Judith Johnson
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Seeing Kitty Fisher

31/10/2014

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PictureKitty Fisher as Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl 1759 by Joshua Reynolds
I have never seen a ghost myself, though I did on one occasion spend a creepy night at Kilmeston Manor. However, during the time I worked at a girls' boarding school in Kent several members of the domestic staff there claimed that they most definitely had.

I was walking back to my office early one afternoon through the main entrance-hall, where a sweeping red-carpeted staircase leads to an upper gallery and portraits of former Headmistresses gaze watchfully down.  I stopped for a chat with Sheila, one of the cleaning-ladies, by the large round oak table.

 

"Are you alright, Sheila?" I asked. It occurred to me that she seemed rather flustered and looked unusually pale.

"I'm feeling a bit funny actually," she answered. "I think I've just seen Kitty Fisher."

Kitty Fisher was reputedly the school's main ghost. "Really?" I asked, trying to dampen my excitement.

"Well, I was polishing the table, and I heard the front door open, and I thought, oh that's one of the girls coming back from lunch, so I didn't think anything more of it, I heard her going up the stairs, then I looked up and saw a woman walking up there. She was wearing a black cloak, and this sort of white frilly thing round inside the edge of her hood. Anyway, halfway up the second lot of stairs, she just vanished! ... Ooh, it did give me a turn ..."

There has been a house at Hemsted even before William the Conqueror gifted the land to his brother Odo. Queen Elizabeth I visited the Catholic recusant Guldeford family, whose house no longer stands, bar the old ice house well tucked away amongst the rhododendrons. 400 years on, two other Queen Elizabeths were to follow: our present Queen, who sent her daughter Princess Anne to school here, and her own mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The three founders of Benenden School  bought the country mansion of Hemsted House in 1924 (future pupils included the daughters of Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton), and during the Second World War the school evacuated to Newquay in Cornwall, while Hemsted became a Military Hospital. Its patients included shot-down German Luftwaffe crew-members. The Free French pilot Captain Jean Maridor lost his own life when he moved in to tip the wing of a doodle-bug threatening the hospital, thus saving many others.


No surprise, then, that over the centuries, there may have lingered a memory of those who lived, and sometimes died, here. One of the groundsmen told me that he had once seen a girl in school uniform walking past a building, and initially thought nothing of it until he remembered it was the school holidays. The domestic bursar on several evenings glimpsed a lady silently approaching along the passage in the old Bachelors' Wing.

Then there was the occasion, in the 1960s, when ouija boards were in fashion, and a small group of girls in one of the boarding-houses gave themselves quite a fright. The glass had just commenced to move, and to spell out the word F-I-R-E, when, no more than a couple of seconds later, the school fire-alarm went off, and the whole school was evacuated while a blaze in the old stable-block was dealt with. The story went round the school rapidly, and the Bishop of Dover was brought in the following Sunday to give a strict sermon on the follies of messing with the supernatural.

The head of maintenance, whilst working alone, recalled a moment in the middle of repairing a sky-light at the top of the house when a cold hand had touched the back of his neck. He'd retorted "Don't be so bloody stupid, Kitty - this is dangerous!"

Kitty Fisher is of course still widely remembered in verse, as she is too in local folk history, and new girls are still encouraged by their peers on a certain night of the year to run through a brick tunnel in the grounds (no doubt Victorian!) where they are told the ghost of Kitty Fisher lurks.

Kitty was one of the most famous members of the 'fair and frail' ladies of the eighteenth century 'demi-monde', coming into prominence first at the age of nineteen in 1758.  It is believed that she was born in Soho, the daugher of  John Fischer, of German Lutheran extraction. She had many admirers, and was painted several times by Joshua Reynolds. She was also a greatly spirited horsewoman (I wonder whether Patrick O'Brian partly based the character of Diana Villiers on her?), and as mentioned above, recorded by name in the child's nursery-rhyme which begins "Lucy Lockett lost her pocket".

In the autumn of 1766, Kitty was happy to marry, with mutual affection, John Norris, the son of a Kentish landowner, grandson of Sir John Norris, Vice-Admiral of England, and the owner of Hemsted House in Benenden. Her sympathetic nature and readiness to offer assistance to anyone in distress was noted by the local working people, and had been chronicled earlier in life. In Ladies Fair and Frail by Horace Bleackley, the following story of her girlhood was reported:

 'While paying a visit to Paddington, a rural suburb much patronised by the jaded Londoner during the summer months, she chanced to lodge in the same house with a delicate boy named Henderson, who had been brought thither for change of air. He was a youth of great promise, apprenticed to Mr Clee, "the ingenious engraver of Oxenden Street", and he had fallen into a decline. Touched by his sufferings, and full of compassion for his widowed mother, the good-natured Kitty took an interest in the poor lad. It was a brief friendship. One day she heard him coughing violently, and knowing that he was alone she rushed to his assistance. Upon entering his room a glance told her that the attack was serious, and while she was trying to soothe him he died in her arms. Years afterwards the great actor, John Henderson, used to tell the tale, for although so much infamy was attached to her name, he remembered that Kitty Fisher had been a kind friend to his dead brother.'"

Sadly, Kitty had very little time left herself. Only months after her wedding, during the winter of 1766, a hollow cough grew deeper and more painful, while an accompanying hectic blush in her cheeks betrayed the presence of consumption. An immediate visit to the Bristol Hotwells was prescribed, and Kitty, resigned and patient, embarked on her final journey, a three day coach-ride in bleak weather. She died en-route, at the Three Tuns tavern in Stall Street, Bath, and was buried, on 23rd March 1767, in the Norris family vault in the chancel of Benenden Parish church.


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John Mayall - Master of Music, lover of the Blues

25/10/2014

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Picture
We saw John Mayall at the Assembly Hall in Tunbridge Wells this week. Notwithstanding it’s not the cosiest venue - he really rocked it! It’s great when you look round you and see so many faces in the audience wreathed in smiles, eagerly anticipating the brilliant sounds coming their way.  

I used to listen to John Mayall’s Blues from Laurel Canyon and Turning Point albums in the late 60s when I still lived at home. Most of my own pocket money went on books, as I recall, but I benefited from listening to my siblings’ albums, which included John Mayall, The Incredible String Band, Cream, Free, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan - you know, all the good stuff!  John Mayall was already 40 in 1970, and Tuesday night was the 7th gig in his 80th Anniversary tour. To use a popular adjective of the 70s (the word ‘awesome’ only applied to things like the Northern Lights back then), he was amazing.

Mayall’s opening support band, King King, was pretty stonking - fronted by Alan Nimmo, their kilted lead guitarist. We looked at each other when they went off with eyebrows raised: if the level of blues they were belting out was anything to go by, we must be in for something even more spectacular to follow! And so it was - John Mayall’s voice may be a little diminished at 80 years old, but his playing, and that of his band (Rocky Athas, Greg Rzab and Jay Davenport) was of the highest quality. They played a set of over 90 minutes, with an encore, before greeting fans in the foyer (every band has to come out and sell CDs these days). After that they would no doubt have been getting on the road for the next venue, St David’s Hall in Cardiff.  We peered at the punishing schedule for the rest of the tour - 39 dates, kicking off in Moscow and every night a different town with only Mondays off. Good Lord, a 20-something might find that schedule hard-going. John Mayall is obviously a man of steel!

There is something really impressive and deeply satisfying about watching or listening to a master, who has done their 10,000 hours, and more, in perfecting their art. I’ve seen a few veterans in the last year or so, including John Renbourn,  Robin Williamson, Martin Carthy, Dave Swarbrick, L’il Jimmy Reid, and they can all still cut the mustard.

If you want to get off your sofa and get those feet tapping, I recommend you make the effort to go and see John Mayall for some live music joy - you won’t regret it!

For more on John Mayall:

http://www.johnmayall.com/

http://globalrocklegends.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/john-mayall.html


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For Those in Peril on the Sea - 100 years on

14/10/2014

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PictureGeorge Henry Penfold
Chief Petty Officer George Henry Penfold 164841, Royal Navy, died 100 years ago this week, on 15 October 1914, age 37. He is commemorated on both the Southborough War Memorial and the Chatham Naval Memorial, Kent.

George was born in 1877 and christened on 11 March at St Peter’s Church, Southborough. The family, resident then at 7, Holden Corner, included his father George, a labourer (53 when his son George was born), and brother John, also a labourer (older by 17 years than his brother). Dee’s Directory 1915 listed, under Men Serving, a J Penfold, of Modest Corner, with the Royal Field Artillery, and if this was George’s brother John, he would have been 54 by this time.

George Penfold was an acting gunner in 1914, and had by then seen 22 years’ service in the Royal Navy, having joined at 15 years of age. A tragic coincidence: his first voyage, after joining the Navy, and his last, were both aboard HMS Hawke. He had served two or three years in the Mediterranean and three years in China, returning from the latter for Christmas, 1913.  In addition to the Hawke he served on HMS Illustrious, HMS Irresistible and HMS London.


PictureHMS Hawke
HMS Hawke was an armoured cruiser operating as part of the 10th Cruiser Squadron assigned to the Northern Patrol. She was one of the oldest ships still in service (launched at Chatham in 1891) and was being used as a training ship with many cadets on board. She had been re-commissioned in February 1913 with a nucleus crew and had come up to her full complement at the outbreak of war in August 1914.

On October 15th 1914 she was in the northern waters of the North Sea with a similar ship, HMS Theseus. They were operating without a destroyer screen when they were attacked, and unfortunately both slower than the submarine U9  tracking them. At the time of attack, HMS Hawke had just turned to intercept a neutral Norwegian collier. Their position was some 60 miles off Aberdeen.



Picture
U9
PictureLieutenant Otto Weddigen
The U-Boat Commander was Lieutenant Otto Weddigen. He missed the Theseus with his first torpedo but unfortunately hit HMS Hawke amidships near a magazine. The detonation was followed by a second terrific explosion, in which a large number of the crew was killed. The ship sank within 5 minutes and was only able to launch one boat. Five hundred and twenty five perished and only 49 men in the long boat were saved. They were picked up three hours later by a Norwegian steamer. Had they had sufficient time to launch more lifeboats from the Hawke, then undoubtedly more lives would have been saved.

HMS Theseus was under strict Admiralty orders not to attempt to pick up survivors, as several weeks earlier there had been a disaster.

 On that occasion, on the 22nd September, both HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy had also been torpedoed when going to pick up survivors from HMS Aboukir (Aboukir’s Chief Yeoman of Signals Alfred Assiter, also aged 37, died on that day and is also commemorated on Southborough War Memorial ). The submarine that sunk these three ships had again been commanded by Weddigen.  Lieutenant Weddigen was commander of U29, the following year, when on March 18th he was caught in Pentland Firth. HMS Dreadnought managed to ram the submarine and sink her with the loss of all hands.

There are two other connections between HMS Hawke and the small Kent community of Southborough, Tunbridge Wells:Private George William Walton (Bedford Road), Royal Marine Light Infantry, also died on HMS Hawke, and Private JE Corke (Elm Road) survived the sinking.

(Extracted in part from Southborough War Memorial by Judith Johnson)


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    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

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