Whitstable Times: Issue 4,271.
Edmond Thomas Gann. O.B.E. – Roses and memories of the way it was during his youth in Whitstable.
The roses bloom in the long gardens of the house high up on the Tankerton Road. Roses choice and rare, roses of every description and variety, roses of gorgeous colour and infinite beauty that delight the eye and diffuse their fragrant perfume in the sunlit days of our English summer. The owner of these gardens, the man who tends these roses that he loves with the greatest pride and care, is Mr. Edmond Thomas Gann, O.B.E., a prominent member of a family long associated with Whitstable and its history. Born here, he left the town at the age of sixteen, returning to it after an absence of forty-five years, in 1920. But during that time he was a frequent visitor to the old home town, the strong links bonding him to which were never broken.
To realise what Whitstable was like when he was a boy one must visualise it as a small town beginning at the “Noah’s Ark” public house and ending at the Harbour gates. It covered the distance of roughly a mile. There was no Tankerton, no Joy Lane, the only buildings to be seen in that direction being one or two little cottages. On the north side of the main street there was no footpath and in winter it was generally deep in mud.
The business of the post office was carried out in one of four cottages at the corner of Argyle Road. To get a stamp one went to the front door of the cottage. Their was a window in the door with one panel consisting of a board with tin painted over it. “Tapping on the panel,” says Mr. Gann, “you placed your penny on the ledge, and the stamp was passed out to you from the inside. You were never admitted to the place.” Shops were very few in number, as we know them now, in fact, shops did not exist. The town had two schools, the endowed and a school that was run by Mr. Weller, the headmaster, at the Forester’s Hall.
“Victoria and Albert Streets,” Mr. Gann tells us, “are dated by their names. Cromwell Road and most of the side roads off Oxford Street were thoroughfares of the future.” The town had a population of about 6,000. It was a very busy population. Shipping thrived and the oyster fishing industry was in a prosperous condition. Their were three hundred colliers bringing coal, mostly to Whitstable, and keeping the harbour packed to capacity, while as many as twenty ships would be lying in the Ness, waiting for berths. Five shipyards were working to full capacity. The fishing industry provided work for from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yawls in place of the small number to be seen now.
Rumour had it, we are informed by Mr. Gann, that there was a great deal of smuggling. It was a fact that quite a few people in Whitstable knew where to get a box of a hundred good cigars for 5/-. Brandy was cheap and eau-de-Cologne was the favourite and most used scent. It could be bought almost for a song. Smuggling went on despite the efforts of a fairly large coast-guard service and a resident preventative officer to suppress it. How was it done? A yawl would ostensibly leave port for a night’s trawling at about the same time that some cargo ship bringing the wanted cargo was due in the Thames, or somewhere. Whether the trawl ever went overboard only the men on board could have told you. One thing certain was that thereafter there was a generous supply in the town of cheap spirits and tobacco.
Though smuggling was pretty rife, there was at the same time in Whitstable of those days, as now, a strong leavering of religion. In his book , “Cakes and Ale,” the author, Somerset Maugham, has given readers a more or less true description of his uncle, the then Vicar of Whitstable parish church. St. Alphege church was packed at the Sunday services, as were the Nonconformist places of worship. For the boys and girls the Sunday School treat was the great event of the year. Children attending all the Nonconformist churches and chapels were assembled and marched through the town to a field, sometimes at Church Street and sometimes at Borstal Hill, where they played games, sang songs, and feasted plentifully on new bread and pure butter, sweet cakes, fruit and other good things that are hard to come by at the present time.
The amenities of the community were few and far between. There was little gas, no electricity, streets were unlighted, and shops and homes had perforce to use heavy oil for heating purposes, which made hard work for housewives. Entertainments were given in the winter by travelling companies, in the Assembly Rooms, and an occasional visit from a circus was eagerly looked forward to in the summer months. In 1869 a big fire, which started near the “Duke of Cumberland” hotel, swept over Sea Street, and adjacent thoroughfares, causing much damage of property before it was got under.
So far as sport was concerned, association football was popular, although it did not enjoy the vogue it has now. Cricket flourished, and Whitstable ran a good team, the richer members of which were never slow in putting their hands in their pockets for the help and benefit of members less well off than themselves. Memorable matches were played at Lees Court and Chilham Castle. One of the many enthusiastic cricketeers of Whitstable in those days was Jack Perry. To do his piece well on the cricket pitch he required a pint of mild ale. The more mild ale he drank, in fact, the better cricket he played. He was a first-class bowler. His skill with the cricket ball was shown one day on the field when he accepted a challenge to bowl against a batsman who handled a bat that was four inches wider than the wicket and painted in bright colours down the front. Jack brought down the wicket, at the first ball, with a beautiful leg break. He had an impish humour, had Jack Perry. At a luncheon he attended given by Lord Sondes he was asked by his lordship what he would drink. “Some salt herrings, my lord,” was his quick reply. He was thinking, no doubt, of the fine thirst such a dish would give him.
Speaking of the members of Parliament who have represented this constituency, and of many of whom he has personal memoirs, Mr. Gann has high praise for the present member, Mr. Baker White, a worthy successor to those who have preceeded him in the House of Commons as member for the division.
The services rendered to his country by Edmond Thomas Gann, services that gained for him the high reward of the O.B.E. are many and various. He was for a long time the Secretary of the Army Sanitary Council and of the Army Medical Advisory Board. The work he did in the 1914-18 war in the high service of his country is commemorated in the annals of that stirring period of our national history. His wife died in 1940. They had three children, two sons, the youngest of whom died in the same year as his mother, and one daughter, who lives at home with her father. Vice-President of the National Rose Society, Edmond Thomas Gann has been a very successful exhibitor of roses at the leading horticultural shows in this country for more tham half a century. His exhibits in the amateur classes have brought him many handsome prizes. One of these is a large silver salver awarded for the year by the Gravesend Rose and Sweet Pea Society for the best display of roses. He has won it nine time in as many years, and there among the roses that he loves and cherishes we take leave of him.
E.B.
