July 2011 News Update

• 

This issue of the Society's newsletter contains:

• Chairman's Introduction
• Society Business
• Social Programme Reviews
• A near miss for a blue plaque

Chairman's Introduction

Robin Green writes:

I am writing this just before Civic Day 2011, the first major national event that Civic Voice has organised. It will take place on Saturday 25 June and at the last count nearly 200 civic societies all over England will be taking part. As you already know, the Deal Society has organised a competition for local primary schools entitled "Why I love the place I live in". The response by the local schools has raised quite a lot of questions in my mind about civic life in this country.

First of all it has focused again on the fact that we need to celebrate what is positive and hopeful about the towns and cities of ournation. Too often we get bogged down in what is negative and destructive. I am by instinct a "pint glass half full" man. I think there is much to be upbeat about and the vibrancy of the children's work brought that home to me. Griff Rhys Jones, the President of Civic Voice, has called on local civic societies to celebrate what is is distinctive, attractive and worthwhile about the places where we live. We have always to fight for the right of everyone to live in a place that has those characteristics.

But there was also something less positive about the response from the schools. Of the seven local primary schools, only four chose to take part, despite the Society communicating with them with great care. It raised for me the question of how much is taught and explored in thenational curriculum about civic life and responsibility, and to what degree children at their most receptive are encouraged to think about and reflect on the communities in which they live. This is a question that I have already raised with Civic Voice and one which we should pursue. The Deal Society must have a concern for how future generations both celebrate and protect the town in which they live.

The master-plan exercise being undertaken by the consultancy firm GVAfor North and Middle Deal raises similar issues. At its heart there needs to be a fundamental question, "what does Deal need to be?". The children were in one sense responding to that question by saying what they really enjoyed about their town. The adult population needs to address the same question, and so far it has been extremely disappointing that so little public participation has been encouraged in this exercise. At the first, and so far only, workshop, only thirteen Deal residents were invited; the rest of the fifty plus people present were "experts"!

In the last News Update I drew attention to the need for the Society to find a Vice-Chairman for the Executive Committee. I am delighted to tell you that the Committee has co-opted Alan Clarke to act in that position. Alan has great experience in chairing meetings for the Football Association and has done an admirable job in organising the Society's visits. He will be a great asset.

Society Business

New members

Since the March News Update went to print, Bob Frost and Penny Moore, Terry and Georgina Bishop, Susan Shanks, Peter and Susan Tann and Cheryl Periton have joined the Society - welcome to you all.

AGM held at the Town Hall on 5 April

The minutes of the 47th AGM of the Society, which was well attended, will be circulated next February with the 2012 AGM agenda. The Chairman's review of the year was reported in the March News Update. John Goodban and Pat Russell retired from the Committee, and Doreen Whalley and David White were elected as new members.

Yellow Card for 2011/12

Preliminary details of the 2011/12 talks and meetings programme and 2012 social programme are given in seperate articles on this website. Thank you David White and Alan Clarke.

This year's social programme

There are a few places left for the Summer Supper, trip to the Tower of London and Christmas Drinks Party, but the walk with Simon Gregory is fully booked with a waiting list.

"Why I love the place I live in", Astor Theatre, 24 June

Robin Green writes:

I want to thank the group that organised this event with local primary schools on behalf of the Society. It has involved a lot of very hard work, and in many ways this new undertaking by the Society has not been easy, so a big vote of thanks is deserved by John and Veronica Goodban, Pat Russell, Ann Bridgen and Carol Burns. Jim and Doreen Whalley also helped with the mounting of all the exhibits. I also want to thank the three judges, Penny Bearman, David White and Una Stanley. They did not have an easy task and it took a whole evening; again, many thanks to them.

The Editor adds:

I was not involved in mounting the exhibition, but two Artistic Directors emerged as stars - James Tillitt of the Astor Theatre, who washelpfulness personified, and Veronica Goodban, who with John and her expert team produced the most attractive and professional display of artwork. Judging by the talented, funny and touching pictures and poemson show, the children had had a rewarding experience. The Mayor of Deal, Cllr Jim Cronk, and Cllr Derek Murphy from Walmer Parish Council presented awards to the nine prize winners, and Una Stanley presented the "best in show" award to Lucie Abikar. As I manned the bar, assisted by Ralph Cade, and watched the vultures descend on Eileen Prosser's canapés, I clocked this up as a very successful evening. I guess that 80 to 90 people attended.

Social Programme Reviews

The 2011 programme kicked off with a Saturday Coffee Morning in the Town Hall on 19 March, followed by the Spring Drinks Party at Glenhill on 6 May. Thanks go to Mike Oborne for ensuring that cups did not run dry at the former, and to the Wollaston family for letting us use their wonderful house and garden, and for providing a sunny evening, for the latter.

Bateman's, 15 June

Doreen Whalley writes:

"Behold us", Rudyard Kipling wrote in 1902, "lawful owners of a grey stone lichened house - AD1634 over the door - beamed, panelled and with an old oak staircase, all untouched and unfaked".

Our journey to East Sussex began with overcast skies and a few rain drops, but as we progressed through the beautiful Weald of Kent the sun started peeping through the clouds and when we arrived at our destination the weather was bright and warm.

After complimentary refreshments of coffee and shortbread we strolled through the gardens, passing the pond which was alive with multi-coloured fish and smothered in water lilies. Our senses were then assailed with the scent and vibrant colours of the formal rose garden. Through a gap in the hedge the formality of the garden loosens and a half-wild garden meanders and spreads along the banks of the River Dudwell. Trees and flowering shrubs are planted in rough grass, which in Spring is carpeted with daffodils, scillas, wood anemones and fritillaries. We saw wild orchids nestling in the long grass. Crossing an old wooden bridge, we came to the Mill. Reputed to have been built around 1750, Kipling claimed that the Mill "knew the Domesday Book backwards and forwards" and that "the noise of its revolving wheels said as much: Book - Book - Domesday Book". Although crammed with antique tools and machinery, the Mill is very much in full working order, so we were able to buy freshly milled wholemeal flour.

After a delicious lunch sitting in the sunshine of the Mulberry Restaurant garden, we were eager to explore the inside of the house. Rudyard Kipling described it as "a good and peaceable place", and that is just how it felt to me. Bought in 1902 for £9,300, the estate consisted of the house, the mill, an oast-house and 33 acres of land. At this time Kipling was 36 years old and was the most famous writer in the English-speaking world.

The first impression on entering is that this is a real home. The furniture is old oak in keeping with the age of the house, and all the hangings, paintings, books and artefacts were owned by the family. One could imagine that Rudyard Kipling had just popped out of his study and would be back any minute! Nothing is cordoned off, so everything can be scrutinised at close quarters. Every room is so interesting, and the National Trust guides were full of anecdotes about the family, some funny, some sad. They pointed out the small porthole window through which Mrs Kipling, whose office lay behind it, could survey anyone coming into the hall. Kipling was always anxious to preserve his privacy. We were told not to miss the notice on the guest bedroom door which referred to Stanley Baldwin, a ferocious walker, storming off on twenty mile route marches: "No guest to walk at more than five miles an hour. No guest to walk for more than two hours at a time. Guests are strictly forbidden to coerce or cajole the natives to accompany them on said walks. Signed Rudyard, Caroline and Elsie Kipling (natives)".

On a more poignant note, the portrait of Josephine which hangs in the children's room reminds us of the great sadness in Kipling's life. His first daughter, who died of pneumonia at six years old, had been his greatest joy. It was for her that he wrote the famous "Just So" stories. This tragedy was compounded with the death of his son Jack who, at eighteen years old, was killed in action at the Battle of Loos.

Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. To this day he is the youngest recipient of this award. He spent the prize money on the gardens at Bateman's, which speaks volumes about this amazingly talented, humorous and loving family man.

Everyone I spoke to on the outing said what an enjoyable day it had been, and our thanks go to Alan Clarke for his excellent commentary and for arranging such a memorable day out.

A near miss for a blue plaque

Thomas Witlam Atkinson FRGS FGS - architect, traveller, artist, author, 1799-1861

Brian Groser writes:

Britain has produced a number of people who lived remarkable lives, now unsung and almost forgotten. One came by us recently as a proposed candidate for our Blue Plaques program via Mr John Massey Stewart, an authority on T W Atkinson with links to his descendants. Unfortunately, the proposal did not meet the criteria necessary to qualify for the program, which are the same as those established by English Heritage, and we must strictly adhere to them. We thought, however, that we could at least sing about him in our News Update because, indeed, he led a full and very interesting life.

T W Atkinson was born in Cawthorne Parish, Yorkshire, the son of a mason, where he got a basic education, was taught to be a stonemason under his father, became a stone carver and a skilled draughtsman, and gave drawing lessons . He married on or about 1821 and fathered a son who was to die as a young man of 23.

Realising no small degree of artistic ability, he went on to start a successful architectural career, building churches, country houses, et al. In 1829 he published a folio describing "Gothic Ornaments Selected from the different Cathedrals and Churches in England". He relocated to London and then on to Manchester in 1835, where he lived until 1840 continuing his career.

Among his designs were St Mary's in Barnsley, St Nicholas in Tooting, St Luke's, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, and the Manchester and Liverpool District Bank in Spring Gardens. A list of much of his work is listed in Colvin's Dictionary of Architects, supplemented with further records kept by Mr Stewart.

It seems that in 1842 he got itchy feet and wanted to see a bit more of the world. He left his family and travelled to Hamburg, probably in response to news of the great fire there that year, and went to help repair the damage. While in Hamburg, he failed a major competition, gave up his architectural work and travelled to Russia. In St Petersburg he was noticed by, and met, some influential people and also met his second wife, an English governess whom he married in 1848. He expressed his wish to travel east of the Urals into Siberia to paint and sketch and, with the help of the British chargé d'affaires and an unrestricted passport from Tsar Nicholas I enabling him to travel the provinces, he and his wife began a five year long adventure.

There is a linen map of Central Asia in Atkinson's book "Oriental and Western Siberia" with the route of their travels marked on it (large excerpts of this book and its illustrations can be read on the Internet via Google). The route wanders from eastern Kazakhstan, covering Siberia, Mongolia, the Kirghis Steppes and Chinese Tartary - an enormous territory for anyone travelling by coach, sledge, or on horseback as they did. His wife Lucy gave birth to a boy who was named Alatau after a range of mountains they were to visit during their tour. Their travels were to total nearly 40,000 miles when they finished in 1853.

Thomas must have been a very forthright, courageous and enterprising individual to have travelled through this territory during that time and come out of it with his family intact and unharmed. This was a period in Greater Russia while the Cossack was prominent and when large tracts of the country were still subject to fairly savage tribal life - all but lawless - and of a pioneering character. It could almost be described as the "Wild Wild East"! (I am inclined to believe that parts of Russian territory east of the Urals is still of a pioneering character.)

His accounts describe country of wild beauty, extreme weather and rugged ground. His illustrations and paintings bear out his descriptions. He and his wife Lucy also describe some extraordinary social customs of the people they encountered and who helped them on their travels, which one would describe as primitive today.

On his return to these shores, he made his name with accounts of his travels in Siberia along with the sales of a very large portfolio of 560 paintings and sketches at Christies. He was lionised by London society, and he presented papers to the British Association, the Royal Geographic Society and the Geological Society on Central Asian volcanoes, Chinese Tartary and bronze relics in Siberia. Both the Royal Geographic and Geological Societies made him a Fellow.

He was the first Briton to travel in these regions and return with such a prolific record. He became known as "the Siberian Traveller" with the publication of two books, dedicated to Tsar Alexander II and to Queen Victoria, to whom he was subsequently introduced. I viewed two of his paintings hanging in the Royal Geographical Society and read excerpts from two books in the Society Library, one written by him and another by his wife Lucy. She published a social commentary and human record of her encounters with the people after Atkinson's demise in 1863 - "Tartar Steppes and their Inhabitants".

In very poor health, he chose to come to Walmer for its healthy seaside climate to recover, but unfortunately it was too late and he died here in August 1861. Martin Tapsell, Walmer Parish Archivist, informs me that his burial transcripts are held in the Walmer Parish registers and that he is buried in the Yew Tree section of the old Walmer Parish Church, but any headstone to his grave has disappeared.

An article on T W Atkinson appeared in Country Life in May 1986 and, which I am informed by Mr Stewart, has a number of flaws and inaccuracies but which on the whole is a reasonable description of the character of his life. The article has reproductions of some of Atkinson's watercolour paintings depicting quite spectacular country, steppes, rugged and mountainous landscapes of boulders, rocks and flowing water - almost heroic in style - that tempts us to see and explore for ourselves!

I hear that there is a strong possibility that a Blue Plaque could be placed within Cawthorne, the town of T W Atkinson's birth.