078 ARTS & CULTURE
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The Story of Kent Vicky Hales-Dutton
Did you know that Kent’s reputation as the Garden of England dates from the reign of Henry VIII, or that our county’s fascination with grammar schools was alive and well 500 years ago? Or that Dartford was once England’s most prolifi c producer of gunpowder..?
Y
ou can read these fascinating facts – and many others – in the exhaustive and hugely entertaining The Story of Kent by local author Anne
Petrie, a retired civil servant living in Hythe. The county can certainly lay claim to an eventful history. The Story of Kent takes the reader from Julius Caesar’s fi rst failed attempt to conquer Britain, in 55BC, up to the present day. Anne describes the impact of invasions (by Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans) and the county’s own homegrown rebellions, including the Peasants’ Revolt, uprisings against Parliament’s attempt to ban Christmas, the Swing Riots of the 1830s and avid suffragette activity in the early 20th century. She explains how Kent weathered the social and economic effects of Henry VIII’s closure of the monasteries, poor harvests,
WIN! WIN! WIN!
INDEX has two signed and personalised copies of The Story of Kent by Anne Petrie to give away. For your chance to win, send your name, address, contact number and email on a postcard to: The Story of Kent giveaway, INDEX, 39 Little Mount Sion, Tunbridge Wells TN1 1YS by 30th September 2017. The winners will be the fi rst two entries drawn at random. There is no cash alternative and the prize is non-transferable.
plague outbreaks, establishment of the workhouses, infl ux of refugees and the effects of the huge-scale troop movements during both world wars.
From Hythe to the whole county History has been part of Anne’s life for many years. “I’m interested in how history impacted on ordinary people,” she says. Alongside her day job, she studied for her fi rst degree in her thirties and a part-time masters degree followed at the age of 50. After retiring she began researching the history of Hythe. The History Press suggested a bigger project – the history of Kent. It took Anne a year to research and write the book, as well as source the pictures, a process she describes as an ‘educational trip’.
So what aspect of her research proved
most interesting? “I’m fascinated by local reaction to the hop-pickers and the modern
parallels you can draw,” she explains. “I thought they were jolly Londoners who helped with the hop harvest each year. Instead, pickers were treated badly by farmers and locals, despite doing a valuable job. They slept in fi elds, with no washing facilities or food, and were blamed for spreading disease.” Anne remains undecided about her next
project but this may include writing fi ction, following her success as winner of the 2016 HG Wells Short Story competition with her clever and witty Space Wars. Check out www.
hgwellscompetition.com/2017/02/17/the-grand- prize-2016-winner-anne-petrie-space-wars/ As chair of the Hythe History Society, Anne runs a blog entitled Writing Hythe History. Visit
www.hythehistoryblog.wordpress.com • Published by The History Press and priced at £16.99, The Story of Kent can be purchased from all good bookshops and online. Visit
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
© Michael Coppins
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