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Richard Thomas Pook - a victim of The Hythe tragedy

29/11/2015

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PictureThe Pook Family - photograph found on Richard's body
On 31st October I attended a Service at St Matthew’s High Brooms which commemorated the loss of HMS Hythe 100 years ago. I sat next to a lady who had come to honour her grandmother whose first husband had died on board the ship. I was also pleased to meet two young men who are great-great-nephews of Captain Reginald Salomon.

Driver Richard Thomas Pook was another of the men drowned in the Hythe Disaster on 28 October 1915. He was born at Beaufort Farm, Battle, East Sussex*, then lived in Wadhurst before moving to Hill Street in Tunbridge Wells. He lived here with his wife Florence Edith Pook and  their daughters Frances and Edith.

Richard Pook worked as a driver for the coal merchant GH Smith, of Mount Pleasant. He enlisted on 31 May 1915.

His daughter wrote to Frank Stevens, author of Southborough Sappers of the Kent (Fortress) Royal Engineers, in July 2000 on behalf of herself and her sister:
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We were very young at the time, but learned from our mother that he was not one of the Company but was seconded to them at the last moment because of his skill with horses, and we understood that there were a number of mules on board. He was known as “nurse” to sick horses.

We believe our mother was the first to be notified of the tragedy as she had a letter from the Chaplain of the Hospital Ship ‘Soudan’ telling her that he had been picked up, but was subsequently buried at sea from that ship. We have looked for the letter which we know is around somewhere, but we do have two cards signed by the Chaplain AHG Creed - formerly Vicar of Ewshot, Aldershot, one dated 22nd August 1916 - a photograph of himself, and the second dated 23rd August 1916, a picture of the RN Hospital Ship No 1 “Soudan”. With the letter he did send a water-stained family photograph which was in our father’s pocket when he was picked up, which we still have.

We understand from our mother that a cousin of hers by the name of Gilbert**, who lived locally, was also a victim of the tragedy.



PictureHMS Soudan
Miss Pook did latterly locate the letter, dated 22nd August 1916, which included the following:

Dear Mrs Pook, I have been a long time, I fear, in replying to your letter, but just after receiving it, I went on leave, and I wanted, before I replied to it, to verify  several details that were among some of my papers, which I could not at the moment lay my hand on. Your husband was brought on board this Hospital Ship at Cape Helles on the night of Oct. 29.1915. He was dead when he was brought on board here. He was buried with Colour -Sergeant Carter the following morning at about 11.30 a.m I think it was. I remember the Captain put farther out to sea, so that the burial might take place. I took the Service. The Soudan had arrived off Cape Helles from Malta that afternoon. That evening the Hythe had arrived from Mudros (? the part of the Island of Lemnos) with troops. Your husband and Sergeant Carter being among them. The ‘Sarnia’ had also brought troops from Mudros that afternoon. In the dark, about 8.30 p.m I think it was,she was run into by the Sarnia and sunk. About 150 men were drowned. I understood from Dr Taylor, the doctor here, who went on board the ‘Destroyer’ to bring any men onto the ‘Soudan’, that artificial respiration had been tried upon your husband and Sergeant Carter, but with no effect. I should be inclined to think that many men were crushed by the two boats after they collided and came together again. This was what one of the survivors, whom we had on board, told me. We only had 3 men living bought on board - and they were not much the worse. Great preparations were made on board here after the collision, to receive a large number of men, but I think most of them were taken ashore by the destroyer and other craft. This I think is all I have to tell ... I see in the Official List your husband’s religion is put down as ‘not known’. If you tell me what it was I can see it is correctly listed... I hope I have answered all that you wish to know: and believe me, with much sympathy in your great loss, Very Truly Yours, A.H.G. Creed.

Ps I have just seen Dr Taylor again. He told me that both Sergt. Carter and your husband, when he saw them on the Destroyer, were quite unconscious. Artificial respiration had been tried for 2 hours, without success. He says he thinks both men had injuries to the head. he thinks too that they were really dead when they were brought on to the Destroyer. 

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Driver Pook is also mentioned in the book The Unfinished Journey by Michael Pelham as being trapped and injured on the Hythe. As the ship sank, the water helped lift the wreckage and he was washed away. His daughters would live into old age, having lost their father tragically at the ages of seven and three.

Footnotes:
*Richard Thomas Pook born 15 April 1883, eldest son of James Pook, carter, of Normans Wood, Wadhurst. His mother was the daughter of Richard and Ruth Muggridge. Florence Edith Pook was the daughter of George Benge Gardner. She and Richard were married at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Wadhurst on 14 December 1907.

**There were two men named Gilbert who died on the Hythe. This may most likely be John Robert Gilbert, KF 2240, son of John William and Anne Gilbert of 6, Warwick Cottages, Cemetery Road, Tunbridge Wells. John was aged 21 when he died, and prior to enlistment he had worked as a gardener for Mr A Taylor-Jones of The Grange, Forest Road, Tunbridge Wells. He had attended St Mark’s and King Charles’ Schools, had sung in St Mark’s Choir and at one time had acted as organ-blower at St Mark’s.

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Wool War One - Delit Maille

10/11/2015

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PictureIndian Corps
I was thrilled to have the chance to meet French visual artist known as Delit Maille from Lille (her nom de plume is a play on the Daily Mail newspaper title) at the World Travel Market last week, and to have a tour with her of the 540 knitted soldiers lined up, as if they were marching, part of the Wool War One art installation (there are 750 soldiers in total), originally commissioned for an exhibition at La Piscine Museum, Roubaix, dedicated to remembrance of the First World War.

The artist had initially declined the invitation to contribute a piece to the exhibition. Part of her work, which, as a writer and artist, she sees as an aspect of her desire to tell stories, is knitting a response to what’s happening on the news. She felt that the First World War was too serious a subject for her to address, but, after an extensive tour visiting the War Cemeteries in the Somme, she was moved and inspired to accept the offer.

Maille appealed, via her blog delitmail.blogspot.com, for help from interested volunteers  in the task of  knitting a collection of miniature soldiers representing the French War Dead, but quickly realised that there was a desire from many to include their own lost countrymen, and subsequently enlisted 500 knitters out of around 1500 volunteers  from around the world, including France, Germany, Great Britain, China, India, Newfoundland and Belgium.

Each knitter received a pack in the post including patterns and wool, and a request for a specific piece of uniform - coats, hats, trousers, rucksacks;  an average of ten knitters worked on each soldier. Maille supervised the knitting of the soldiers themselves which were made locally, and also met and knitted with volunteers across France (at events named Woolstock), at which they discussed what the work would mean to them. Finally she assembled the soldiers.

One line of  figures represents the men from Newfoundland. Maille told me she was particularly touched, on visiting the Beaumont Hamel Memorial Park, 9k from Albert, to learn what had happened to them. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, no unit suffered heavier losses than the Newfoundland Regiment. They had gone into action 801 strong; roll call the next day revealed that the final figures were 233 killed or dead of wounds, 386 wounded, and 91 missing. Every officer who went forward in the Newfoundland attack was killed or wounded. Young Canadian volunteers  spend a year guiding visitors around the Park, telling  the men’s stories. I promised to send Maille details of one more brave Newfoundlander, George Furey. Who knows, it may move her to knit the story of George and HMS Firedrake.

Australians
British
Delit Maille
Germans
Italians
Moroccan Spahis & Turks
Newfoundlanders
Scots
Senegalese Tirailleurs
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Honey or Fluff?

5/11/2015

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​Doing my regular supermarket shop recently, and reaching out for the honey, I was struck by an item on the shelf above, and how the price difference, considering the quality of the foodstuff, was comparatively small.  I’m always fascinated to see what is in other people’s baskets at the till (but then as my husband will tell you, I was born nosey!).

Littleover Pure Organic Wildflower Honey costs £11.80 per kilo. Ingredients: Organic Wildflower Honey
Littleover says “We do not heat-treat or blend our honey, we are 100% chemical and drug free in all our hive operations, and we only use gravity filtration to ensure that our honey is in the jar in as natural a state as possible.”

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Marshmallow Fluff costs: £9.39 per kilo. Ingredients:
Ingredients: Corn Syrup, Sugar Syrup, Dried Egg Whites and Vanillin.
 
There’s an increasing amount of media coverage about sugar. The following is one view:
 
"Table sugar (sucrose) has been condemned by dentists, nutritionists, and physicians for scores of years. It is the greatest scourge that has ever been visited on man in the name of food. Endocrinologists agree that the endocrine system of glands and the nervous system cooperate to regulate the appetite so that the right amount of the right kind of food is taken in. Sugar spoils this fine balance. Being almost 100 percent “pure”, this high-calorie dynamite bombs the pancreas and pituitary gland into gushing forth a hypersecretion of hormones comparable in intensity to that artificially produced in laboratory animals with drugs and hormones. Sugar is the culprit the endocrinologists have been looking for that has been throwing the finely regulated endocrine balance completely out of kilter."  
(Edward Howells, DDS Enzyme Nutrition)
 
We are advised by the majority of common-sense nutritionist sources that all sweeteners should be taken in moderation, even honey, but for value, taste and wholefood reasons, I think I’ll stick with honey!

One more example of choice I spotted in the same shop:

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National Geographic Magazine - October issue - 148 pages
OK, now £5.50, but it’s a long, satisfying and informing read about, amongst other things,  fossils found in a South African cave raising new questions about what it means to be human; Laponia, one of Europe’s largest wilderness areas in the heart of Sweden; The Congo River in modern times; and beachcombing wolves which swim among Canadian islands. A truly fascinating and mind-broadening experience involving many happy reading hours.

Heat Magazine - 128 pages: £2.10 special offer including a copy of Closer
Articles include: Kourtney won’t let Caitlyn see her kids; Jamie is Fifty Shades of Hot on Hols; Kate’s Break up gets messy; and Posh Parties Very Hard.

I have to confess I’ve never read Heat or Closer. They appear to be a mix of celebrity gossip and real-life stories mirrored by similar television programmes. Given the close attention many people pay these publications, it seems that, like sugar, they are part of an epidemic of  fast-rush addiction, rather than the slow-digesting experience of  a read like National Geographic.
 
Here’s Julian Norman’s piece about Closer in The Guardian.

As the saying goes, you pays your money and you makes your choice.

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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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