I have always regretted not being able to find any photos of
Jomo Kenyatta during his wartime years in Sussex – apart from the one allegedly
showing him destroying a wasps’ nest and a blurry image of him waving from the
balcony of his wartime home at Heath Common near Storrington, that was about
all. Many years ago, I was told by a cousin that he had once seen photos of
Jomo when he was employed as an agricultural worker at Linfield’s nurseries in
Thakeham; he had been shown them by Miss Mabel Willmer, who had occasionally
worked with Jomo during the war, and secretively kept them in an old biscuit
tin, only to be brought out on special occasions. Unfortunately, after she
died, they were never found and she probably destroyed them. Apparently, she really
admired Jomo’s flamboyant signet ring which he promised he would give her one
day!
Over the
years I have made various requests in the media for any surviving photos of
Jomo during his time in Sussex, but the effort has always failed to come up
with anything. One of the objectives for writing my article about Jomo Kenyatta
and his connections with West Sussex was to put the story in the public domain.
Therefore, out of the blue, I was very excited when I received a ‘comment’ to
our website from Karen Heald who had stumbled across my article on Kenyatta;
she said ‘I have lots of photographs of him in Sussex before and during the war
including the full sequence of the wasp nest incident taken by my grandfather’.
Of course, I immediately got in touch and she was able to send me a cache of
some 30 images, many of which are reproduced in this article, thanks to her
kindness and her desire to make them available to a much wider audience.
Continue reading Jomo Kenyatta: further connections to Sussex →
One of the many places that we can find surnames of interest, is in the wording of printed advertising and business stationery. The first of these tends to have a better survival rate as the magazines and newspapers in which they appear may be preserved for historical interest and for the articles they contain. There is a very active market in old pages from newspapers, and they are often found framed and used as decoration, particularly in public houses where there is a historical theme. We have acquired a number of such items, including the page about Lily Lindfield, the dancer, described later in this issue. Continue reading Letterheads and Advertisements →
The ruined house shown in this photograph was in Grand Avenue, Lancing, Sussex and had been the home until a few days before being bombed, of my mother, Emily Lindfield, my brother Peter and myself. We were evacuated at the outbreak of war to my mother’s parents (the Braben’s) house as my father anticipated London being attacked by aerial bombing. He moved us back to London, all being quiet, the Blitz had not yet commenced. Continue reading A Lucky Escape →
In my father’s house there was a photograph, which fascinated me. The picture showed a family in a country garden. The man is standing, holding the hand of a little girl and the woman is seated, with a baby on her lap. Although he is not smiling, the man’s face appeared good-humoured to me, the woman looked more severe. But what stole my attention and always brought me back to gaze again, were the elaborately-fashioned dresses of the woman, the child and the baby. How had these country folk come by such clothes and who had made them? It was not until many years later that I was to learn the answers to these questions. The people were Hasted Lindfield and his wife, Mary Miles, taken in 1872. The infant on the lap was, in fact, a boy and my grandfather, also called Hasted. Mary’s distinctive features were to be handed down through several generations of Lindfields. Continue reading The Lindfields of Chailey, Part 1: Hasted Lindfield →
I have recently embarked on a major research project into the history of the Worthing Glasshouse Industry. Started by the pioneer growers such as George Beer in the 1870s, who built the first large commercial glasshouses, the industry flourished in the town and became the main glasshouse growing centre in the country. The industry was important to the local economy for over 70 years, until it gradually declined as the expanding town absorbed all the old nurseries in its relentless growth. By the 1960s, the vast majority had closed. I am very lucky that David Abbott, official historian of the West Sussex Growers Association, has joined me in the project and we recently held an exhibition of some of our ‘discoveries’ at Worthing Library (5- 19 March 2011). Continue reading The Worthing Glasshouse Industry →
Sometime during the mid-1850s, Mark Linfield (1825-1909) moved with his young family to the town of Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight. Mark was a linen draper1 by trade, and in the 1851 census he is recorded as such at 1, Albert Terrace in Camberwell, with his sister Jane and younger brother Stanford Frederick (1829-89), also a linen draper. Mark and his siblings were all born in Storrington, West Sussex and were the youngest three children of William and Harriet Linfield (née Stanford) who were married in 1803. Both Mark’s father, and grandfather Peter Linfield (1734-91), were farmers and butchers in Storrington, a trade followed by his older brother, Thomas (1812-84). Sadly for Mark, Jane and Stanford, they were orphaned when both their parents died in 1835. They were all still very young – Mark was ten, Jane 12 and Stanford only 6 – so they began life with a distinct disadvantage. They were brought up by older siblings, who no doubt wanted to relieve themselves of the financial commitment as early as possible. And so, by 1841, at the age of 15, it is hardly surprising that Mark is working as an apprentice to Henry Marshall, draper of High Street, Steyning. Continue reading The Isle of Wight Linfields →
Researching Linfield, Lindfield, Lingfield, Linkfield, Linville and variants worldwide