Letters from Bishopsbourne by Christopher Scoble

Author:Christopher Scoble
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780954154 42 4
Publisher: Sports Books
Published: 2011-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

INTERLUDE

A Photographical Microscopist and a Political Cricketer

From Marsh and Weald their hay forks left,

To Bourne the rustics hied,

From Romney, Cranbrook, Tenterden,

And Durent’s verdant side.

Surry Triumphant:

Or the Kentish-Men’s Defeat (1773) *1

Joseph Conrad had been brought up in Poland as a Roman Catholic but in maturity never actively practised his religion. He never went to church and upbraided any relative who tried to persuade his children to go: it would only drive them in the opposite direction.*2 On the other hand, he never renounced the faith. At Bishopsbourne, he was on nodding terms with the Rector, the Reverend Walter Ashton-Gwatkin and his wife, Frances – “the Old Birds” as he called them*3 – but rather closer to their son Frank, not because he was a vicar’s son but because he wrote successful novels while doubling as a Japanese expert in the Far Eastern Department of the Foreign Office.*4

The Church of St Mary stood right next door to Oswalds but as far as we know Conrad never entered it – except on one well-documented occasion. After tea one afternoon he called his son John to accompany him on a mystery walk.

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