January left but fortunately February arrived just in time.

Whitstable Times newspaper report:
"Mike Gambrill, senior port controller, lost his grip at the top of an access ladder at the harbour, and fell 21 foot onto the deck of a boat below. Mr. Gambrill was shaken by the accident but suffered no serious injuries."

No, not one of our reports from 60 years ago, but this week. We wish Mike a speedy recovery and are sure that his forefathers were looking after him.

I had my first experience of buying on Ebay this week. Somehow or other I landed on the site during a search relevant to Whitstable. I thought I'd have a nose around whilst there and used their search engine to find anything relating to the town. To my surprise some 30 odd items were found. Amongst these, mainly postcards, I found a Goss Florentine china vase with the seal of the Corporation of Dredgers of Whitstable - 1793 on it. The price seemed reasonable and I spent the next day or so responding to my bids being beaten. I decided to leave further bids until the last moment of the allotted sale time running out. This I did from home but my connection crashed just as I put my final bid in. Thinking that was the end of it I gave up. Later when collecting emails I had one congratulating me on my winning bid and so in front of me is the little vase, made in Stoke-on-Trent, bought by someone as a memento of their visit to Whitstable around 1920, now having come back home. My family have been ribbing me umercifully, saying that if they put a mouldy banana on Ebay with the writing " A present from Whitstable" on it I would spend the next week using my last penny in making sure I won the auction for it!

The point of all this is that I have discovered a new source of Whitstable antiquities. Most of the articles being auctioned on Ebay have photographs. Admittedly not of the highest quality, the pictures of old postcards and the like, which change weekly, are like a rotating gallery of old Whitstable. Although I cannot condone the use of these pictures in any form of publishing unless you own an original, I cannot see why you couldn't save any for your own personal viewing.

Talking of pictures, that annoying "right mouse click disable" thing has now been removed from the OysterTown site. This was originally used to stop people downloading the images and code and using them on their own sites. It dawned on me this week that I actually want to share these images and spread them around the world. I still have the use of the imbedded ownership code within them to protect against commercial use.

That brings me onto the text, and printing it. Due to the nature of the coding used for the scrolling menu printing out a page causes overlap of the menu on the print-out. The best way to avoid this is to select the text you want, go to print and when your printer option box appears select 'print selection'.

I promised you all the 1891 census 'Whitstable born people on ships' page for the end of January. It was uploaded on the 31st and can be found in the 1890 Section. At the same time the accompanying page giving the details of the vessels as recorded on that census was uploaded.

Thes two pages have been harder work than any other pages so far on the site. As I have written before, the searchable database of these records had so many transcription errors that only 50% of the people listed would have been found. Some of this was down to the original writing, some to poor image copying, and some to missing or damaged pages.

There are ommisions in my listings. I do not want to give people false information that they then use as fact. Where information is uncertain some ? are used, where it was illegible or missing then n/a is used.

Information is much easier to obtain these days than in the past. In building these pages I have inadvertently proved some inaccuracies in the book "The Merchant Ships of Whitstable" by the late local historian Wallace Harvey. His records are probably more accurate about the tonnage of the vessels, but some of the vessels listed in the 1891 census no longer existed according to his book. To put this into context, I spent odd periods of time over several months collecting and transcribing data, whilst he spent most of his life, doing it the hard way. The lesson to be learnt by us all is to take nothing as proved unless you see the original sources.

Last week I mentioned the 'Brown Links' on names. You will notice a few of these on the Ships-1891-People page. Give one a click and then all that waffle I was going on about will make some sense. This is the beginning of the way in which we shall 'paint the picture' of our ancestors.

I hope the two new pages help you to learn something you didn't know before. If they do then it's been worthwhile.

Next it will be the 1871 version, but now I know what's involved I'll build up to that. In the meantime I've got all the E.B. articles, the other bits of work-in-hand, and we haven't even started on the complete story of The Oyster Fishery companies, nor the building and history of the oldest passenger railway in the world.

What I'm really looking forward to, as the daylight hours increase, is doing the modern equivalent of what E.B. did in 1947/8, talking to the old Whitstable people about their memories.

Amongst all that I really must get back on the track of my own Whitstable line, BUTCHER, CULLIN, and others that are somewhere beyond that brick wall I hit 9 months ago. Strange that a year previous I had traced the line back to the 1700's before I discovered one simple mistake that meant I had hi-jacked someone else's family. In a way I was rather pleased. That lot had come from Faversham whilst the real one's were Oyster Dredgers and I really didn't want to come from Faversham anyway!

My BAKER line came originally from the forests of Hertfordshire where for centuries they were sawyers. I've been to see the houses and villages they lived in and in doing so felt so much closer in touch with them and with myself.

This is perhaps when I realised that many of the ancestors of Whitstable people were unable to do the same and the seed of this site began to grow in my mind.

Quest of the week:
Three Whitstable RIGDEN's arrived in America on the "Carmenia" on March 23rd 1914. What information can we obtain from this?

I'll leave you with that until next week.

THE SHINGLESTON'S

The Shingleston's increased in number this week as help arrived from three sources, one working forward, one backwards.and the other from census records.

Stan Weeks of Glamorgan sent in the information he has compiled on the Shingleston's of Margate from the parish church registers.His 3x great grandparents were Charlotte Shingleston and John Henry Weeks who married 6 10 1798.

He sent me 7 family sheets of Shingleston's that he had been unable to connect, although he thought that James Shingleston was the one that brought the lline to Whitstable. I had all but proved this from the other direction.

In the meantime Frank Miles who is tracing his Rigden line back had sent me information about Carolyn Shingleston who had married William Rigden on 10 11 1863. It would seem she may have added a couple of years to her age in order to get married. On the wedding certificate her parents were named as James Shingleston and Sarah Sheppard.

When I was researching the original pages starting with George, I assumed he had one brother, James William. Now here was an older sister, Carolyn.

Then the CD of the Blean area 1851 census that I had finally gotten around to ordering arrived. I span it up and tried the name. Results: 1 family of 7 persons living in the 'Island' area of the town.(Only the main road names were recorded on this census).

They were Sarah, Mariners wife, and her children Kathery, Ann Maria, Emily, Caroline, James and Frederick. (George wasn't born until 1855). So more jigsaw pieces had appeared but already they fitted together. Also I had found Frederick, the mystery Shingleston who appeared on the 1891 Whitstable born people on Ships. No problems with his birth date, the 1851 census showed him to be 1 day old! Once again, as we often find, the head of the household was away on a boat somewhere.

The point of all this (yes, you knew I'd get to it eventually), is that it proves the usefulness of sharing information. When the next update to the Oyster Gedcom is uploaded Stan will have 3 of his family groups connected and Frank will have a line going back to the mid 1700's in Margate that he wouldn't otherwise have known about. As for me, I'm as happy as a sand-boy, or a pebble-boy in the case of Whitstable's beach!

LADIES (1)

I've noticed that Genealogists, and to a lesser extent Family Historians tend to forget the mothers, daughters and sisters of the families they are tracing, intent on their destination of finding the earliest direct line ancestor.

At OysterTown the women are all important because they are the links between the families. The case point above came about because of one woman.

There is another reason why we should all recognise their importance as we try to paint the picture of our ancestors in the town. Many of the fathers were away from home sailing the seas and it was the mother of the family that had the greatest influence in the bringing up of the children. It is no wonder that when we look at the census data the women rarely had an occupation once married. Living in a 2 bedroomed house with maybe 10 children of various ages, and without the modern labour saving devices we have all become accustomed to, it is a miracle that most managed to survive to a good age. Yet, from these homes, we find clever, articulate, hard-working and compassionate offspring going off into the world who were a credit to the town and their mother's.

As Hubert Collar wrote in his memoirs in 1962 (at the age of 91)

"My mother was a women with convictions, many of which in my mind were quite misplaced. It is not unfair to say that in some directions, the strength of her convictions approached intolerance. Some actions were accursed to a degree beyond dispute. What books did mother read? The answer is simple. She had no time for reading. Given suitable conditions of means and leisure, her outlook and culture would have been very different. She was fond of music, but for many years her only satisfaction was to be found in a Concertina."

"My father must be described as withdrawn; or perhaps a better word would be moody. I think he felt that fate had dealt hard with him, and he did not get on terms with his life. What father could have become if not for his evil genius 'work', I cannot hazard an opinion. He continually drummed into us the desirability of 'improving our minds', an outsatnding Victorian convention. Reading of fiction was an unprofitable pursuit and I have often thought what a happier man he might have been if he had embarked on a course of Dickens or Trollope when leisure came to him. "

"Taking a comprehensive view of their life, it seems to have been extraordinarily bare of fun and games. Work was the prevailing feature and what was there left? He would start work each day at 5 or 5.30 am. 6pm was the time for quitting his regular occupation and there would be innumerable domestic jobs waiting, such as mending the childrens' boots and shoes and what not."

The Collar boys went on to become highly respected businessmen, councillors and benefactors to hospitals. Their early life may have seemed hard, but in looking back they agreed that they could not have asked for an upbringing more beneficial to them as they made their way in the world.

When we look at the town today it is easy to miss the sign that says "Collars Alley", named after Hubert's father and uncle, or the sign on the house in Island Wall stating "The Guinea", the public house run by their mother's father. What is even less tangible, but believe me is still here, is within the souls of the people that reflects the character of their ancestors, both male and female.

LADIES (2)

Last week, in writing about Whitstable memorabilia on Ebay, I should have perhaps mentioned "Tipping the Velvet". If any of you have had a look at Ebay under the search for Whitstable you would have seen many copies on auction of this DVD and so I think I should give you a little warning.

The television series was based on a novel which followed the life of the daughter of a Whitstable Oyster dealer as she became involved in the theatre and acting. I cannot use the word I want to here, not just because of any moral hang-ups, but it might cause this email to be blocked by anti-spam programs. Shall we say that she became extremely good freinds with other woman in her role as a male impersonator?

Much of the first episode was filmed at Whitstable, and to give credit to the producers, the shots of Victorian life in the town and of the Oysters being landed and sorted were probably very close to life in Whitstable all of those years ago. Unfortunately for us the story the goes away from the town and at that point I stopped watching it. During the weeks that the series was on the national newspapers had a field day hyping up the saucy scenes. In the town it was hardly mentioned, not out of embarassment, but the townspeople are used to all 'those arty types', and as long as they don't interfere with 'us' they can get on with it.

Let's face it, how many towns would have allowed Lord Haw Haw to address them, and then just turned their backs on him. Perhaps if they'd been a little more bothered the country wouldn't have had to endure all his propoganda during WW2.

LAST WEEK

I wrote about the Rigdens and America. The point was, as many of you realised, that there are some places to search that you wouldn't automatically think about, like the Ellis Island site for American immigrants. It could explain someone who goes missing from the UK records. Well worth a look.

THE SITE

Later this week the search-box is moving to the top of the menu. No big deal, just to make sure new visitors see it and have a go. I get a full listing of all of the searches and this helps me find out what people are looking for so that I can plan what should be included next. It also helps me find errors. For instance during a period last October the site was getting hit very heavily by people all over the world looking for a 'newspaper template'. I then realised that I had missed titling one of the pages and this was my default title for that section. Having rectified this the hit rate went back to its normal angle of ascent.

Just think of the hits it would get if I described that DVD properly! Of course, I wouldn't resort to such cheap tactics. The aim is not how many, but how useful.

Another week flew by and I sit here wondering what I have done with the site this week as I don't seem to have anything to show for it. Then I remember the Oyster Gedcom. I won't be a minute.
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THE OYSTER GEDCOM

Now I have taken the headache tablet I will recount a little tale.

"I have a dream." Yes, a dream to build the ultimate resource for people tracing their family history in Whitstable. An idea that seemed so simplistic in its aim that it couldn't fail. Indeed, it had become a reality and was starting to grow. I felt like a father watching over the birth of his child.

The problem with dreams is that you cannot control them and they can quite easily turn into nightmares.

This is exactly what happened this week as I realised I had given birth to something resembling that monster that exploded out of John Hurt's stomach in the film 'Alien'. The one that was all legs and arms and teeth which eventually consumed the crew.

I had been collecting different gedcom files that I have been sent and saving them. This week I started trying to do some sample merges with the master gedcom.

Including the master, which is on the site at present, I now have some 6,000 individuals. Now I knew there would be a lot of duplications where people's lines merged and these were the links I was looking for. For example, one researcher has found siblings of their direct line and has listed them but taken no further action, but one of the siblings appears in another researcher's line as having married into their family. Bingo, I can connect the families and both researchers have gained something.

So far, so good. Except there are a few problems that in my inexperience and lack of analytical forward planning didn't dawn on me until this week. Perhaps 'dawn' is too mild a word. It was more akin, in Whitstable terms, to standing outside the house in Victoria Street, on a night during WW2, watching those pretty lights in the sky, when the bombs rained down, and only having an umbrella for protection.

These are the 'bombs':

Where people's lines have converged, they should then have been following the same path backwards. Not always the case!

Some people have managed to find exact birth and death dates, whilst others have subtracted age from the census date to get a birth year. (Giving a 75% chance of being a year out).

I've got over 120 people who have no surnames. Many of the 'Jane' or 'Elizabeth' ladies might have a match, but without any other data on them I'll never know.

I am sure a few 'known as' or nicknames have crept in.

One or two have 'married so and so, or maybe thingamebob'.

Some appear to have christening dates as birth dates.

Many have no source data, so I cannot confirm them.

Let me make this quite clear. This is in no way a criticism of anyone who has sent in their gedcom. My own personal records also show all of these problems. It's just that when you put them together it seems to explode at a logarithmic rate.

If we go back to my analogy of a jigsaw I now have several sections of the jigsaw completed to a greater or lesser extent from different sources. Each on of these sections becomes a jigsaw piece which should fit, or partially fit and partially overlap other pieces. The difficulty I am having is that I cannot visualise the overall picture.

That's the bad news. The good news is that any new gedcoms might make the picture clearer. Or they might send me completely round the bend and then you will all get a little respite from me.

So, what am I going to do?

I've allowed my subconscious to mull this over for a few days and I have a few ideas. These are along the lines of finding any definite matches before I merge and just merging that line. Or maybe emailing both parties with a possible match so they can come to some sort of agreement after swapping information.

I did consider adding all the new records without doing any matching or merging and letting people find the links themselves, but that kind of defeats the object of the whole thing.

I am, by nature, a problem solver. I may be naive, but I have the advantage of a stubborn streak and the belief that anything in life is possible given the commitment. Time will tell if I have the abilities to match my words. If I do we will all gain, including the town. If I fail at least you all will have found new friends with common interests that you can email saying "I told you so."

Anyway, what other news?

Well, I had another go on Ebay. This time to buy one of the original lables that went on the boxes of Oysters as they went to market in London (probably Billingsgate). It wasn't a lot of money but I still got pipped at the post and lost the auction.

The next day I had an email stating that for some reason the winner had pulled out and it was offered to me at my last bidded price. I grabbed this unexpected opportunity and bought it.

It arrived two days later. I hadn't even thought about where it came from as it could have been anywhere in the UK. I had a chuckle as I read the return address the sender had written on the back of the envelope:

Harbour Street, Whitstable, Kent.

I wonder if she has a printing press in her back room?

Some time ago I came across the full text of an article (rumoured to be written by Charles Dickens) named "The Happy Fishing Ground" which was published in his paper "All the Year Round" in 1859. It was all about the Oyster Dredgers of the town and their Company from notes made when the author spent a few days with them.

Since then I had forgotten where I found it and I have searched the internet high and low without finding more than a few words of the article.

Today, I had a bit of an ultimatum from Chris about my 'junk'. We go through this from time to time and the general result is that I never quite get around to it. On this occasion the alternative was of an unprintable nature that would have deprived me of some things I'm quite attached to (or is it the other way round?). So, the pact was made: If I haven't needed it for more than 2 years, then I doubt I will ever need it. (I am talking about the junk now).

This is how I was sitting on the floor surrounded by papers, old bills, more papers, reminders, notes, cdroms with no titles, and all of the other treasures that seem to build up.

True to my word most of if went in the bin. Why I kept some of it I'll never know. Then I found the yellowed booklet. I couldn't remember having seen it before. I flipped through it and there before my eyes, "The Happy Fishing Ground", the full text.

It is now filed at the back of my desk. The desk that seems to have so much more room on it for some reason. Soon the article will be on the site and then we'll all be able to find it! If you haven't come across it before you will find it very informative and the link to Dickens gives some credibility to the old stories in the town of people having met him on the beach.

I wonder if the townspeople told him of the way some of them used to supplement their income by helping convicts escape from the prison hulks in the estuary. I can see him sitting on the marshes at Seasalter turning over in his mind the scene as a convict hid in the reeds. Then perhaps the convict would frighten a young lad and then perhaps.....

If you think I'm going crazy, then you haven't read the book by Wallace Harvey "Seasalter and the Mystery of Robinson Crusoe" where he sets out his theory that Daniel Defoe wrote the story based on his observations at Seasalter. He made a good case which I wouldn't like to attempt to disprove.

On that note I'll bid you farewell,

p.s.

UK residents only. Watch out for the series on the evacuation of Dunkirk by the BBC on Wed, Thurs and Fri at 9pm. Some of the shots of the little boats setting out were filmed at Whitstable Harbour last year. Reasons: Authentic and cheaper than the alternatives.

I have decided that sometimes the subconscious does as much work as the conscious. For instance, this week it came to me that I was aware much more of the lives of our ancestors in the town and what made them tick.

When I stopped and analysed this I realised that my subcon- scious had linked together relevant details from work I had been carrying out on the site and emails I had received.

Read this, from the "Happy Fishing Grounds", about Whitstable, maybe by Charles Dickens, and it will get you started along the same lines:

"Its one idea is oysters. It is a town that may be called small, that may be considered well-to-do, that is thoroughly independent, and that dabbles a little in coals, because it has got a small muddy harbour and a single line of railway through the woods to Canterbury, but its best thoughts are devoted to oysters. Its aspect is not sightly, for the line of its flat coast is occupied by squat wooden houses, made soot-black with pitch, the dwellers in which are sturdy freeholders, incorporated free-fishers, or oyster-dredgers, joined together by the ties of a common birthplace, by blood, by marriage, capital, and trade. It has always been their pride, from time out of mind, to live in these dwarfed huts on this stony beach, watching the happy fishing grounds that lie under the brackish water in the bay, where millions of oysters are always breeding with marvellous fertility, and all for the incorporated company's good. How can the free-dredgers, and the whole town of Whitstable, help thinking of oysters, when so many oysters seem to be always thinking of them?

A primitive and curious joint-stock company it is, a joint-stock company whose shares are unknown upon the Stock Exchange, because they are never in any market except Billingsgate market; a joint-stock company that may not be peculiar to Whitstable, but is peculiar, so it seems, to all happy fishing grounds, where oysters are cultivated...

It came together in the dim old times, as a family compact, and a family compact it still remains. Its three hundred and forty odd members are all Whitstable men, or Whitstable widows and children. The stranger is never admitted to the rights and profits of a dredging-freeman, though the strange woman may be brought in by marriage, into the oyster tents, and may rear up sons who shall go forth and fish.

The male infant is born, a young shareholder, in one of the low pitch-black wooden houses on the beach; he is nursed to the tune of an oyster-dredging lullaby, to the howling of the wind, to the hissing of the surge. He staggers into the back parlour as soon as he can walk, and finds it a Robinson Crusoe's storeroom, filled with canvas, coils of rope, old oars, nails, paint-pots, and parts of ships. He tumbles out of a door at the end, and down some steps, on to the pebbly shore, where he plays on the border of his happy fishing ground, or clambers into a boat bearing his father's name, which lies high up on the beach, half filled with the skins of dead star-fish, with cockle-shells and maddy crabs.

He thinks that the handkerchief which his sister wears over her head and shoulders in the summer, like a monk's cowl, or the shawl that she wears, for greater warmth, in winter the most elegant head-dress that was ever planned. The fact that Canterbury, a cathedral city, about seven miles off, has never adopted this head-dress, is nothing to him, for he knows that Whitstable men are perfect in matters of fish, and he gallantly considers that Whitstable women must consequently be perfect in matters of taste.

The free-dredger is thoroughly independent, not given to touch his hat to lord or squire; and if he does pay any mark of respect to the Duke of Cumberland, it is only as the sign of the dredgers' public-house, where the profits of the free company of oyster fishers are divided and paid. At fourteen years of age he may look with hope towards this old smoky tavern, and may enter as a fisherman's apprentice, to see his master paid; but at twenty-one he comes into his full birthright, his share in the myriads of oysters he has so long been thinking about, with all the claims and privileges that belong to the free-fishing state. He is then permitted to attend the "Water-Court" on the second Thursday in July. Here all the dredgers meet and vote by ballot, revise the by-laws, appoint the nine watchmen with three watching boats, the foreman of the ground, with his deputy, and twelve jury-men are chosen as the board of management for the year."

Then add to this something that Carolyn Kemp from Canada wrote this week:

"I don't know if 'genetic memories' actually exist, but I do know that on each visit, even as a child, that I felt very comfortable walking the streets of Whitstable. Since it has been over a hundred years since my grandfather was in Whitstable as a young man, I suppose by Whitstable standards, I am now very much an 'outsider,' but the place does have a lure for me.

My great aunt, Jessie (Kemp) Reeves (1870-1968) left Whitstable in the 1930's to marry her childhood sweetheart, Jack Reeves, who had come to Canada to farm near Mannville, Alberta. Jack was a widower at the time, so the family story was quite romantic, but I remember as a child wondering about Jessie's quick return to Whitstable following the death of Jack Reeves in the 1950's. After visiting Aunt Jessie in Whitstable in the early 60's, I think I began to understand."

Then, from Mark Foreman, also in Canada:

"I am an old homesick Native, and always listened carefully to the stories of my Great Grandfather, Grandfather and Father, about Whitstable and her ships, houses and families (especially the Foremans)."

Then I remembered something I had written, almost a year ago, as I was laying out the idea for the site:

"The story of Whitstable is one of ordinary honest folk, struggling to bring up their children through floods, wars and epidemics, working with and against nature, whilst helping others within their close-knit community. If this ethos is in the heart of every young person who leaves the town to go out into the wide world they will not only carry with them a sense of pride in where they come from but know that when they are drawn back, as inevitably they will be, then they will be amongst friends that share a common history and outlook on life."

To this, I can now add the following:

"These people were not simple, but took pleasure from a simple life. They took adversity in their stride, but didn't like change. Change meant a different direction from the guidelines they and their neighbours knew how to deal with, a set of rules, sometimes linked with religion, that were passed down through the generations. When change was forced upon them, as the inevitablity of war, loss of the oyster harvest and the progress of technology was bound to do, some of them grasped the opportunity to take their skills, rules and honest way of life to pastures new. The sites and sounds of their old life never left them, the ships voyaging around the world, the rattle of wind in the rigging, the whine from the saw-pit at a boatyard, the horses pulling the oyster-laden boats ashore at the Horsebridge. These memories they instilled in their offspring. The remaining townspeople fought against the changes and as a result a distilled version of the life they led still exists in the town today, giving rise to such descriptions as 'quaint', or 'authentic'. This perhaps is the indefinable 'something' that attracts so many 'strangers' to the town today."

When you have absorbed all of this, and let it sink in to your subconscious, you too will perhaps understand better about your ancestors and indeed your own feelings about Whitstable.

I am, of course, excluding the relation of Carolyn's who absconded to America with the funds of the Oyster Company in this description. He apparently had only one eye and was such a brilliant ice-skater that he could skate his name into the ice. One suspects he was on even thinner ice after his escapade!

In the Whitstable Times this week.

Tony Blake, local historian, explains why many houses built in the town in the 18th century were wood cladded. Not because of any shortage of clay for bricks apparently, but because of a brick-tax that was in existence from 1784 to 1850.

The 'black-gold' found when builders started digging the foundations for the next part of the new Horsebridge centre and caused the cessation of work has now been analysed. Local theories were that it was the melted tar pitch from the cottages that burnt down in the great fire of 1869. Instead it turns out to be diesel. It would therefore appear that there may have been a severe leakage during the years that Browning's Yard covered this area. Work is now starting to remove the contamination.

Neil Baker reported on the funeral service of the Rev. Jack Kemp. Jack appears on the Oyster Gedcom, which was an oversight on my part as I try not to include any living people. From what my son tells me I have missed a valuable opportunity in not getting to know Jack. I have sent a copy of the newspaper cutting to Carolyn. The gedcom will be updated with the fresh information on Jack who was held in the highest regard by so many people.

Bagpuss is 30 years old. You may not have realised that Bagpuss (the old furry cat-puss) came from this area. It is now 30 years since the first (of only 13) episodes was shown on television. The makers, Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin are pictured with Emily Firmin and Bagpuss, the stars of the show.

A picture of Westmeads School children is shown that was taken in 1926. Most of the children are named including Mildred Foad, Kathleen Lawson, Alice Camburn, Marjorie Camburn, Helen Stroud, George Rigden, and Irene Foad.

A letter is included from a lady in Island Wall entitled 'Groundhog Day?' saying that she has a copy of a Whitstable Times from 1976 discussing proposed changes to the High Street and that the same discussions are taking place again now. Well, I can beat that. I have a copy of the paper from 1947 reporting on a council meeting discussing the very same thing! Remember what I wrote about not liking change?

The front page has a report on what ex-Whitstable film-maker Duncan Roy said about actress Liz Hurley after making a film with her. The quotes are not very complementary (though, unfortunately, help sell newspapers). Duncan now lives in Australia. Well, as far as I am concerned you can keep him there. Liz never gives me any troubles when she stars in my films. The only problem is that she disappears as I wake up and then when I look around.....

(Ouch! A sudden pain manifests itself on the back of my head. "Hi Chris, I didn't see you there.")

On that cinematic note I'll say,

That's all for now folks.

This old genealogy lark is a bit like a roller-coaster ride at times, isn't it? You spend ages grinding up to the top of the slope, not quite knowing where it is, and then suddenly you're there and things start happening so quickly your senses are impacted from all directions and it's easy to miss enjoying the buzz that makes it all worthwhile.

This week was a bit like this.

My mention last week of the 1926 picture in the Whitstable Times brought in a flow of emails from descendants of the children in question. These I was able to help out and direct them to the source for a high resolution copy.

A member of the Kemp family went into the 'Times office to thank Neil for his report on Jack Kemp. He went away with several copies of the paper which I guess will be making their way to other family members.

If you haven't been keeping a eye on the message board you won't know that Suzannah has got hold of a couple of copies of town directories from the 1940's. She's been kindly helping people out with the addresses of the family names they are linked to from that time. Be quick, as she only has them for a short time.

Back to the funfair theme. Mark Foreman from Canada mentioned that he had a Penny Machine from Jacques Arcade. That brought back happy memories. As a lad of about 13 I worked at the arcade in Beach Walk on the summer weekends. My great-uncle Fred Butcher was the sort of manager for Archie Watts the owner. I used to change the pennies and empty the machines. Most were of the bagatelle type, some with prizes of Rowntrees pastilles. There were pinball tables and a couple of really old 'What the Butler saw' machines. At that age the most exciting thing about these was the fact that if you touched both machines at the same time you got an electric shock. Needless to say, such an occurrence today would have meant instant condemnation. Fred had the keys for all of the machines draped over his head, hanging down his chest like some mayoral chain of office, and in hindsight I guess that was indeed what they were. Some years later, after the arcade had closed and been demolished I had the opportunity to buy one of these penny machines. It's a Bryan's Pilwin the Clown from 1953. I have been offered more money for it than makes sense but I still have it as Pilwin and I have a lot in common. ie. Name, made same year, Jacques Arcade, Clown, forever going round in circles, takes a lot to get a penny out of.....

Anyway, this week. 'Ping.' Another email arrives. I look at the screen expecting to see another offer to increase my wealth or the size of my attachments (unfortunately there is a three letter word beginning with 'S' and ending in 'X' which I have to let through my spam filter because we need to use it sometimes), but instead I'm looking at a message saying:

"I am the descendant of Mabel Shingleston (b. 12/04/1896, d. 7/03/1979), who married (5/11/1918) Frank Allen(b 19/04/1896, d 5/12/1956), and emigrated from Whitstable to Canada after WWI. They later moved to Detroit, Michigan, USA."

Wow! back on the roller-coaster. Check the records. Who is Mabel? I don't have her. Allen's, let me see, ships-masters, boot-makers. Census records, got them. BDM records, a link into the Goodwin family. Bang, bang. Two more families link into the Shingleston's and from a source I didn't know existed. There is more to come and I'm very excited by it. The story will infold....

Another find this week was an original photograph of The Shrubbery, Tankerton Slopes, taken about 1905. Nothing spectacular about it, a bit faded, a few people enjoying the sun, on the beach some paddlers, in the distance some Oyster boats in the bay. So, what made me buy it, apart from it being an original? Maybe it was the writing on the back:

"probably 1905 taken by my father." and signed "Wallace Harvey".

It has now been rescued from the box of assorted post-cards where it has spent the last few years in obscurity and will live on through the medium of the internet for everyone to see.

On the subject of photographs, Whitstable had the great fortune to have a photographer who took pictures of many of the events and changes in the Town during the 1900's. His name was Douglas West and four books of his pictures have been published over the years. These are a must for anyone with an interest in the town. As well as the pictures which he and his father took, Douglas, in his retirement, often showed his collection to people in the town such as the Womans Institute. They would loan, or give him, old pictures of their own to add to his collection. On his death Douglas left the complete collection to the Whitstable Museum, who in turn copyrighted the collection. This is a valuable asset for anyone visiting the museum when they have an exhibition of his work, as they have at the moment. A couple of small problems though. Many of the family photographs have no names and we cannot use any of the pictures without written permission of the museum. This means that many of the pictures will never be seen by any of you. In seeking to address this we have found out that a lot of the pictures he took were paid for by, and included in, the Whitstable Times. Apparently this may affect the question of ownership. In addition the question remains how you can copyright something that was given or loaned to you. I've no wish to 'water down' a valuable commodity that the museum now owns, but I feel that all interested parties should have complete access to all of these pictures.

In the Whitstable Times this week.

A letter from a friend of Jack Kemp saying how pleased he was at the turn-out at his funeral service and reminiscing about their school-days at Simon Langton and the 'bung' as they used to call the Crab & Winkle line.

A family were rescued from a house fire in St. Andrews Close, along with their dog which had to be given oxygen by the firemen. Thankfully, all are OK.

Neil Baker interviewed the new Police Chief Constable of Kent who explained his approach to the job.

Local architect showed his plans for a 476 vessel marina which would extend the East Quay of the harbour in a semi-circle towards Tankerton and give much need facilities to boat-owners and fishermen. Everyone seems to approve of the idea, but where's the money going to come from?

A Reeves built 6 bedroom house in Chestfield is on the market for £549,500.

A three bedroom detached house in Island Wall is on the market for £225.000.

Just think, when the fishermen first built their homes here, they found a bit of land that no-one seemed to own, and built a house on it for about £100!

Right, now I'm off to have a go on that Ferris Wheel.

I hope the candy floss and ice-cream have had time to settle..

2003 - November.  December.

2004 - January.

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