanks, Clive I'm not yet totally convinced. I grant you the house does look very wrong, but even in the picture is in the process of alterations, I think. The cottages could be the ones demolished in the fifties? if you stand to the left of the house with Ackholt wood behind you cant the farm lokk pretty flat?

I guess I just need time to give up my claim to this photo.

• Clive confirms that the the farm is still part of the Fitzwalter estate, so my family would have been tenant farmers ( not owners as we first thought).

On the Aylsham Romeo-

• Clive says Frank Turner married the daughter of a Mr Hope, a gamekeeper of Lord Fitzwalter's and lived opposite Ackholt farm in keepe's cottage

Clive, my server is blocking your aol address, I have had to send a reply to the Noning ton site, hope you get it.

Early History of Misery

Here's a link to a Nonington history site, and a page on Ackholt, it's history as a hamlet and farm, mentions Misery farm, apparently Grandad would have pronounced Ackholt differently to the migrants of the twenties, whose new pronounciation holds to the present day, and at the bottom -a map of the farm in the twenties.

Labouring in the Fields of Asparagus

Letters written by children of market gardeners living in Badsey in the Vale of Evesham in 1922.

Growing mostly asparagus and fruit , kids had beautiful handwriting and worked very hard.

We have a friend in Belgium for whom the thick white asparagus preferred here to the thin green english favourites brings back only the memory of daily drudgery and back pain on his parents farm. Once a year we get a gift of a parcel of it, he always winces as he gives it as if offering something loathly.

-I am not sure why onions needed so much laborious tying?

Aylesham's Romeo and Juliet? Miner and Gamekeeper's Daughter

Here's a nice surprise-


One miner was after bigger game then conies: Frank Turner, who chaired the miners meeting condemning the apple theft sentence and whose letter the Express refused to publish with such maidenly indignity, courted and married a game keeper's daughter. She isn't named so I can't say yet if it was one of the gamekeepers involved in the prosecution of miners for poaching in the week following Reggie's death.

Farmers, Potatoes, Shotguns, A Pattern forms

Shropshire County Council has an excellent website on coal mining in Shropshire

It has clear explanations of mining in general: techniques, machinery, dangers and some great audio archives.

Listen especially to Reuben Cope talk about mining in the twenties in a soft potteries accent, and the intake of breath that marks pneumoconiosis.I startled to hear that his first mine was alongside a potato field- he liked his baked.

Also a story about a farmer shooting a government man which I didnt quite follow. I thought for a moment that Reuben must have gone to Aylesham looking for work- but these were shropshire stories.

Temperature rising -Snowdon 1913- Beresford Seam

Body Heat

At the Royal commission in 1919 a medical witness said he had visited a seam where the temperature was over 90 degrees. He took the temperature and pulse rate of the miners' during a meal break, even resting both was over 100 in every case.

Of Tilmanstone colliery:

'My father often told us how the men who wore only briefs and boots perspired in the terrific heat. One day out walking with him we passed one of the outlets from the mine with water gushing out and I asked if it was the miners' sweat.'

(I think the little girl was mislead about the briefs, 1920's underwear was large coarse and woolly in the pictures I've seen the men are wearing only boots,( cap- I think not a helmet?) and a leather tool belt)
We are not told which pit the medical witness visited, but I'm betting Snowdon was both hotter and more humid.

Sweating is a less effective method of cooling when humidity is high, if the body cannot losef excess heat the core temperature rises. the ability to concentrate is lost, (accident rate increases) usually irritability increases (murder rate goes up in a heat wave), there's nausea, al loss of the desire to drink ( that could be fatal- miners needed to drink about 24 pints of water in snowdon colliery) In the short term this could lead to heat cramps, rashes , heat exhaustion and stroke. In the long term it's hard to say, so few men today do hard physical labour under these conditions.
Snowdon miners took salt tablets. Getting the balance of water to salt intake was essential, too much water , too little salt could cause hypernatria(Sodium imbalance)

Long term exposure to excessive heat is thought to cause infertility, damage to brain chemistry and the nervous system, increased susceptibility to diseases especially kidney, liver, heart digestive system and skin. U.S. Military records suggest that soldiers who have had one incident of heat stroke are more likely to have mental difficulties, to drop out early and so on.

Even leaving aside the devastating and better known effects of coal dust on the lungs or of darkness on the eyes, forgetting the social factors: it's just remarkable that men lived and worked in such conditions- and given the association between heat irritability and violence- it's remarkable how peaceable Aylesham was.

What's that word for a place where fried fish is sold?

I have posted 'the Dissapointment of Aylesham' a Dover Express article quoting the archdeacon of Canterbury on Aylesham in 1929. It was published three weeks before Reggies death and the series of arrests and apparent stake- outs we have seen.

Be warned- Archdeacon's style is wordy- does he mean by ' a place where fried fish is sold' a chippy? Also is tiresomely keen to exonerate the colliery company from blame for building an amenity- less town, providing amenities would be 'unecononomic' he tells us (Does that mean anything - providing wages could be said to be uneconomic?)

Otherwise much that is interesting about the boredom and isolation and high prices in Aylesham in the twenties

mystery of the flower show

I have confirmed that the flower show was on the 10th. It was in my hand written notes for Dover library: 'Last entrants for the flower show...' , 'the flower show will be on the 10th' . Naturally, I wouldn't have thought of looking in my own notes....

Still seems odd that show was not cancelled in view of the night's events on the farm....

I realised yesterday, that I have gathered or been sent a lot of stuff that I had not planned to post because did not seem directly relevant to the Aylesham/ farm story- but may well be of interest to others: maybe family history researchers and to the Coalfield Heritage project, (which is sadly not yet underway because of funding hold ups) . So I 've started posting these to Uncle Reggie's library, that way these documents will be publically available if I stop researching. When the archives get unwieldy, I'll install an search engine..

And photo William in old age here

Granny with the mantilla?

This is a wedding photo of Amelia( Amy) and William Clark date roughly(1900-1904). Only identified photo we have of Gran(big mantilla) William is leaning sweetly towards her on the left.

Compared with the basket carrying woman in the putative Ackholt farm photo, she has similar build , similar hair and seems to be wearing her mum's best wedding hat for the potato harvest.No wonder Mum's looking pissed.
Seems to be a family tradition of scrawny men and well built women.

Saint or Sinner!

St Mary's churchyard,Nonington(you know the drill, click twice on the picture)- the nearest church to the farm before Aylesham was built. Hard to make out if the reverend is praising John Payn or damning him!

The Broad or the Narrow road, so many choices!

So many exclamation marks on a tombstone!!!

Ackholt Farm ? A mystery

Back to the picture of market gardening, Nonington compare with the people in this picture. I think the guy leaning down (with a kettle?) is Uncle Cyril,because lanky with mass of wild, curling hair falling forward. Also the plus 4s, who else wears plus 4s labouring? Dead give away. I can zoom in on the picture on my computer and he looks a few years younger, but I haven’t been able to save and upload that yet.

Man poking the vegetables with a stick I'm claiming as Reggie, he seems to be working and working elegantly, I rest my case.


Man walking- my Dad: hands still in pockets,characteristic dreamy saunter , head forward, shirt tucked in untidily. It’s a posture thing.

Also these are potatoes? Please disagree if you know better, I’m no farmer.Is this The Potato Field of family history? Also look at potato pictures by the Worlds Greatest Potato Artist, Van Gogh, if you scroll down and look for the three Van Gogh's you can see potatoes being poked with the traditional stick, as the postulated image of Uncle Reggie does.

If this is the farm then the photographer was standing in front of Ackholt Wood, where Reggie died guarding the potato field- so makes topographical sense of the story.


The house is definitely wearing some kind of sheeting- was it still being built after the Clarks started farming? Alterations? Some kind of Do?

Very tragic to see Ackholt farm, shortly to become known as Misery farm, in a party frock. Reminiscent of Miss Haversham on her Wedding Day.

Ok, I know I have not proved my case, but I’m laying claim to this picture until someone can prove it isnt the Clarks.

Missionary Man

In Uncle Reggie's library you can find 'The life and times of Richard Carter" by Richard Robbinson Carter, the son of Richard Carter of the Glynn Vivan miners' mission to Aylesham.

Thank you to James Flack for allowing me to post it here.

It's a memoir of Richard Carter's life written for his grandchildren, and covers the families arrival in Aylesham in 1928, and Richard's younng life there.

Richard Carter was a Salvation army Officer appointed by the Richard Glynn Vivian mission (who sent missionaries to mining areas all over the world) to the new mining village of Ayelsham.

Whatever you think of the Army, or of missionaries he was quitw clearly -an exceptionally brave man, sent to prison for given an illegal open air meeting in his youth, and I loved the description of Richard Carter preaching to Aylesham miners' as they came out of the Greyhound pub on a Friday night. He cared for his turf energetically, and in poverty for twenty years.

the memoir contains a vivid description of Aylsham in the early years: the roads unlaid, the lack of amenities etc.

Now added a scan of a long 1978 article about the miners' mission here

Is this Ackholt Farm?

This picture was in Dover library labelled market gardening ,Nonington- I took a copy because t was all I could find on market gardening. I'm now convinced this is grandad, dad and his brothers, maybe grandmother maybe an aunt.
Perhaps only one other farm that fits the bill. Land very flat, there seems to be some kind of sheeting over the farmhouse rendering it unrecognisable? Perhaps it doesn't matter if it's them or not- just that I think it is.

New thought- Is that a train passing by the cottages? if it is that narrows it down, that's the train going to snowdon mine and Ackholt farm is the only Nonington farm that backs on to the rail road.

Did Lady Milner write about the rather unusual flower show?

Lady Milner who deputised the flower show to Mrs Plumtre, was a very avid correspondent. It's archived at the Bodlean library. What are the chances that she would have gossiped about the flower show she almost opened, with her host's son's body lying in the next field, and the overall winner disqualified for cheating?

Did she turn up and refuse to present prizes with Superintendent Lane under her feet?

I really don't know if this is a lead worth following..

On the 12th August new houses in milner Crescent, Aylesham were completed, 40 already bespoken. Possibly why Lady Milner, widow of Lord Milner ex war cabinet was invited on the 11th. odd however this Milner connection, in his time in South Africa, early 1900s lord Milner was in trouble with miners union for using Chinese slave labour down the mines. No evidence that this was a live issue in the 1920s.- Cooperative society yearbook for 1926 notes his death neutrally.note added 21st October

User Friendly Mine

I have tidied my archives so that original newspaper articles, photos etc can be accessed from the sidebar just scroll down and look for' links' on the left, not all up yet.

If you hit a link that's no longer working, let me know.

An Underprivileged Duke

Surface landowners owned the rights to the coal beneath, and could also charge for the transportation of coal over their land.

From 'Britain in the nineteen twenties' Noreen Branson: "The miners put their hardships down to the system of mine ownership."

In 1919 the big landowners were told parliament was considering nationalizing mineral rights and the collieries themselves, and invited to give evidence to the Royal Commission.

The Duke of Northumberland, swearing that he would do his utmost to oppose nationalisation, replying to a question about infant mortality rates on his land :
(Infant mortality rates were highest among miners children, despite higher wages then agricultural workers, pit dust was often blamed)

"You think landowners have nothing to do but examine statistics. I am a hard-worked man. I am not a privileged man like you. "(his questioner was a Yorkshire miners' representative) "I cannot afford to waste time sitting on a commission like this."
(His gross income from mineral rights was 82,450 pounds in 1918) 1n august 1919 the government rejected the Final Report of the Royal Commission, which despite Northumberland's oratory came out in favour of Nationalizing mines, but accepted the proposal of state purchase of mineral rights. In fact state purchase was quietly dropped and big landowners were to enjoy mineral rights up to the closure of the mines and beyond.

It's said in Aylesham that the abandoned colliery has not been demolished because Lord FitzWalter would not allow it. He continues to draw mineral rights. Now there's a man with good lawyers.

Thus at the start of the 20's the miner's felt betrayed.

Joe Gray and Lord FitzWalter's rabbits

Thoughts on the fate of Grandad's potatoes, the field of onions and Lord FitzWalter's rabbits.

Quotations from' East Kent- within living memory' compiled by the Women's Institute.

Dad worked at Snowdon Colliery:

"Mum used to make a vegetable dish with sliced potatoes, onions and gravy."
"Our Christmas dinner was wild rabbit, roasted with stuffing."

Another speaker:
"My mother used to cook sliced onions and potatoes in gravy, sometimes adding sausages, she called it "Joe Gray"

And another:
"We lived in a mining community in the 1930's. We had meat one day of the week and my mother made rabbit stew with dumplings. These were wild rabbits."
' East Kent within- living memory' compiled by Womans Institute.

Lots of traditional working man's dishes based on sliced potatoes and onions with meat or sometimes cheese if either were available. Lancashire hotpot, Irish stew, pan haggerty- all similar. So I tried making this tonight, just potatoes and onions cooked slowly in a casserole with gravy and lots of butter spooned over (miners would use reserve meat fat) before taking the lid off to brown for the last half hour.It was pretty good. My husband complained that miners wouldn't eat it with tempeh but what does he know?

oops! husband pointed out today, his Barnsley Grandads were miners. I must learn to keep my mouth shut. 10th Oct

Mapping my Father

Posting the map with what was going down in the week of Reggie's death has been all
Proustian for me. A dip in my Memories of my father. That week, those events, I see now are the key to Dad's emotional landscape. A week in the life of a 16 year old, including the night I knew a little about: the night he went camping with his cool big brother and woke up to a dying brother,but also the other days and nights in Aylesham - the scale of the troubles.

Even Reggie's death, until I went looking, I had half thought of as a family legend .

As a kid I'd argue politics with Dad , he was conservative (leftish), only reactionary when we got to talking about miners, I can understand now how he got to that place. Miners and farmers were both caught in a tough spot. Nobody had told me about Reggie's death then, and he never mentioned it.

Funny thing is the name that's worrying at me is Henry Plumtre's, I am sure that I had come across him before George mentioned the issue of mineral rights when I visited Aylesham,(I'll come to that) . Is it just my mind playing tricks, just some derisive reference Dad made about the acquisition of the title, means nothing-neighbours might be expected to be mocking if you acquire an old title?

Maddeningly, elusive conversations flap forward in my memory as the Aylesham story gives me a clearer picture of my father.

Aylesham-click twice to view

A Map,a Great Oak, notes on the Ackholt farm shooting ,other Incidents in a Kent Summer

You can see the map above, or view the satellite map here-

1/Aylesham-the new mining village- laid out in the shape of a pithead.
2/ Grandad's (William Clark) old farmhouse,now known also as Misery farm,marked simply as Ackholt( no longer a farm ) along the Aylesham road. Peas stolen at Ackholt farm, fires lit in hedge.
Ackholt is old English for oak wood.

3/ Ackholt Wood, where Reggie and Dad camped on Friday night, the 9th. Reggie shot August 10th 1929 in the early hours.

4/ I think the potato field they were guarding is between Ackholt and Aylesham.

5/ Ratling Court Farm, farmer: Mr Steed, where Arthur Conley was apprehended with a shillings worth of apples at 9pm ,11th August. Three unnamed miners said to have been caught stealing apples and cautioned.

6/ Old Court farm- Mr Baleden has shooting rights. Old court field- where Bernard Allen was caught poaching on August 16th.Cmdr O'Brien of St Albans Park's game keeper helps catch him. What was the gamekeeper doing there? Was Cmndr. O' Brien the landowner? Where was St Albans Park?

7/ Church street farm: Farmer Mr Baleden- Grandad said Mr Baleden had lost sheep and poultry to theft and trespassers' dogs..


7/Godnestone Park, home of Lord FitzWalter, Henry Plumtre. Magistrate in the apple stealing case.
8/Lord FitzWalter owned Bushy Ruff(Rough on the map, but I like the DoverExpress Spelling) where Basil Newington was caught poaching on August 13th.

Lord FitzWalter was allowed to take on the ancient title two years before, the FitzWalter line died out about 170 years previously- he was related by marriage to the old fitzWalters.

Incidentally,Lloyd George's government created more peers and knights then any other before or since, and it was widely believed that some titles were brought.

The family had some interesting ancestors, one was a Sheriff of Notingham centuries earlir, another was said to have inspired Jane Austen's Lady Catherine de Burgh.

Mrs Plumtre, who presented prizes at the flowershow, held in Grandad's Snowdon meadow, must have been a relation of his. Date of flower show still unclear, press article suggests the 10th, but may have been the 3rd. Overall winner disqualified for cheating.
9/ Snowdon meadow - between Snowdon and Ackholt wood?

An unnamed farmer said to have lost his onion crop to depredators.

10/Also see Fredville park. Doesn't seem toifigure in the story- but some really great oak trees. Scroll down for the trees.This is the Oak Belt of England. Another picture of the oak named Majesty, well named- magnificent girth but not a folksy, huggeable tree. Fredville park is now owned by Lord FitzWalter , viewing by appointment only.

I guess it's expat nostalgia, but I love an English ordnance survey map. Where else could Love Lane lead to Muddy Bush? (upper left)

A Kentish Summer of Unrest

I've posted up lots of newspaper articles without too much discussion and explanation.

Because-

I am loving the themes and characters emerging here: the stubborn men,the miners were, as one exclaimed, after his wife's inquest: "I am a stranger, in a strange land." The other stubborn men, the farmers protecting their living

Where are the women? Other then the once a week whist drives-even of my grandmother and aunties I know nothing of their lives then;-

I'm not going to give you my theories just yet-

I'll post you some social background , a map or two.

I'll post a bit about Aylesham, a mining town that has built a remarkable spirit that enabled it to survive and grow after the pit closures in the eighties. But in the twenties it was another story and some of the factors that make it strong today, it's isolation, for example, almost destroyed it back in the day. It was a frontier town.
I amf hoping you will pour over these archives and give me your theories. My white board is posted with names of magistrates and miners and farmers as I figure out what was going on that summer. My Tutoring will have to be done on scraps of paper!

So set aside the sudoku and weave me some theories.

Poor Boy killed on the Spot at Midnight- Was it class prejudice?

Dover Express and East Kent News August 23rd 1929


Apple stealing case part 3

Part one here

Part two here

On Tuesday the following letter appeared in the “Daily Mail” from Mr. Edwin Bradley, whose letter to Lord FitzWalter was published in our last issue:

(To the Editor of the “Daily Mail”)

“Sir- Mr. Elks- the representative has stated in today’s (Saturday’s) ‘Daily Mail’ that the trouble in East Kent arises from class prejudice against the miners and denies that the miners have raided the farmers’ crops. He asks for facts, May I give him a few as I have lived in East Kent all my life and I know the people well?
A farmer living at Ackholt, near Snowdon Colliery had a field of potatoes, and about a fortnight ago, set his two sons with a dog to guard them at night. (This is Kent in the 20th Century) The elder lad, aged 20, took a loaded gun, he (two unreadable short words here-b) unwisely, probably feeling afraid. By some means the gun was accidentally discharged and the poor boy killed on the spot at midnight. Did that father send his sons to there because of class prejudice? N, it came out in very reluctant evidence at the inquest that he was compelled to guard his crop against the miners.
The Wingham branch of Magistrates of which I am a member; has been severely blamed for sentencing a young miner for 14 days’ hard labour for stealing one shillings’ worth of apples. This is only half the truth. The man was 23 (figure very unclear-b) and one of a gang of four: the other three escaped. It is true he only had a shillingsworth of apples in his possession, but he and others like him would have had all the fruit in the orchard. if it had been unguarded. My next point is most important. On this same farm some time ago three grown up miners aged about 40, were caught red handed stealing the fruit. There was no previous conviction against them and the magistrates anxious to spare their character, discharged them after appealing most earnestly to their better natures, and warning them that imprisonment must be the penalty for another offence. This may have been foolish leniency it certainly was not class hatred. Another farmer I have known had his whole onion crop stolen and many others have suffered similar loss, but the thefts generally occur at night, and the culprits are hard to catch. The farmers too, are very reluctant to proceed against them as rightly or wrongly, they dread reprisals. The farmers are having a great struggle to get a living just now. Is it fair to expect them to go to the expense of watching their crops, not to speak of the suspense and annoyance caused them. They naturally look to the Magistrates and police to protect them. I suggest to Mr. Elks that the miners’ organizations take the matter up seriously, and try to restore the former sense of security and confidence in the countryside. I know that they would have no easy task in controlling that portion of the mining population that is frequently shifting, but they would find that the Kentish people of all classes would cooperate with them and a better feeling would follow them all around and a sing (sorry that’s what it looks like-b) be removed from the mining community.- Edwin Bradley, Leybourne House, August 24th 1929)

We have received a letter from Mr. T. Turner, the Chairman of the Snowdon branch of the Kent Mine Workers Association, but we cannot publish it as it makes charges of perjury against another person that would justify an action for libel, if not of criminal libel against us if we published it. If there is any authority for his allegation it is a matter of Public Prosecution and the Police to take up and not a matter to a letter to the Press.


Damn, I would love to see Mr. Turner’s letter.

In all these articles I have tried to copy punctuation and capitilisation exactly- it seems important. Magistrates get a capital M even in the middle of a sentence. Police get the middle of a sentence capital sometimes e.g. when Express is being magisterial about Mr. Turner’s letter. All named policemen have capital letters before their name Miners and farmers don’t qualify for any special capitals, before their name or otherwise.

Lord FitzWalter gets 2 capitals in his territorial name-one slap in the middle.

Miners refer to others by surname only Jackson, farmers to each other as Mr. Jackson. Miners don’t refer to farmers by name and vice versa.



BramBled

Kent at odds with it's migrant workers- The Miners Speak

Dover Express and East Kent News August 23rd 1929

The miners speak, continued from here

THE APPLE STEALING CASE
On Saturday the following appeared in the” Daily Mail” stated to have been sent to them by their Canterbury correspondent:-“Mr. John Elks, the miners’ agent for the Kent district said to me:-“In my opinion there is generally a great deal of prejudice against the miners, both in the countryside and in the towns in Kent. It is especially so among what I may call the upper classes, the landowners and the farmers. The shopkeepers treat us reasonably on the whole. We do not agree with the statements that that the damage the farmers are suffering from is wholly due to miners. The miners are blamed because they think there is no one else to blame. The Kent mineworkers association would like some proof from the farmers.

Mr. Elks defended the miners against charges of drunkenness, “I say definitely,” he concluded that the county magistrates are prejudiced against miners.”

Mr. E. Lawther, of Aylesham, the president of the Kent mineworkers association, said:-“I do not think the people generally in East Kent have anything against the miners, it is only among certain classes. If the farmers had put before me any cases where depredations had taken place and they suspected our people , I and other officials of the association would have been only to glad to cooperate with them to stop it”
Mr. Owen Marks, a Snowdon miner, living at Dover, said:-“The Magistrates and the landed gentry in general attempt to treat us like a lot of spendthrifts. If they care to examine the record of mine4s as a whole they will find as upright a class of workers as any in England.


The Express seems reluctant to give the miners the last word, continued here

Unrest in Kent the Home Secretary Intervenes

Dover Express and East Kent News August 23rd 1929

The farmers speak including Grandad, William Clark

THE APPLE STEALING CASE

The letter from Mr. Edwin Bradley to Lord FitzWalter which appeared in last weeks issue in reference to the apple stealing case was copied into the London Press on Monday.> On Friday the following appeared in the ‘Daily Mail’ one of the journals which a week previous called attention to the 14 days sentence that caused the magistrates to pass such a sentence.
The Daily Mail’s correspondent wrote:-
“The farmers in the area of the two new Kentish mining villages of Aylesham and Snowdon are complaining of the damage done to their crops, and special steps are taken to guard them.
Last week a sentence of 14 days’ hard labour was passed at Dover on a young miner of Aylesham, for stealing apples valued at 1s., from an orchard. Mr. Clines, the Home Secretary ordered the man’s release.
Mr. Clark, who lives at Ackholt farm, between the villages, told me:

“Our crops are suffering a great deal. The miners’ women and children took away our peas in baskets. A great deal of trouble is caused by the large number of dogs which the miners keep. My neughbour: Mr. Baleden, had five sheep killed, and three injured by dogs. His loss is about 60pd. And there is no recompense.

There is no resident constable in either place, through the population is now 3600.

We want to get on comfortably with the miners and their families, but as the fathers have to go to work at different times, many of their children are inclined to run wild. Last week boys put a number of corn sheaves into a hedge and set fire to three of them.”

Mr. Arthur T. Stead of Ratling Farm, who was the prosecutor in the apple stealing case said:
“I have lost much of my fruit since the mining villages were built, and I am also losing about 30 poultry each year. I have asked for police protection.

2nd part

The Poacher's Wife- Dealt A Poor Hand

A Mrs Newington was sometimes winner of the Aylesham weekly whist drive . These events were attended by miners and their families. "There was nothing else to do" an Aylesham old timer told the kentish gazette in 1977. Other records suggest that the rural poor would go from house to house with a handcart to collect tables and chairs for whist drives.

I'm wondering if her husband was Basil of the last post, who preferred a different sort of game.
I have a league match (bridge) today, hope I play my cards like Mrs Newington.

I guess there was no rabbit in her pot that summer. What happened to the Newingtons?