FRANCIS JUSTICE WEBB - A TRIBUTE

Through the recent death of Francis Webb this part of Kent, and our village of Hartlip in particular, have lost an outstanding personality, and are the poorer on that account. It was in the middle 1920's that I first made his acquaintance but not until 1956 when I came to live in Hartlip that I was fortunate enough to become his business associate, a close friend of his, and to learn what manner of man he was. Intolerant only of any form of insincerity, smugness, and pretentiousness, he was ever willing to call every man his friend; and his friends were legion in every walk of life, drawn to him by his happy, cheerful and sympathetic attitude to others at all times. At once one knew him as a man of the truest integrity. But perhaps it was his innate love of children, animals, birds, and the whole work of nature that was his most endearing characteristic. During the morning of the day he died I was down at our fruit-tree nursery in the ordinary course of business, and happened to notice, lying half-covered in long grass at the side of a track running between the rows of little trees, a white-painted marker such as we use for denoting the types and varieties in the rows, and shaped like a child's cricket-bat. On this I found painted not one of the usual names, but the words SKYLARK'S NEST. This marker had obviously been set up at his request to ensure that none of our workers disturbed the little area where the nest had been found. Perhaps this true little story might well serve as his epitaph.

T.W.

PARISH NOTES

Help

For the hungry and homeless from Hartlip during Christian Aid Week amounted finally to £40. Though less than last year's, this amount came from a greater variety of sources; these included at least two individuals of different age-groups, who each collected quite a substantial sum at their places of work, £2 from our Youth Club, two generous donations from the Christian Fellowship and Chapel funds, and 5/- from a permanently house-bound parishioner who finds it most difficult to make ends meet. It was good, too, to see the loaf collecting-boxes, made by the Primary School, again in use. In addition, Hartlip did, of course, contribute in kind towards, and helped man, the C.A. Week shop in Sittingbourne High Street.