• BANKING ON YOU

    If you only read one article in this issue, make it this one. As we face ever more desperate times, your neighbours need your support – urgently. And if you are struggling yourself, find out how our local Foodbank can help
    Words & photography Jonathan Erridge
    In acramped office on an industrial unit off Western Road in Deal, Deal Area Emergency Foodbank Project coordinator Sheila Ward sits at her desk, a phone in one hand, her head in the other and a look of concern on her face as she takes the umpteenth call of the morning. It’s a familiar sight to anyone who’s spent any time at DAEF HQ, where the phone rarely stops ringing these days. After just a minute the call ends and Sheila takes a moment to collect herself before rising energetically from her chair, the frown quickly replaced with a bright, warm smile as she apologises for keeping me waiting.
    Established in 2012 with support from its parent charity the Trussell Trust, DAEF’s primary function has been to collect food donations for distribution to those in need in the CT14 (Deal, Walmer, Kingsdown), CT3 (Aylsham, Wingham, Hersden) and CT13 (Sandwich, Eastry) postcode areas. There are now three paid members of staff and 70 volunteers.
    DAEF partners with care providers in these areas, including social workers, community wardens and school family liaison officers, to identify those in need of support and then provide them with vouchers which can be redeemed for three days’ worth of emergency food. Currently over 2,000 people a year are being helped in this way, but demand is rising all the time, more rapidly in recent months.
    We’re not talking for long before the look of concern returns as Sheila tells me, “We’re seeing a lot more people in urgent need.” She recalls just recently sitting in the passenger seat of a client’s car as he “gripped the steering wheel so hard, trying not to cry because he felt ashamed that I was giving him some money”. Another client had been left “emaciated” after surviving for weeks on just one meal a day until someone suggested they contact their local foodbank. While another, almost unbelievably, had resorted to eating cat food as it was all they had left.
    Such stories are all too common here, sadly. And with the crushing combination of high inflation and weak economic growth – if not outright recession – forecast for the foreseeable future, the situation shows signs of only deteriorating further.
    “We’re all feeling extremely apprehensive,” Sheila says, describing the mood among staff and volunteers. “We have a lot of contact with people, and listening to their stories, I just don’t know how people are going to cope. I just see the need increasing horribly over the next few months, especially as the weather gets cold.”
    One way to help people cope is through its government-funded Household Support Fund, with two £40,000 instalments allocated to the foodbank by Dover District Council, the first arriving in January this year, the second in July. This allows DAEF to offer help for individuals and families with utility bills, school uniforms and other essentials, going only to those in the most difficult of circumstances.
    Sheila describs one recipient of HSF funds as, “Someone who we just thought, we’ve neve seen someone in such need and distress.” A few hours after providing him with an HSF grant, she saw him again in Poundland “with a big bag full of stuff for his kitchen, you know, things we take for granted like washing up cloths and liquid. His face just beamed. He hadn’t realised that food banks could help him. And that’s the whole point. We need to get the message out. Foodbanks do help people.”

    Information courtesy of the Trussell Trust

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    : volunteer Dave Annand, volunteer coordinator Gary Studley and project coordinator Sheila Ward of the Deal Area Emergency Foodbank
    The first tranche of the HSF has already been used, however, and the second is running down rapidly, meaning it is unlikely to last long into the winter.
    “ One person resorted to eating cat food – it was all they had left”
    Sheila praises the response of the local community, but pleads for people to do more, particularly stressing the need for food donations, which haven’t been keeping up with demand recently. Financial donations are also welcome.
    Likewise, volunteers are always needed and there are part-time paid positions to fill from time to time. For example, a new volunteer coordinator and warehouse manager have just been added to the team, which Sheila described as “an incredibly committed and friendly bunch”. And for anyone considering getting involved, Sheila’s message – her face lights up again – is simply, “Do it!”

    HELP

    For more information, to volunteer or donate go to dealarea.foodbank.org.uk or call 01304 202442
    Food donations can be left at Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Co-op Food and Tesco in Deal; Co-op in Sandwich; Co-op Food in Aylesham; Lidl in Whitfield. Money can be donated at the Nationwide in Deal and Sandwich
    To make a quick and easy donation, text DAEF1 to 70085 to donate £1. Change number to donate more, up to £10 (DAEF10)

    1 INCREASED NEED

    The sharp rise in the cost of energy, food and other essentials, alongside the £20 cut to universal credit in October 2021, has meant that between April 2021 and March 2022, foodbanks in the Trussell Trust network provided more than 2.1 million parcels to people facing financial hardship. This is the first time since the height of the pandemic that foodbanks in the Trussell Trust’s network have provided more than 2 million parcels. As the cost of living continues to soar, foodbank managers in our network are warning of an accelerated crisis across the UK, with more families being forced to the doors of foodbanks in need of emergency food. One manager commented: “The people who come in are telling me they’re scared. People are beside themselves about what the next six months will bring.”

    2 NEEDING TO PURCHASE FOOD

    “Our supporters continue to generously donate so our network can continue supporting people facing hardship, but these donations are not currently keeping pace with the increased need. This means that foodbanks are having to purchase food and other essentials to supplement what would usually be provided by donations. With the rising cost of food, this will place an increased financial toll on individual food banks.
    “Due to the escalating need for emergency food parcels in our region, we have been spending up to £1,000 a week to buy food to make up for the shortfall in essential items for our food parcels. Whilst kind donations of food continue, in order to meet the increase in demand we will have to purchase even more and, with grocery prices spiralling, this is going to cost the foodbank.”
    Lorraine Schulze, Project Manager Medway Foodbank

    3 INCREASED RUNNING COSTS

    Foodbanks will also need to meet the rising costs of energy and fuel bills which keep warehouses, vehicles and distribution centres running.
    “Our running costs to heat and light our warehouses and distribution centres have increased, along with fuel costs to run our vans used to deliver food parcels.”
    Kathleen Neilly, General Manager, West Lothian Foodbank

    4 NEED FOR COLD FOOD PACKS

    “As people feel the impact of the cost of living crisis and look to make savings, foodbanks are seeing an increase in need for ‘cold food packs’. This is food that can be eaten without the need for high-energy and high-cost appliances.
    “We are having more and more people come to us to say that although they have a cooker or fridge that they are not turning them on as they do not have the money for the meter and so are requesting items to eat that need no cooking at all.”
    Pete Criddle, Trustee and Volunteer Bradford North Foodbank

    5 EXTENDED OPENING HOURS

    “Because everyone is feeling the squeeze of the cost of living crisis, more foodbanks are seeing an increase in people in work coming to their doors. Due to this, foodbanks are needing to change or extend their opening hours so people can pick up an emergency food parcel on their way to or from work.
    “We have to open our foodbank earlier in the day at 8am so working people can pick up their parcels on the way to work. Although we have a large proportion of people referred to us who are on benefits, we are seeing more and more people who are working, but whose wages have not increased in line with the rise in the cost of food, fuel and other items needed for a basic living standard.”
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    The high cost of living is leading to increased need and rising costs for foodbanks. Here are five ways that foodbanks are being impacted
    ©Providence Doucet, Unsplash
    Gill Fourie, Operational Manager Blackburn Foodbank
    No-one should have to turn to a charity for something as essential as food. If people are to have enough money to live with dignity, we need our social security system strengthened so that it acts as an effective lifeline for whenever any of us need support. Should you agree everyone in our community should be able to afford life’s essentials, go to action. trusselltrust.org to join the campaign which asks MPs to call for a stronger social security system that supports people every day, not just in times of national crisis.
    If you need support, or wish to donate to the charity, visit the Trussell Trust website to find your local food bank: trusselltrust.org

  • The murder of Mary Bax

    It’s the time of year for spooky stories – and this one is local and legendary. But what really happened?
    Words & imagery courtesy of Sharon Powell
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    The modern road just off the ancient highway
    As winter looms, the nights draw in and the traditions of Halloween begin, our thoughts turn to stories of the dark. The tale of a local woman attacked on a lonely road at the end of the 18th century by a wayward sailor is one that has been retold many times on a cold, dark night in front of a blazing fire.
    The name Mary Bax is recognised by the many people in Deal who have stumbled across her memorial stone on the ancient highway towards Sandwich. And the crime has been written about many times, often with conflicting details. Some of these versions are more like works of fiction – all Victorian melodrama blended with local folklore. But, of course, there is a true story to be found among the differing versions, although it’s now impossible to prove definitively what that was.
    When Victorian culture was at its height and the likes of Wilkie Collins published popular novels such as The Moonstone and The Woman in White, to sit alongside Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, the old tale of the murder of a young woman by a penniless sailor on a desolate highway must have really got the creative juices flowing. The story was already passing out of living memory, and so it began to transition from true crime to work of fiction.
    The author Michael Ballantyne in his 1864 novel The Lifeboat has a murder taking place on “the bleak Sandhills” one evening, with Mary being accosted and then murdered by a “brutal foreign seaman” who had deserted his post. A similar work of fiction, Mary Bax: A Tale Founded on Fact, was written by Thomas Mills and published in 1850 by the Penny Illustrated News. It tells a similar tale, reminiscent of a torrid Victorian love story involving Mary and some hopeful young man hoping to win her hand.
    Clement William Scott also wrote about Mary’s death in his 1874 book Round About the Islands, or Sunny Spots Near Home in a piece dripping with exaggeration. But moving away from Victorian melodrama, embellishment and darkness, we have a parallel, believable story reported in the Illustrated Police News of 18 November 1882, almost a century after the murder. The article also carries a confession from the murderer.
    From this, we can deduce that the day she was murdered – 25 August 1793 – Mary, who was 23 years old from a “respectable” home, was walking from Deal to Sandwich along the ancient highway. Today this road runs parallel with, and close to, the coastline between Deal and Sandwich, passing between farmland and Royal Cinque Ports Golf course. In the late 1700s it was known as the Sandhills and was rough and desolate, a mixture of pasture land and boggy marshes with streams and muddy dykes.
    Mary’s brutal murder was witnessed by a shepherd’s son named Rogers, who was around eleven or twelve years old. There is an old picture showing a cottage in the area (see over) which had some foundations going back to the 17th century, so it’s possible that this could have been the cottage from where the young lad witnessed Mary’s murder.
    As a witness in court, Rogers stated  that Mary walked past him carrying a bundle or package and she had just passed the Halfway House (now known as the Chequers) when a man who was about 27 years of age, dressed in a white waistcoat and long stockings and carrying his boots under his arm, approached her and engaged her in conversation. This man was Martin Laas, who was born at Bergen, in Norway. He was a sea-faring man and came to England as a boy on a Danish trading ship. From there he joined the British fleet, and had served as an able seaman for several years.
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    Mary Bax’s “murder stone” on the site she was killed
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    Alater illustration of Mary’s murderer
    In his later confession, Martin admitted to asking Mary for money and, when she didn’t give him as much as he wanted, he asked for her clothes. He then tried to strangle her but changed his mind, threw her into the nearby dyke and stood on her until she was dead. Wet and muddy, he made off across the marshes. The boy Rogers ran into Deal town and raised the alarm but, sadly, it was too late to save Mary and they focused their attention on finding her murderer. Having a good idea that he had gone in the direction of Dover, they put a watch on the town and soon found a man matching the description in a public house and arrested him. The report states that his conduct was “violent and rough in the extreme and he showed no compunction”.
    He was taken away and committed to St Dunstan’s Gaol in Canterbury to await his trial at the next Maidstone Assizes. It appears Martin’s behaviour didn’t improve during his confinement and, at his trial on 20 March 1784, records show he seemed cheerful, mocked the court and insulted the witnesses.
    In his own defence, Martin Laas could only say, “I was destined to commit the murder and I was told I should do it by an old Spanish sailor who foretold my destiny. I was destined to do it and was impelled to do it; therefore, I should not be hung.” This didn’t hold much sway with the judge and, when he announced the guilty verdict, Martin – undeterred – gave three loud cheers. On sentencing him to death by hanging, the judge ordered that, as his behaviour was so defiant, he should be chained to the floor in his cell.
    It is reported that at his execution on Gallows Hill, Penenden Heath, just outside of Maidstone, he arrived, “quite willing to die and quickly mounted the ladder and in another moment or two paid the penalty for his crime”.
    So what of poor Mary Bax? It is said that her friends and family raised the money for the memorial stone that stands where her murder took place and she is buried in a now unmarked grave in St Peter’s Churchyard, Sandwich. Herein lies yet another contradiction in this story, as the burial register shows the entry as 1783 but the stone and plaque say 1782.
    It would be safer to go with the church burial record and the contemporary reports to ascertain the correct date, but this goes to show how, through the passage of time, local folklore, mistakes in documenting and works of fiction blending with fact, the truth behind the brutal murder of Mary Bax will always be clouded in mystery.
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    The old house near what is now the Chequers