Heroines, high notes and mince pies
Anyone else think of Rose Sayer last Second Wednesday? For those of you who for some crazy reason didn’t make it to our talk, or who just don’t get movie references, Rose Sayer is the imperious, single-minded heroine played by Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen. Although set in 1914 and East Africa, the immaculate English spinster, forging her way down river, determined to carry on against all odds, bares more than a passing resemblance to Mary Kingsley.
A couple of days before the armistice weekend, Brigadier Hugh Willing, who many of you will know, had introduced us to an extraordinary Victorian adventurer who in 1893 had set off, entirely on her own, to explore West Africa. To my shame I had never heard of her. Gertrude Bell obviously looms largest of the great female explorers, but many pioneering women, with names like Octavie Coudreau, Beatrix Bulstrode and, I kid you not, Aloha Wanderwell, along with Mary Kingsley, also undertook important voyages of discovery.
Mary, the daughter of George, a doctor who spent most of his life travelling abroad and niece of Charles, (of The Water Babies fame) was her mother’s principal carer. Even though she grew up in an intellectual household, where literature, politics and science were everyday conversation and Charles Darwin was a family friend, she herself had no formal education. Instead, she read voraciously and taught herself.
At the age of 29, with both her parents dead, she bought herself a one-way ticket from Liverpool to West Africa. In her formal clothing, she paddled her own canoe and went to areas no white man, let alone woman, had ever been to. With her panga at hand, she fought off leopards, hippos and crocodiles. She was the first to photograph the country and the first European to climb Mount Cameroon. All of these adventures published in two books.
Back in England, she became a famously outspoken opponent of colonialism and what she perceived as the malign influence that missionaries had on the native people and championed instead, their culture and way of life. So much so, that she can be credited with the fact that the British never established the stronghold they had in, for instance, East Africa. She also had her own Charlie Allnut, the character played by Humphrey Bogart in the film and for which he won his one and only Oscar. Mary was vociferous in her support for the ‘Palm Oil Ruffians’ as they were known: the local white traders, who were deemed to have gone native and were despised by colonists.
Maybe these contrary views for the time, her penchant for wearing African jewellery back in London, her opposition to the suffrage movement and her early death, all contributed to her falling out of the spotlight.
Back to present day Winchelsea and we look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday, December 14 in the New Hall. For our final SWS of the year, we’ll start a little earlier at 2pm, with our AGM. The usual incentive to attend, mulled wine and mince pies, will of course be provided. Then we’ll go straight into the festivities with singing from ‘Tune in Winchelsea’, followed by Tony Davis’ general knowledge quiz, the proceeds of which will go to Dementia UK. All of this accompanied by afternoon tea.
We’ll end on a high and hope to see as many of you as possible. On behalf of the entire Winchelsea Second Wednesday Society, we’d like to thank you for your support throughout the year. Your contributions and the quality of your questions during the Q&A, add immeasurably to the event. We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and safe new year.
Image Credits: United Artists Corporation .