Catch up on all the latest history news from across Kent with Finn Macdiarmid.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kent Chronicles where we turn back time on all of Kent's history
00:26from the Mesolithic era all the way to the modern day. Now to everything in between I'm
00:33Finn McDermid so join me as we discuss all things history. But first on our show tonight
00:39a brand new feature of ours, as much history as Kent does have, I thought it would be interesting
00:45to take a look at what's making the headlines around the country. So here's the first installment
00:49of the History Roundup. On today's roundup we'll see a human brain that was turned into
00:54glass found in the ruin of an ancient city. We'll also be looking at the anniversary of a
00:59Cold War document passed by President Harry Truman and for any vampires watching you might not want
01:04to see our last story all about a wall of stakes found in Sheffield Castle's moat. First up on
01:10today's History Roundup a human brain that was turned into glass was discovered in the ruins
01:17of the ancient city of Herculaneum. Scientists believe that the brain was engulfed in hot ash
01:23then rapidly cooled. This is what allowed it to turn into glass. The shards were found in the
01:30skull of a man who was believed to have died in his bed following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
01:36in 79 AD. This is the first time such remains have been found. Next, today marks 77 years since 33rd
01:46US President Harry S Truman announced the Truman Doctrine in a speech to Congress. The doctrine was
01:55a piece of US foreign policy created in 1947 during the Cold War. It promised the USA would
02:03provide political, economic and military aid to any country taking a stand against communism.
02:09And finally, up at Sheffield Castle the first surviving wooden stake defences were found in
02:16the castle's moat. These stakes date back to the English Civil War and would have formed an abatis.
02:23These were designed to slow down attackers. These wooden stakes normally would decay over time
02:30but the waterlogged environment created an oxygen-free setting. It's this that prevented
02:35the wood from decaying. They have survived in the castle's moat for nearly 400 years.
02:41And that's it on today's History Roundup.
02:46Now, Whitstable is known for its oysters and seafront but one local kept a secret. She was a
02:52millionaire. Hilda Levy fled Nazi Germany, lived quietly in Whitstable and after her passing left
02:58£1.4 million to Kent charities and organisations. The League of Friends of the Kent and Canterbury
03:04Hospital then received its largest ever donation, helping it buy vital medical equipment. I've
03:10been uncovering the incredible story of Whitstable's hidden millionaire.
03:14Whitstable is mainly known around Kent for oysters, its seafront and as a summer holiday
03:18destination but one local who lived there never revealed she was actually a millionaire until
03:23she passed away. She fled Nazi Germany, became a millionaire and chose to give her wealth away
03:28in her will to supporting local causes in and around Whitstable. Hilda Levy passed away in
03:33a care home in Manchester back in 2022 but it wasn't until semi-recently that people realised
03:39just how much money she actually had, with the Friends of Kent and Canterbury Hospital receiving
03:43a £500,000 gift from Hilda in her will, their largest ever single legacy. They received the
03:50money at the end of the process of the will with it already being paid into their account,
03:54with some saying they didn't even know who she was until they received the money.
03:58It was actually quite funny because when we first got the letter we weren't quite
04:02sure whether we got half a million or 30% of half a million so we were sort of,
04:10when we realised it was half a million we couldn't believe it, everybody was absolutely astonished and
04:15so pleased because it's a huge sum of money that can do an awful lot of good and buy really,
04:20really big equipment. Hilda also gave money to the charity Age UK and the Friends of Whitstable
04:26Healthcare who say they'll use the donation to buy a new x-ray machine for the Estuary View
04:30Medical Centre. One Whitstable local and social history enthusiast, Julie Hunt, took it upon
04:35herself to research Hilda, using publicly available documents and information to trace the course of
04:41her life. Julie noticed that one of her husband's ancestors shared a last name with Hilda which got
04:45her interested in her life, and using records she was able to work out that her parents were
04:50Friedrich Hermann Levi and Irma. In 1941 she was a student at Redhill School in Sutton in Kent
04:56and was interred as a refugee, with many of her family dying during the Holocaust in the Second
05:01World War. She also discovered that she worked as a secretary in Maidstone and for the Duke of
05:07Edinburgh Awards Office in Westminster. Julie believes that the source of Hilda's fortune
05:11could come from her uncle who ran a company that imported and exported coffee. He died a bachelor
05:16and split his wealth between his family and various charitable causes just like Hilda.
05:21The Kent charities that she gave money to all have praised her generosity, especially as many
05:26didn't even meet her, and Hilda Levi's name will become far better known in Whitstable
05:31as their hidden millionaire. Finn McDermid for KMTV. Now history and theme parks, they don't
05:37always travel on the same track, but fans of both could be disappointed to learn that although
05:42Margate's Dreamland is set to reopen for the summer season and celebrates 10 years since
05:47its revival, it'll be doing so without much mention of one of the oldest roller coasters
05:51in the country, the Scenic Railway. The coaster was forced to close last August after a gaping
05:57hole appeared in the tracks, causing the ride to come to a stop as you can see here. Passengers
06:02had to be taken off the ride and it was shut for the remainder of the season. It first opened more
06:07than a hundred years ago in 1920 and it's even been grade listed by English Heritage, but a
06:12spokesperson would only say that plans for the Scenic Railway will be confirmed further into
06:17the 2025 season. Now new images have been released after ten and a half million pounds were spent
06:23renovating a town hall that dates back more than 800 years. The Maison Dieu in Dover was a medieval
06:30hospital to house pilgrims coming from Europe to visit the shrine of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury.
06:35It was later used as a court of justice and prison in 1838. Now it's part of the oldest section of
06:42Dover Town Hall, with its renovation being completed this week, transforming it into a
06:47cultural and heritage centre set to reopen this May. Its council chamber, which was used from the
06:521850s until 1974, which you can see there, will now become available for small events and for
06:58wedding ceremonies. Now a 135 year old garden in Ramsgate has started repair work for its man-made
07:04waterfall that hasn't been working in three years. The grade two listed Madeira Walk waterfall will
07:11see scaffolding and fences put around the scenic ponds so they can be drained and any leaks patched
07:16up. Now it's a pretty big task because of the waterfall's structure, which is called pulamite,
07:21which I had to look up, which means a way of building artificial rocks out of cement. This
07:25means the council will call in specialist landscape contractors together with horticultural
07:30experts who can cut back the plants around the ponds and remove any invasive species. Now don't
07:37forget you can keep up to date with all your latest stories across Kent by logging on to our website
07:41kmtv.co.uk and I like to take some time to visit some history stories that we've done around this
07:47time in previous years, like this one. It's all about a film made here in Kent about the first
07:52British woman to swim the Channel. Oliver Leader de Sacks reported this on the 14th of March last
07:57year. A British icon almost lost to history, reborn on a screen here in Sittingbourne. Nearly
08:05100 years ago Mercedes-Gleiss became the first British woman to swim the English Channel,
08:10crossing from France to Folkestone. Now a new film produced here in Kent aims to shine a light
08:16on an extraordinary trailblazer in open water swimming. Well I'd never heard of Mercedes-Gleiss,
08:22I just stumbled across her story, it would have been about five years ago, and I just thought it
08:26was complete travesty that I hadn't heard of this woman. I mean she is remarkable, what she did,
08:31you know, as a woman in that era, you know, breaking down those boundaries and just going
08:35out there and achieving her dreams, but also her battle against nature and everything, it was just
08:38so inspiring and I was just in awe of her right from the outset. But bringing Gleiss's life to
08:42the big screen wasn't easy. The cold was a huge challenge and also the endurance, because
08:49sometimes I would stay in the water for up to four hours so we could get the big drone shots,
08:54so just the monotony of swimming is quite gruelling. That just made me understand how
09:03insanely strong Mercedes was, mentally as well as physically. The first time we were out we
09:10experienced, it was a very rough day, and the movement of the boat, the movement of this
09:16little rowing boat bobbing up and down, caused everyone in the boat to be seasick, and there
09:21was a moment at that point where the director thought, oh heck, how on earth are we going to
09:26do this? But despite these difficulties, aiming for authenticity and a low carbon footprint
09:32was seen as crucial for keeping Gleiss's legacy alive. I sat down with Elliot right at the very
09:38beginning, we had a number of sort of meetings about this and we used no single use of plastics
09:44in the making of the film. We car shared, we never made a new costume because of the environmental
09:51impact of clothing, and we did everything that we could to have like an ESG compliant film,
10:01and I think we achieved that as well, and I think Mercedes would be very proud of Elliot and the
10:05team that has achieved that. But what do audiences think? Well I absolutely love the water, and I
10:12think for anybody who loves swimming, this is the film to come and see, to see such an important
10:18character. I thought the cinematography was amazing, the acting was amazing, and the story was really
10:26uplifting. I just was completely shocked at how we'd never heard of her name before, and she'd
10:31been missed out on all the history books. What an incredible woman. With audiences seemingly swayed
10:37and Gleiss having been inducted into the Swim England Hall of Fame earlier this month, the
10:43sporting icon is finally getting the vindication she deserves. Oliver Leader of the Sats reporting
10:50for KMTV. A very interesting story that I'm happy we revisited. Now it's time for a brand
10:55new segment on the show, a history question to test your knowledge that I like to call
10:59Trivia Through Time.
11:04So for our trivia question this week, what animal was said to have helped Maidstone's Sir Henry
11:09Wyatt from starvation and loneliness after being locked in the Tower of London by King Richard?
11:15What animal was said to have helped Maidstone's Sir Henry Wyatt from starvation and loneliness
11:20after being locked in the Tower of London by King Richard? Sorry about that, well the clock has hit
11:27its halfway mark, but there's still more history to be uncovered. Join us after this short break
11:33where we'll take a look at the Chatham Historic Dockyard's latest exhibition, set to run for six
11:38months, all about famous shipwrecks, with a twist that all the models are made out of Lego. It's
11:44called Brickwrecks and I'll be joined by a very special guest just after this short break. See you soon.
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15:18Hello and welcome back to Kent Chronicles live on KMTV. I'm Finn McDermott and join me in the show
15:25where we cover all of Kent's history. Now for that Trivia Through Time answer, if you happen to miss
15:30it don't worry we'll play it for you one more time. Your question was what animal was said to
15:37have helped Maidstone's Sir Henry Wyatt from starvation and loneliness after being locked
15:43in the Tower of London by King Richard? And the answer was a cat. The family memorial in Boxley
15:50Church includes the note God sent him a cat to feed and warm him. I asked plenty of people in
15:55the office this question and they all guessed a raven. But now a new Lego exhibition has made its
16:02UK debut at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham. Brickwrecks Sunken Ships in Lego Bricks is a new
16:07installation that features 11 large scale models and tells the tale of eight different shipwrecks.
16:13The models use over 170,000 bricks and display famous ships such as the RMS Titanic and the
16:19Vassar. Our reporter Kai Wei sailed down to the dockyard to find out more.
16:26The Titanic, one of the most infamous sunken ships in the world, has been recreated out of Lego.
16:34Now this camera isn't quite big enough to film things on but it is made of Lego just like all
16:39the ships around me at the Historic Dockyard's newest exhibition. The exhibition is called
16:44Brickwrecks and this tells the story of sunken ships in Lego bricks and there's eight shipwreck
16:50stories and they're all told through Lego. So there's some going back to the the bronze age
16:57we've got the Uluburun which is the oldest shipwreck ever discovered and you can see a model
17:00that's been recreated to show the wreck. We've also got Vassar which was a Swedish ship
17:08famously sank on its maiden voyage. We've also got more famous ships like Titanic as well which
17:14you can see behind me and really it's about telling the story of these famous shipwrecks
17:20through Lego and there's loads of interactivity so you can come and learn about the ships you can
17:24also build your own Lego creation and hopefully inspired by the by the models we have here.
17:30Originating in Australia this exhibition has made its way around the world to places like Sweden
17:36and now for the first time ever it's landed in the UK right here in Kent. So the Historic
17:41Dockyard Chatham has a huge amount of background with regards to maritime history within the region
17:47so it's been on this site for over 400 years. The significance particularly in this exhibition to
17:53Chatham and the Kent area really revolves around the stories of HMS Terra and HMS Erebus
17:58both of which were fitted out as part of their final expedition to try and find the
18:03Northwest Passage. So there is a truly local story to this exhibition bear in mind this whole
18:10all of these models were developed and built in Australia originally but it shows you that
18:15actually maritime history and the the link that this place had really really did truly span the
18:21world. Lego is a brand and a thing that I remember from my childhood and still has a universal appeal
18:29as whether it be as a toy or whether it be something that adults use to relax and unwind
18:34through stress. It's truly fantastic to be able to tell a Chatham story but also alongside the
18:40stories of the Titanic, the Vasa, the Batavia and it just goes to show what a world platform this
18:47amazing place was on for over 400 years. So I have a personal passion for Lego myself and yeah
18:55still building Lego today and will probably still be building some Lego in this very exhibition very
18:59very soon. Opening on the 8th of March for six whole months this new exhibition is anything
19:05but a shipwreck. Kai Wei for KMTV in Chatham. Earlier I was joined by Paul Bernard the curator
19:15of the exhibition to tell us a bit more about Brickwrecks. Hi Paul, thank you so much for joining
19:20us today and I suppose my first question is did you talk to us a bit about the origin of the Chatham
19:25Dockyard and the Brickwrecks exhibition? Where did it all start? Well it's a really interesting story
19:32and the exhibition itself originated in Australia and we came across it almost by pure chance when
19:41we noticed it was starting to tour across Europe and was actually on show at the Vasa Museum in
19:48Stockholm and it just felt like the perfect opportunity to blend together the amazing
19:55stories of shipwrecks from around the world. But telling that really incredible maritime
20:02archaeological story using Lego just gives us such an amazing opportunity to really feature
20:08something here at the Historic Dockyard that is not just educationally interesting and interesting
20:14in terms of our subject matter here at the Dockyard but also fun for young people and families and even
20:20adults that are into Lego as well so it just had such a broad appeal we when we saw the opportunity
20:26we just knew we simply couldn't pass this up. Absolutely and I believe I heard that it's going
20:30on for six months is that right? That's right yeah so the exhibition has now opened and is going to
20:36be running through till the 31st of August here at the Historic Dockyard Chatham and all included
20:42within our annual ticket price as well so it's a one ticket and you can visit the exhibition but
20:48also explore the rest of the amazing site that we have, our historic ships, our galleries, our amazing
20:53working roperies so it makes what is a great day out and made even better this year with the
20:59addition of this fantastic exhibition. Brilliant and we all saw that package that our reporter
21:06Kai made and we heard in that that the HMS Terror and Erebus have a Kent link could you
21:12expand a bit more on the history there? Yeah it's also another interesting story that really
21:18led us to wanting to take this exhibition on so HMS Terror and HMS Erebus had a bit of history
21:25with Chatham in particular as they were refitted and effectively made more efficient and
21:33stronger for their expedition up to the Arctic which ultimately ended up being their last
21:39expedition led by Franklin to try and find the Northwest Passage through the Atlantic
21:45through to the Pacific. Unfortunately both ships ended up getting lost or getting caught in
21:52ice flows in the Arctic and ultimately then the ships and their crews were lost and only
21:57rediscovered about 15-20 years ago and that there is even thinking about these worldwide shipwrecks
22:04and this exhibition was developed all the way around the other side of the world in Australia
22:08to find out that there were these really unique links to Chatham as part of that was another
22:14amazing story that we can tell a little bit more and it's a probably a story that's not all that
22:19well known so through the exhibition you will hear lots of stories about Titanic probably the
22:25most famous shipwreck in the world. Actually the wrecks of HMS and Terror are not household names
22:30but they're really really important particularly to us here in Kent and specifically here in Chatham.
22:36Absolutely and I think it's always important to bring it back to the local side of it. I did a
22:41short documentary about William Adams who was a Gillingham man who went on to become the first
22:46samurai and I think he traversed the Northwest Passage when he was a navigator so how important
22:51is that kind of local link when you're considering what kind of exhibitions you want to put on?
22:57I think it's that thing that makes it unique to this place that does give that extra reason
23:03why you might take these exhibitions on. Ultimately you're always going to look at what's
23:09the thing that's going to drive an audience, what's the thing that's going to really make people want
23:13to come and visit the historic dockyard. If there's an opportunity to do something that has
23:19a real link to Chatham well it just makes it all that more relevant to our story and what people
23:25what people can effectively learn here. So yeah it's an important consideration it's not
23:31the only consideration but it certainly helps and I suppose it kind of it helps to explain
23:39what the impact this place had around the world. There's very few maritime stories across the world
23:45that haven't got some even tenuous link back to Chatham when you think about the role this place
23:51played in not only supporting the Navy but actually supporting trade for over 400 years so it's often
23:58quite difficult to find stories around ships that don't have a connection to Chatham.
24:03I hate to ask you this but do you have a Lego model that's maybe your particular
24:09favourite or is that like asking to choose your favourite child?
24:12If it were like asking a child I couldn't possibly choose but I will do. I think for me
24:19and it's simply because of that link to Chatham the model in the exhibition of Erebus and Terror
24:25is really powerful partly because yeah there's that Chatham connection of course I'm always
24:31going to be a little bit biased about that but it shows the two ships caught in the ice flow and
24:38there's something about it sort of demonstrating kind of the bleakness of the Arctic and how
24:43desperate a situation it must have been for those that were sailing on those ships at the time
24:48and it's amazing how you can create something quite evocative and emotional out of Lego
24:55if that makes sense so that's probably the one I would pick as my favourite.
24:59Fair enough I'd have to go down myself to pick my favourite but I am curious as well how much
25:05of the fact that it is Lego and it is appealing to children how difficult is it to kind of get
25:12young people interested in history and especially when it's something as almost obscure as shipwrecks?
25:18I think that's probably part of the genius of using Lego with this exhibition so history
25:25history always has an appeal but particularly when working with young people giving something that can
25:31make history fun and make it engaging is always really really important we do this through our
25:36learning programmes all the time when we work with schools and using Lego to help tell a way it's
25:42quite a serious and can be quite tragic at times and story around shipwrecks really starts to bring
25:48it to life and it helps and we've seen it ourselves with young people that have gone through the
25:54exhibition it it enables them to ask questions it it means that they will say I want to learn
26:00more about that yes they've been captivated by the Lego model of the Titanic for example but
26:05you see this incredible model and you you want to then learn a bit more about it what why did
26:11this the unsinkable ship sink what happened to the people as the ship was sinking and just that
26:18little thing of building something with Lego which is something that so many children play with at
26:22home today just and they just enables organisations like us museums to tell those stories and just dig
26:30that little bit deeper and start to spark spark that interest in history particularly on a local
26:36level here in Kent with the story that the Dockyard has in Chatham. Well it looks like
26:41that was one for the history books. Thanks for watching and I'll see you soon.