Talks based on the Kent and Sussex books

fee per talk is £85 fee inclusive of transport

"Very funny, intriguing and thought provoking"
"An exhilarating, exciting evening"
"Perhaps the best talk we have had!!"
"I've never known our members to be so captivated"
"We could have been enthralled for much longer"
"The President was in fits of laughter as was I"
"An evening of great entertainment"

TALES, TITBITS AND TRIVIA OF KENT & SUSSEX
Tales include that of the fruit bat adopted by No 9 Squadron of the RAF which was given the name of Niger Gambia and the rank of Acting Pilot Officer (which turned out to be female and was renamed Nigella) and the Kent family that owned Oliver Cromwell's head before it was reunited with his body in a Cambridge college in 1960. Titbits include the Goudhurst Tit still visible perched beside the village pond and how to get sperm from a falconer's falcon. As for trivia - how did another bird of prey get to name a popular table football game made in Tunbridge Wells and how has the OXO cube got a connection with Hawkhurst?

SMUGGLING ON THE SOUTH COAST
This talk traces the early history of open smuggling back to the illegal export of England's Golden Fleece - the so-called 'owling' of raw wool to the Continent. The violent heyday of the contraband trade came in the 18th century when heavy taxes on tobacco, tea, brandy and geneva (gin) made the illegal importation of these supposed 'luxuries' highly profitable. The second half of the talk is devoted to the notorious Hawkhurst Gang and dispels many misconceptions - the smugglers were not 'honest thieves' but outlaws who protected their infamous trafficking by resorting to wholesale corruption, terrorism and murder.

FREELANCING - A WRITER'S LIFE
Since 1986 I've earned my living by freelance writing. In the talk I tell how I have developed my craft and recount examples and give tips on how to write about travel, gardening, the outdoors, food, houses and homes. Further musings are on getting started while living in Japan, on studying journalism at Berkeley in California, interviewing the great and not so good, writing for the record and how to write opinion and comment pieces. There are recollections of some of the fun I've had giving talks to the good ladies of the Women's Institute in Kent and Sussex and stories about some disastrous endeavors to entertain inebriated business men with after dinner anecdotes of the freelance writer's life.

ROGUES, RASCALS AND REBELS
The Bloomsbury artists who lived and loved in their remote Sussex farmhouse, the Eastbourne GP suspected of mass murder, Alan Clark legendary lothario, Lee Miller war photographer who posed naked in Hitler’s bath, Grey Owl the Hastings Englishman who reinvented himself as a Red Indian and helped save Canada's wilderness, the Blackheath tramp Smokey Joe, Rye's lesbian couple, Charles Dickens double life, Dirk Bogarde's "love affairs without carnality" ...and more.

SCANDALS – SENSATIONAL, SALACIOUS AND SAD
Writers like HG Wells (predatory womaniser), Edith Nesbit (Bohemian who took younger lovers) and Noel Coward (homosexual affairs), resurrectionists (grave robbers), highway robbers, the prison hulks on the Medway, smugglers and their "infamous traffick", children as young as seven made to climb up chimneys to sweep them and a Sevenoaks bank worker who stole off his pensioner customers to buy rare parrots jailed in 2003.

CHARACTERS – WACKY, WEIRD AND WONDERFUL
Saints and sinners, rogues and rascals, cons and icons, memorable people, including the inventor of the bathing machine and the helicopter, the famous painter who murdered his father, adventurers, the 18th century entrepreneur who started the first mail order business, a cricketer, a dandy, a miser, an ornithologist, a spy, the Great Omi tattooed from head to toe, the acid bath murderer of Crawley, the Red Dean of Canterbury and Queen Sexburga.

WOMEN – FAMOUS, INFAMOUS AND UNSUNG
Including a sexologist (Marie Stopes), a gardener, a courtesan (Kitty Fisher), a musician, saints, murderers, philanthropists, actresses, writers (Richmal Crompton and Enid Blyton), eccentrics, Charles Dickens' mistress Nelly Ternan, the "first bitch of Fleet Street" Jean Rook, Anne Boleyn, Mrs Beeton, the Biddenden Maids and Pocahontas buried in Gravesend.

HEROES – BRAVE, RESOURCEFUL AND TRUE
Daredevils, adventurers and saints including service men and women awarded the nation's highest honour, the first British woman to conquer Everest, Sir Archibald McIndoe the plastic surgeon, Sir Harry Johnston who discovered the okapi and fought slavery, and the every day courage of lifeboat men, the police and fire fighters.

DESPATCHES FROM THE HOME FRONT
The war diary of Joan Strange who lived on the South Coast during the Second World War and recorded not only the dramatic events on the world stage but the domestic difficulties of living while under threat of invasion and bombings. Comments on her allotment lie alongside speeches by Hitler and Churchill. An able, well-read and active lady, Joan was a committed Christian and was deeply involved in helping refugees and gives heart warming, and sometimes heart breaking, accounts of their experiences.

BIRDS, BEASTS AND BACCHANALIA OF KENT & SUSSEX
The Dartford warbler, the Kentish plover and the Sandwich tern; why Thomas a Becket banned nightingales from singing and the delicacy that once were wheatears. The dog hanged at Tyburn and the one who adopted a badger cub; the big cats roaming wild; Sussex dragons; Timothy the tortoise and Winnie-the-Pooh. Churchill’s famous put down and gin distilling in Maidstone. The lewd behaviour of the hop pickers is recounted as is the debauchery of the future George IV in Brighton, and not forgetting the England rugby prop forward who drank a bottle of aftershave.

Comments

"We enjoyed your talk enormously."

John and Mary, Felbridge, East Grinstead.

"Thank you so much indeed for giving us all such an exhilarating, exciting evening last week. I know everyone thoroughly enjoyed your talk. Perhaps the best talk we have had!! I’m trying to work out where you would appear in your own book, either as weird, wacky or wonderful. Perhaps a mixture of all three!"

Pam, Lecture Organiser, Darent Cray National Trust Association.

"A big thank you from all of us at Medway Evacuees Reunion Group for giving us such an enjoyable afternoon of entertainment. I’ve never known our members to be so captivated."

Jill, Secretary, M.E.R.G

"May I thank you on behalf of the Ashford Medical Society for your most entertaining talk last night. It’s a shame you had to stop after an hour. You were really getting into the meat of some of your characters, and we could have been enthralled for much longer!"

Adrian, A.M.S.

"Your talk was a great success, much enjoyed by all, and indeed members have requested that you visit us again."

Maureen, Secretary, Woodland Trust.

"Your talk was very much enjoyed by myself and others around me. The President was in fits of laughter as was I."

Maureen, Loose Women’s Institute.

"Many thanks for entertaining us at short notice, as evidence our members thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and departed smiling."

Brian, Matfield Horticultural Society.

"Many thanks once again for a very informative and enjoyable talk. I was asked to make sure to book you for another talk next year."

Peter, Northiam and District Historical and Literary Society.

"I’d like to thank you on behalf of the members of the Uckfield Group for your excellent and entertaining talk last night. It was a really good start to our year and the meeting as a whole thought that as well as being informative the evening was lighthearted and enjoyable."

Carol, Programme Secretary, Sussex Family History Group.

"On behalf of all the ladies of the Ladycroft W.I. I would like to thank you for a most amusing talk on Monday evening. Your early exploits into writing and selling books were obviously difficult but you can see the funny side of life."

Brenda.

"May I on behalf of Coxheath and Loose Active Retirement Association thank you for the very interesting and amusing talk that you gave us yesterday. Many members told me after the meeting how much they had enjoyed it. I hope you can give another talk sometime next year."

Alan, Acting Chairman, CALARA.

"An evening of great entertainment is the best way to describe Chris McCooey’s talk to members of the Biggin Hill Society. Using a glass of water as his only prop Chris, who likes to be thought of as a writer rather than a journalist, recounted the actions and weaknesses of some Kent characters …"

Robert wrote this for the report of the meeting for the Sevenoaks Chronicle.

"It was lovely to meet you on Tuesday and I think your talk has produced more good vibes than most of those I have organised over the last few years. I hope you enjoyed joining all the ‘oldies’ …"

Pat, University of the Third Age, East Grinstead.

"Just to let you know how much I’m enjoying the ‘War Diaries’ I bought from you last Tuesday. They really make fascinating reading and, as you say, are a great insight into those times."

Jean, Erith W.I.

"Very many thanks indeed for such an entertaining talk on Monday and like the rest of the members, I was only too sorry when it came to an end."

Pam, Bearsted Active Retirement Association.

"Many thanks for spending such an amusing evening with our Fellowship last Tuesday evening. Your stories and anecdotes were well received and left us all with an inner glow not induced by gin and tonic! I am thoroughly enjoying ‘Despatches from the Home Front’ and just wish it could be compulsory reading for the youth of today."

John, Secretary, Emmanuel Men’s Fellowship, West Wickham.

"What can I say? What a fascinating and enjoyable talk you delivered to our group on Wednesday. So many members came up to me with very positive and favourable comments."

Sandra, Second Hartley and District Active Retirement Association.

"Once again thank you for your very funny, intriguing and thought provoking talk last Monday on Rogues, Rascals and Rebels. I think you probably gathered from the atmosphere that we were held spellbound and in suspense for much of the time."

Jean, Chiddingstone Causeway W.I.