25. Griffith Brewer, “Aeronautics: Aviation at Sheppey”, The Field, 17 April 1909, p. 678. On Brewer and his work as a patent agent in the new field of aeronautics, see Jonathan Hopwood-Lewis, “Griffith Brewer, ‘The Wright brothers’ Boswell’: Patent Management and the British Aviation Industry, 1903–1914, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, Vol. 44, Issue 2, June 2013, pp. 256–268
26. “Aero Club of the United Kingdom: Official Notices to Members”, Flight, 5 June 1909, p. 330
27. “Flying Grounds at Shellbeach”, Flight, 11 September 1909, p. 558
28. “The Marquis De St Mars”, Tatler, 26 January 1910, p.11
29. “The Costliest Kite on Earth”, Pearson’s Weekly, 30 September 1909, p. 11
30. “He won £1,000 for a Two-Minute Flight”, Lincolnshire Echo, 12 May 1941, p. 2
31. Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 1 March 1909, p. 7
32. “Brothers Wright at Shellbeach”, Flight, 8 May 1909, p. 267
33. “Aeronautics”, The Times, 5 May 1909, p. 10
34. Vernon Lee, “French Roads”, The Tower of Mirrors and Other Essays on the Spirit of Places, London: John Lane, 1914, p. 14
35. “Fifteen Miles Flight”, Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 23 December 1909, p. 10
36. “The Brothers Wright”, Manchester Courier and Lancashire Advertiser, 5 May 1909, p. 7
37. “The Disappearance of Mr Cecil Grace”, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 December 1910, p. 36
38. “Cecil Grace does 67-Minute Flight”, Dundee Courier, 3 September 1910, p. 6. See also “Mr Cecil Grace”, Dublin Daily Press, 20 August 1910, p. 10
39. “Seen over North Sea”, Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 23 December 1910, p. 8
40. “Flying up the Thames”, Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 12 August 1912, p. 6
41. “Automatic Stability, Lieut. Dunne Flies with His Hand Off the Lever”, London Daily News, 27 December 1910, p. 5
42. “Flying Machine Races”, Morning Post, 17 August 1909, p. 3
43. “From the British Flying Grounds”, Flight, 13 May 1911, p. 422
44. “Aviation News of the Week”, Flight, 19 February, 1910, p. 128
45. “British Flyers at Sheppey”, Flight, 30 April 1910, p. 331
46. “The Conquest of the Air”, Dundee Courier, 14 August 1913, p. 8
47. Quoted in “The War in the Air”, Globe, 13 August 1913, p. 7
48. “The New Aeroplane”, Leeds Mercury, 19 August 1913, p. 5
49. “The Atholl Aeroplane”, Perthshire Advertiser, 12 May 1909, p. 2
50. Ibid., 4
51. “Remarkable Experiments”, Leicester Daily Post, 27 December 1910, p. 1. For the Aeronautical Society’s “Official Report” on the flights, written by Orville Wright and Griffith Brewer, see “The Dunne Biplane: Report on Automatic Stability Trials”, The Aeronautical Journal, 1 January 1911, p. 15
52. J.W. Dunne, An Experiment with Time, London: Faber, 1934, p. 95
53. “The Conquest of the Air”, Dundee Courier, 14 August 1913, p. 8
54. E.T. Wooldridge, “Early Flying Wings (1870–1920)”, http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/flying%20wings/Early%20Flying%20Wings.htm
55. “Lieut. Dunne’s Aeroplane”, Flight, 8 May 1909, p. 268
56. “Interesting Interview”, Dublin Daily Express, 6 May 1909, p. 5
57. Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane, p. 4
58. “From the British Flying Grounds”, Flight, 12 August, 1911, p. 696
59. “Interesting Interview”, p. 5. See also “The Atholl Aeroplane”, Perthshire Advertiser, 12 May 1909, p. 2
60. “The Command of the Air; Story of the Dunne Aeroplane”, Northern Whig, 15 August 1913, p. 10.
61. Ibid.,, p. 10
62. “The Dunne-Huntington Machine”, Flight, 1 March 1913, p. 254
63. “The New Aeroplane”, Leeds Mercury, 19 August 1913, p. 5
64. An Experiment with Time, p. 60
65. “From the British Flying Grounds”, Flight, 13 May 1911, p. 422
66. “Royal Navy Find 61 Bombs in Two-Day Sweep at Nudist Beach”, Daily Telegraph, 12 October 2011 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8823835/Royal-Navy-finds-61-bombs-in-two-day-sweep-at-nudist-beach.html
13. Two Ways Down to the Sea: The Trade Union Baron and the Suffragists
1. Quoted from Natural England’s review of the Warden Point Site of Special Scientific Interest and Geological Conservation Review Site, “Sheppey Cliffs and Foreshore”, at https://designatedsites.naturalengland.org.uk/PDFsForWeb/Citation/1001313.pdf
2. Gerald Mayr, discussing the discovery of the skull of a Dasornis in “Dasornis Emuinus: Prehistoric Goose was the Size of a Small Plane and had Bony Teeth”, Science 2.0, 26 September 2008, https://www.science20.com/news_releases/dasornis_emuinus_prehistoric_goose_was_the_size_of_a_small_plane_and_had_bony_teeth. See also Gerald Mayr, “A Skull of the Giant Bony-Toothed Bird Dasornis (Aves: Pelagornithidae), from the Lower Eocene of the Isle of Sheppey”, Paleontology, Vol. 51, Part 5, 2008, pp. 1107–1116
3. “Landslip near Minster, Isle of Sheppey, Kent”, Illustrated London News, 16 July 1870, p. 65
4. “Landslip in Sheppey”, Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press, 2 June 1883, p. 6
5. “Serious Landslip at Sheppey, Western Daily Press, 17 April 1890, p. 3
6. “General News”, Wrexham Advertiser, 14 April 1894, p. 7
7. “Our Wasting Shores”, Gravesend Reporter, North Kent and South Essex Advertiser, 16 May 1896, p. 8
8. “Circular Tours for Saturday Cyclists: Sheppey”, London Daily News, 23 September 1899, p. 7
9. “Tours Round London — Sheerness”, Sheerness Times & General Advertiser, 6 Seotember 1873, p. 5
10. John R. Broughton recalled his memories for “WW2 People’s War: An Archive of World War Two Memories”, BBC, 23 December 2003, https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/19/a2155619.shtml
11. Ben Dakin, the Western London Area Padre, provided this summary of the principles members should try to follow while speaking to Toc H’s group in Iver, South Buckinghamshire, in November 1938. See “The Main Resolution”, Uxbridge & West Drayton Gazette, 25 November 1938, p. 10
12. “To Introduce Toc H”, Northern Whig, 16 February 1924, p. 6
13. “Toc H”, West Sussex Gazette, 22 February 1934, p. 7
14. J. Vennari, “How were the Transalpine Redemptorists Founded?: An Interview with Father Michael Mary”, www.archconfraternity.com>News”Int…
15. “Warden Residents Live in Fear after Cliff Slide”, Sheerness Times Guardian, 26 November, 1971, p. 1
16. “Pay Increase”, Aberdeen Evening Express, 8 May 1970, p. 7
17. “Scanlon is Rapped for Intervening in Ford Strike”, Daily Mirror, 4 May 197, p. 11
18. “Confusion at TUC”, Birmingham Daily Post, 8 September 1971, p. 1
19. “Golf goes Yugoslav”, Birmingham Daily Post, 21 December 1971, p. 3
20. “Now the Queen Knows about the Crumbling Cliffs”, Sheerness Times Guardian, 8 November 1974, p. 7
21. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 633 13 December 2017
22. “Eastchurch Cliff Fall”, BBC News, 31 May 2020. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-52868241 See also “Home falls after cliff edge collapse on Isle of Sheppey”, Guardian, 2 June 2020.
23. Alys Russell, “Suffrage in the Isle of Sheppey”, Common Cause, 19 August, 1909, p. 243
24. K. Raleigh, letter, Women’s Franchise, 2 September, 1909, pp. 752–3
25. “By One of Those suffragettes”, “Our Suffrage Campaign”, Sheerness Times and General Advertiser, 20 August 1910, p. 6
26. K. Raleigh, “Holiday Campaign in the Isle of Sheppey”, The Vote, 27 August 1910, pp. 206–7
27. C. Despard, “A Holiday Message”, The Vote, 27 August, 1910, p. 207
28. The Rambler, “Notes & Comments”, Sheerness Times and General
Advertiser, 15 August 1910, p. 6
Part III. The Five Towns of Sheerness: Definitely Not Berlin, New York or Rome
14. Moving In
1. Conversation with Inge Weber-Newth, April 2018
2. Roman Bucheli, “Rückkehr eines Verfemten”, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 17 October 2013 https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/buecher/rueckkehr-eines-verfemten-1.18168677
3. Colin Riordan, “Ein Sicheres Versteck”: Uwe Johnson and England”, John L. Flood, Common Currency? Aspects of Anglo-German Literary Relations since 1945: London Symposium, Stuttgart: Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, 1991, p. 88
4. Anniversaries IV, p. 1557
5. Anniversaries I, p. 262
6. Anniversaries II, p. 571
7. Ibid., p. 602
8. Anniversaries I, p. 12. In her earlier abridged translation of Anniversaries I, Leila Vennewitz translates Johnson’s “Institut zur Pflege Britischen Brauchtums” as the “Institute for the Preservation of British Customs” (see Uwe Johnson, Anniversaries: From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974, p. 103). Damion Searls opts for the less backward-sounding “Institute for the Promotion of British Culture”. Given the imaginary Institute’s sealed windows and eighteenth-century paintings, as well as the worn arm chairs and snobbish staff who can’t bear the visitors, I have followed Vennewitz here.
9. Eberhard Fahlke (ed.), “Ich überlege mir die Geschichte…” Uwe Johnson in Gespräch, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988, p. 329.
10. Uwe Johnson, letter to Max Frisch, 14 August 1974, Inselgeschichten, pp. 63–69
11. Ilse Aichinger, “Dover”, in Bad Words, p. 100
12. Inselgeschichten, pp. 65–9. Here as in other extracts from Johnson, words and phrases printed in bold appear in English in the original German texts.
13. Ibid., p. 70
14. Ibid., p. 144
15. Uwe Johnson, Begleitumstände: Frankfurter Vorlesungen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980, p. 72
16. Uwe Johnson, letter to Siegfried Unseld, 21 October 1974, in Eberhard Fahlke & Raimund Fellinger (eds.), Uwe Johnson — Siegfried Unseld; Der Briefwechsel, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1999, p. 841
17. Ibid.
18. Uwe Johnson, letter to Michael Hamburger, 19 December, 1974. In Michael Hamburger’s archive, at the British Library
19. “Uwe Johnson: A Friendship”, p. 119.
20. Uwe Johnson, letter to Fritz J. Raddatz, 11 February 1975, “Liebes Fritzchen“ „Lieber Groß-Uwe”. Uwe Johnson — Fritz J. Raddatz, Der Briefwechsel, p.170
21. “Uwe Johnson: A Friendship”, p. 119
22. Quoted in Norbert Gstrein “Das Sheerness des Erzählens Dankesrede”, in Carsten Gansel & Nicola Reidel (eds.), Internationale Uwe-Johnson Forum, Vol. 10, 2006, p. 165
23. Günter Kunert, Ein englisches Tagebuch, München: DTV, 1980, p. 31
24. Uwe Johnson, “Baume, Baume”, Inselgeschichten, p. 54
25. Eberhard Fahlke, “Auf der Suche nach ‘Inselgeschichten’”, Inselgeschichten, p. 170.
26. Uwe Johnson letter to Hannah Arendt, 18 December 1974, Inselgeschichten, p. 75
27. “Uwe Johnson: A Friendship”, p. 113
28. ““An Unacknowledged Humorist’”, p. 407
29. Anne Beresford, interviewed by the author for “A Secret Life: Uwe Johnson in Sheerness”, Sunday Feature, BBC Radio Three, 19 April 2015. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qyjsr
30. “Uwe Johnson: A Friendship”, p. 119
31. G.K. Chesterton, “The Inhumanity of Insurance”, Daily Herald, 22 March 1913, p. 7
32. From the new verse that Dr Leslie Haden Guest reckoned should be added to “The Red Flag”. Quoted in Mrs Snowden, Through Bolshevik Russia, London: Cassell, 1920, p. 180
33. Anniversaries IV, p. 1785.
34. These extracts are from Anniversaries III, pp. 1060–2
35. Anniversaries IV, p. 1223
36. Rev. W.F.C. Hargreaves in “Points from Letters”, The Times, 7 September 1925, p. 8
15. Blue-Faced and Shivering: A New Town on England’s Fatal Shore
1. Kurt Fickert, Neither Left Nor Right: The Politics of Individualism in Uwe Johnson’s Work, New York: Lang, 1987, p. 121
2. Uwe Johnson letter to Hannah Arendt, 18 December 1974, Inselgeschichten, p. 76
3. Robert Goodsall, The Widening Thames, London: Constable, 1965, p. 229. Goodsall may have borrowed his phrase from an early Victorian source, in which the land in question is described as a “watery swamp or morass”. See Henry T.A. Turmine, Rambles in the Isle of Sheppey, London: Newman & Co., 1843, p. 26
4. Mary Dobson, Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England, Oxford University Press, 2003
5. This phrase is used in an handwritten account, written in French by an unknown hand, on the flypapers of a copy of Leclerc’s Histoire de la Médecine (1702). See Rudolph E. Siegel and F.N.L. Poynter, “Robert Talbor, Charles II, and Cinchona: A Contemporary Document”, Medical History, 1962 Jan; 6 (1), pp. 82–5. Talbor is discussed as a “quack physician” in Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England, p. 295 and elsewhere.
6. “Malaria Among Fighting Men in Kent”, Globe, 21 September 1917, p. 2. See also “Malaria in England”, Yorkshire Evening Post, 21 September 1917, p. 5
7. Angus Macdonald, Major RAMC, “Report on indigenous Malaria and on Malaria Work performed in connection with the troops in England during the year 1918”, Ronald Ross (ed.), Observations on Malaria by Medical Officers and Others, London: HMSO, 1919, p. 224
8. Ibid., p. 235
9. “Malaria Could Spread in Kent: Doctor Warns of Mosquito Menace”, Thanet Advertiser, 20 May 1949, p. 4
10. The Medical Officer of Health for Sheerness, Dr W.N. Crichton wrote to P.G. Chute at the Ministry of Health’s Malaria Laboratory, at Horton Hospital in Epsom on 8 July 1949. Chute replies on 15 July and again on 23 July. Chute’s recommendation that Crichton consider spraying DDT on the saltmarsh grass as well as the water behind the Ship on Shore was made in a letter dated 5 July 1950. London Metropolitan Archives, H22/HT/MTU/L/01/063
11. Uwe Johnson, letter to Alice and Dorothy Hensan, 13 January 1976, Inselgeschichten, p. 73
12. Alvin D. Coox, “The Dutch Invasion of England: 1667”, Military Affairs, Vol. 13 No. 4 (Winter, 1949), p. 223
13. M. Oppenheim, “The Royal Dockyards”, in William Page (ed.), The Victoria History of the County of Kent, Vol. II, London: St Catherine Press, 1926, p. 353
14. Ibid., p. 354.
15. A Characterisation of Sheerness, Kent: Project Report”, produced by Ramboll Environ for Historic England, February 2016, p. 6
16. “The Dutch Invasion of England: 1667”, p. 228
17. H.B. Wheatley (ed.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S., London: George Bell & Son, 1893, 11 June 1667. All further quotations from Pepys diary are from Project Gutenberg’s digital version of Wheatley’s edition at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4200/4200-h/4200-h.htm
18. “328. Dutch Account of the Attack on the Thames, 1667” (Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1667, pp. xxi–xxiii), in Andrew Browning (ed.), English Historical Documents, 1660–1714, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953, p. 835
19. Samuel Pepys, diary entry for 10 June 1667, quoted in “The Dutch Invasion of England: 1667”, p. 228
20. Sir Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys, the Man in the Making, Cambridge University Press, 1939, p. 330
21. “328. Dutch account of the attack on the Thames, 1667”. Johnson mentions the Dutch assessment of Sheppey to Hannah Arendt in his previously quoted letter of 18 December 1974.
22. Samuel Pepys, “Of the Arsenals for the Royal Navy in KENT”, in Camden’s Britannia newly translated into English, with large additions and improvements, published by Edmund Gibson, of Queens-College in Oxford, London: Printed by F. Collins, for A. Swalle, a the Unicorn at the West-end of St Paul’s Church-yard, and A. & J. Churchil, at the Black Swan in Pater-noster-Row, 1695
23. Sir Thomas Hyde Page, An
account of the commencement and progress in sinking wells, at Sheerness, Harwich and Landguard Fort, for supplying those Dock-Yards and Garrisons with fresh water. To which is annexed, the Correspondence between the Master General of the Ordnance and the Commanding Engineer of those places, (sir Thomas Hyde Page) upon the subject, in the Years 1778, 1781, and 1783, London: Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1797, p. 17
24. Ibid.
25. Derby Mercury, 9 September 1784, p. 2
26. “Opening of Sheerness Docks”, Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 12 September 1823, p. 4
27. Sir John Rennie, Autobiography, London: Spon, 1875 p. 164
28. “Canterbury, April 25”, Kentish Gazette, 25 April 1815, p. 4
29. “The Confirmation of the Surrender of Buonaparte…”, Hull Packet, 25 July 1815, p. 3
30. “Opening of the New Basins at Sheerness”, Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 8 September 1823.
31. Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 12 September 1823, p. 4. On the Lord Melville, see “Rise and Progress of Steam Navigation”, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 132, 1822, p. 161
32. W.R., “Trip to Sheerness”, Morning Chronicle, 10 September 1827, p. 3
33. Third Report from the Committee on the Laws Relating to Penitentiary Houses, House of Commons 27 June 1812, p. 136
34. Ibid., p. 139
35. Ibid., p. 150
36. Hampshire Chronicle, 15 January 1816, p. 3
37. The thirty-year-old Roman Catholic William Coleman, who was about to be hanged for the murder of Thomas Jones, on board the Retribution hulk at Woolwich, used this phrase while protesting his innocence and the unreliability of the “convict witnesses” whose testimony had condemned him in March 1810. See Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal, 20 March 1810, p. 4.
38. For a report of fifty-five convicts from Sheerness said to have been embarked on the Guildford for New South Wales, together with forty-five from the hulks at Woolwich and one hundred from those at Portsmouth, see Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal, 13 August 1811, p. 4
The Sea View Has Me Again Page 67