The fount of all knowledge…
…that’s seaside knowledge mainly. Our favourite historian of all things beach huts, piers, resorts and seaside architecture, Kathryn Ferry @seasideferry returns to the Winchelsea Second Wednesday Society (SWS) on May 8.
She’s explained to us the origins of “Orientalism on Sea”, that very particular design that became synonymous with great British seaside buildings and structures. Then she regaled us with extraordinary tales of Billy Butlin, the charismatic, flamboyant and complex man who invented the resort holiday.
Now she’s taken her fascination with the architecture around water and moved inland. Being without clean drinking water is not so much of a stretch of the imagination for Rye, Camber and Winchelsea residents. Who could forget the emergency water distribution centres set up last autumn and the mass delivery of bottled water by Southern Water? Polluted, filthy, stinking water that spreads disease is also a hot topic and not for the first time. Kathryn will take us back to the mid-19th century and the development of the Victorian drinking fountain; the logic of the who, the why and the where, will be revealed to us in “Free Water for All: The Victorian Drinking Fountain Movement”.
When speakers return regularly to SWS, it’s because they have proved to be not only popular, but able to engage and inform our particularly knowledgeable audience. As was the case last month, when Richard Feast acquainted us with a neglected hero, Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding. Here was a man who should be a household name and yet was being revealed to some of us for the first time.
There’s a joy in learning about the people or things that never make it into the glare of the spotlight. Or who slip through the cracks of the curriculum, the focus of the media or the catalogue of everyday general knowledge, but without whom our world would be a very different place. With our collective experience of life, we are able to delve deeper and put a new perspective on history and by extention the world we live in.
It’s because of this, that second Wednesday looms large in our month. It’s a chance to expand our minds, meet our friends, make new ones and enjoy a fabulous tea. See you all at 2:30pm in the New Hall, Winchelsea.
Image Credits: Kathryn Ferry .