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Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Discussion about all things historical here, with an emphasis on local history. Please feel free to post your memories of Lowestoft past here as a place to record local oral history.
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Abu Nuwas
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Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Abu Nuwas » Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:16 am

Being new to the area, I have enquired. I have got a bit about Old Shuck -- any more? Anything else?

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Mel
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Mel » Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:56 pm

On the forerunner to this site lowestoftonline we had a topic similar to this Lowestoft Lore and Legend Abu Nuwas and this is something I submitted to that:

Most local people would have heard of Tom Crisp VC, the brave Lowestoft seaman from World War One, but I don’t think many people would have heard of Lowestoft’s other hero from that conflict Albert Hawthorn. The family of Albert Hawthorn were always happy to keep his heroics private but after meeting and talking to them they were happy to let me share his story on lowestoftonline, so other Lowestoft people could hear his extraordinary story.

Albert was born in 1896 on the Beach Village to a poor but respectable family. His father Herbert was a fisherman and his mother Ethel a housewife. When Albert was born he was their tenth child the other nine all being girls. As you can imagine being the only boy he was thoroughly spoilt by his sisters and they used to have great fun dressing him up as a little girl.
Albert excelled at school and always has his head in a book, he never used to play with the other boys but liked to sit at home with his sisters and read romantic novels. On his thirteenth birthday when other boys were joining their father’s ships to start there working lives on the fishing boats that worked the North Sea Albert was sent away to London to live with his eldest sister, who had married a clerk named Colin from Cricklewood. Albert’s father was glad to see the back of him saying “We don’t want any of that Oscar Wilde malarkey here”.

Albert loved London, especially the theatre and the music halls; he had found his vocation, he was going to be an actor. Within four years of arriving in London, Albert Hawthorn had become an actor and entertainer and was doing well in London’s theatre land.
Soon after his eighteenth birthday in 1914 war broke out; Albert and his friends although a little ‘girlie’ should we say were nonetheless brave and patriotic and they all joined the army as soon as possible. Albert and his three actor friends made good soldiers and even after a harrowing day fighting in the trenches they still found time to entertain the troops (they had taken a chest of stage clothes with them) with their singing and dancing.

The next extract is taken from an account of what happened at the Somme in 1915 by Captain Foster-Forsythe-Crouton-Jones MC.DSO.MFI.

It was 0600 hrs on the 1st of July when I spoke to my unit of twenty brave young men. I told them our mission was to take out three German gun emplacements, I was honest with them and said their chances of surviving the attack would be very slim…it was a hellish moment for me as I was going to have to stay behind and organise things from the safety of the trench. They would proceed to attack at 0700hrs. At 0645hrs a shout of “Come on girls…it’s Showtime” echoed along the trench and a sight I will never forget until my dying day unfolded. Albert and his three compatriots’, rifles and bayonets at the ready were charging the German guns; and amazingly all four soldiers were dressed up as pantomime dames, wigs, make-up, flowing dresses, bloomers and jewellery all on display. Like us the Germans were dumbfounded and before we knew it Albert Hawthorn, George Gamble, Arnold Lane and Leonard Smith had taken all three German gun emplacements. Just before we started a victory cheer a lone German gunner arose behind them. “German gunner behind you” we screamed at them, and as one they shouted back “Oh, no he’s not”. “Oh yes he is” we screamed back even louder. “Oh no he’s not “, they replied yet again…but he was and he gunned all four of them down. We retrieved the bodies of these brave men and buried them in one grave in the dresses they had died in. We placed a small inscription on the wooden cross:
Albert Hawthorn brave soldier and Ugly Sister number one.
George Gamble brave soldier and Ugly Sister number two.
Arnold Lane brave soldier and Ugly Sister number three.
Leonard Smith brave soldier, not an Ugly Sister but just liked dressing in women’s clothing.


I would just like to say thank you to the Hawthorn family for letting me tell this story of a brave Lowestoft man.
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by boatbuilder » Mon Feb 08, 2016 1:15 pm

Thanks for posting that Mel. Sad really. I don't remember seeing that on LOL.
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Abu Nuwas
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Abu Nuwas » Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:05 pm

Mel, that is a fantastic tale: tragic, comic, heroic, and a cameo of the times, with the father worrying about his son being gay, and the young men volunteering -- as did my father in that war, with his brothers.

I am surprised that some bright play-wright has not made something of it, and that it has not made its way into the numerous documentaries being made. This year will be the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme which began on 1st July ( I wonder if there might have been a slip as the date given is 1915?). The bombardment which preceded the attack was heard in London, and by chance, the initial phase was called the Battle of Albert.

I was really looking for more legendary stuff, but I am so pleased that you posted this. There should be a blue plaque to this man, and his comrades.
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by boatbuilder » Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:32 pm

Found this online, Abu N.

THE FISHERMAN'S GHOST
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Mel » Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:11 pm

Abu Nuwas wrote: This year will be the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme which began on 1st July ( I wonder if there might have been a slip as the date given is 1915?).
Well spotted Abu Nuwas you know your history, it was a slip and I must own up it was my mistake. Sadly Albert and his heroic friends were figments of my imagination; I apologise for not explaining that in the first place and I hope you are not offended :oops:
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by boatbuilder » Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:19 pm

Tut tut! Naughty, naughty Mel. :roll: What's that saying - "Be sure your sins will find you out" :lol:
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Mel » Tue Feb 09, 2016 10:00 am

boatbuilder wrote: What's that saying - "Be sure your sins will find you out" :lol:
Point taken :oops:

But on the subject of local legends, another one who is forgotten about now came from Mutford. This is what I found out....


Lifting up the seat of a piano stool at my Great Aunt’s (I was searching for her dentures, why look there you ask …my Aunt is a bit scatty, the last time she lost her false teeth we found them in the potting shed in a tub of John Innes No.3) anyway, getting back to what I found in the seat of the piano stool; it was a piece of sheet music the title “Lowestoft Lassies, Lowestoft Lassies, Sweeter Than Jamaican Mollasies”, the music and the lyrics were by a Frederick Hamilton and the publishing date was 1889.

So I Googled him and lo and behold he was a local lad from the village of Mutford, where his father was the local vicar. In fact he was quite a superstar in the Victorian Music Halls, singing and performing his own songs plus writing lots of songs for others. One of his most famous he wrote was for the well-known ‘Bearded Lady of Birmingham’, she used to travel with a freak show and she used to perform in the Music Halls, the song he wrote for her was ‘I Am An Angel in a Crinoline Suit’, the second line of the song went ‘…but a Gorilla in my birthday one’. The famous twenty stone Parisian singer Pierre Terris owes his Music Hall fame to Frederick Hamilton after Frederick wrote for him the romantic ‘Ou Et Allofa le Pize’, a song which is still sung on the football terraces of England every week to this day.

So not only do we have the musical genius Benjamin Britten to be proud of, also Frederick Hamilton who put Mutford on the map when he wrote ‘Mutford Millie’ (a favourite of Queen Victoria’s), the chorus went:
Milkmaid Millie,
Milkmaid Millie,
The cows go Moooo
Cause her hands are chilly.

Slightly off topic, never did find my Aunt’s dentures…just as well she enjoys soup.
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by boatbuilder » Tue Feb 09, 2016 11:46 am

Abu Nuwas wrote:Being new to the area, I have enquired. I have got a bit about Old Shuck -- any more? Anything else?
This might just be for you, Abu Nuwas:

Suffolk filmmaker brings to life the legend of the hound from hell in ‘zero budget’ Black Shuck film
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Abu Nuwas
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Abu Nuwas » Thu Feb 11, 2016 9:49 pm

Mel wrote:
Abu Nuwas wrote: This year will be the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme which began on 1st July ( I wonder if there might have been a slip as the date given is 1915?).
Well spotted Abu Nuwas you know your history, it was a slip and I must own up it was my mistake. Sadly Albert and his heroic friends were figments of my imagination; I apologise for not explaining that in the first place and I hope you are not offended :oops:
Mel, you have pulled our corporate leg well! Had I not been so carried away with dates, and the bizarre nature of the tale, I might have noticed the improbable name of the officer, and his decorations. It's a pity, tho': I would rather it was true-- more especially as I have passed it on to a couple of people. You know the saying ''A lie gets half-way round the world, before the truth has puts its boots on''? Well, not actually a lie, but...... ;)
Consistency is the hob-goblin of the small mind

Abu Nuwas
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Abu Nuwas » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:19 pm

B-B, that is bang on the button!
Consistency is the hob-goblin of the small mind

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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Mike » Sat Feb 20, 2016 7:48 pm

Hi Abu,

If it's okay to mention my own website 'Hidden East Anglia' (http://www.hiddenea.com) you can find there some legends about Lowestoft, and if you go to the 'Shuckland' section (http://www.hiddenea.com/shuckland/introduction.htm), you'll find more legends and encounters with Old Shuck than you can shake a stick at!

Mike.

Abu Nuwas
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Re: Lowestoft Lore and Legend

Post by Abu Nuwas » Sat Feb 20, 2016 8:01 pm

Thanks Mike, I shall spend time mulling over it.

E
Consistency is the hob-goblin of the small mind

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