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Mary Hunt relates the story of her great grandparents after reading about them in a 1937 newspaper clipping from the Kentish Express.
It had always seemed to me that it's other people's families who appear in newspapers, even local ones. It was a lovely surprise when I was given a page from the Kentish Express of 24th September 1937 and found some of my own.
It was torn, and part of it was missing, but I went to Ashford Library and looked at the microfilm there of back issues of the Kentish Express. It took a bit of finding, but I got there in the end, and managed to come away with a more complete photocopy.
It was about the diamond-wedding anniversary of my great-grandparents Albert and Jane Wratten. Great-grandparents shared with the friend and relation who gave me the original cutting.
Albert was born in Burmarsh and at the time of the anniversary was living in 'The Nest' in West Hythe. At that stage the couple had 7 children, 23 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, of which I was one of the youngest.
The paper gives a wonderful picture of his life. At nine he was driving sheep to Dymchurch market, and became a shepherd 'at 15 or 16' and 'followed this occupation for 60 years until he retired in 1929'.
The paper did an interesting calculation of how many Marsh miles he had walked during that time. It was never less than 15 miles per day for seven days a week. On top of this, for six years he was a looker of 900 acres, which took his daily mile total to 30.
The Kentish Express reckoned this came to 'not far short of half a million miles in 60 years - or twenty times round the earth at the equator'.
He looked after 2,200 sheep and lambs, and 300 bullocks. When he started work, the going price to hand shear 20 sheep was 4/- (20p) and 2/6 (12½p) for 20 lambs. Once he sheared 72 lambs and did the winding himself, all in a single day.
No wonder he started work at half past two in the morning at shearing time! Worse - and I can't imagine this today - he was only paid once a year.
At the time Albert from Burmarsh married his bride from New Romney in September 1877, Dymchurch wall had been breached in a storm. The sea flooded the Marsh, and I wonder how many of the sheep in his care had to swim for their lives?
The cutting has given me a lot of pleasure. If Albert, then 84, or Jane 87, had died before that date, there would have been no diamond anniversary to celebrate, and no item in the local paper.
There were photos of each of them too, a real bonus for me, with Albert looking remarkably robust, though Jane seems a bit frail.
Now every time I read a wedding anniversary report in the Kentish Express, I think of all those people in the future searching old newspapers for some sign of their own family. The piece I found was a real window on my own family's past, my own great-grandparents - and all from the local paper!
Mary Hunt, Kent, 2001
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