The best-known resident of Tunbridge Wells was (and still is) an anonymous one. Many people, even if they know very little about the town, have heard of the newspaper correspondent signing themselves ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’. The picture this conjures is of an irate and red-faced retired colonel taking up his fountain pen to fire off a letter to the newspapers, in which he rails against poor public services, or declining standards of behaviour.

In the nineteenth century and the first half of the 20^th century it was common practice to use a pseudonym when writing to the local newspaper. Some correspondents indicated their status – ‘A ratepayer’, ‘A resident’, ‘A customer’, or ‘A pedestrian’. Others added a bit more detail – ‘An indignant mother’, ‘A lover of waifs and strays’ or, in one case, ‘Another who would bathe regularly’.

In the 1920s and 1930s a number of people writing letters to the Kent & Sussex Courier signed themselves ‘Disgusted’, a signoff which had been used occasionally before, but now became more frequent. Their disgust was aimed at a wide variety of targets. One letter criticised the design of new houses being built at Hawkenbury, which were ‘a blot on the landscape’. Another complained of the din and racket made by three Salvation Army Bands playing across the town on Sunday afternoons, more suited to ‘a typical Bank Holiday on Hampstead Heath’. And a third, from someone claiming be an animal lover, complained of dogs – ‘Dogs in the highways, dogs in the bye-ways, dogs in lanes, dogs in ditches, dogs in the recreation grounds – dogs everywhere. Dogs yapping around all day and sometimes all night’.

In a letter printed in the Courier on 7th September 1928, the subject was traffic. In the period since 1895, when Sir David Salomons organised Britain’s first ever exhibition of motor vehicles at Tunbridge Wells (in the area of town now known as Showfields) the number of cars on the roads had increased rapidly, a development which was not welcomed by everyone.

Traffic in Tunbridge Wells. Still a problem today

The correspondent was clear that the Council were to blame for the problem. ‘It passes my comprehension’ they wrote ‘how our civic rulers have tolerated – I was going to say condoned – the almost daily growth in the nerve-wracking traffic which thunders over our roads’. They had two specific complaints. Firstly the Council had granted over a hundred licences for ‘heavy passenger-carrying buses’ to run on roads that had not been built for such traffic. Secondly they had taken too long to fix a speed limit, and had then set it too high – ‘Thirty miles an hour…is fifteen too much’.

The letter-writer began by thanking Mr Editor ‘for giving so much publicity to the din’ and ended with a request to ‘keep up the agitation……then perhaps the Council will be roused from its slumber’. They signed off – ‘Disgusted, London Road, Tunbridge Wells’.

It is said that during the 1950s the editor of the Tunbridge Wells Advertiser instructed his reporters to fabricate readers’ letters on controversial subjects, because not enough real ones were coming in and the paper was losing ground to the Courier, its main competitor. Some of the reporters signed their letters ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’.

The phrase became more widely known in the early 1960s when it was used as a letter-writing character’s name in ‘Take it From Here’, a popular radio comedy show starring Jimmy Edwards, and in 1978 when the BBC used it as the title for their new viewers’ feedback programme.

Gradually it became fixed in popular culture and it is still widely known. These days any concern expressed by local residents – whether it is the traffic (still a problem), Southeastern’s poor train service, the noise from low-flying Easyjet planes on their way to Gatwick, or even the arrival of Poundland rather than Waitrose in the town – still generates headlines with ‘Disgusted’ somewhere in them. Some of the town’s residents would like to shake off the label, but ‘Delighted of Tunbridge Wells’ doesn’t have the same ring about it.

Notes

• An account of Advertiser reporters being instructed to concoct letters is included in Frank Chapman’s book ‘Tales of Old Tunbridge Wells’.
• ‘Outraged of Tunbridge Wells’ by Nigel Cawthorne, published in 2014, includes examples of (real) letters written to the Tunbridge Wells Advertiser by local residents, including several who signed themselves ‘Disgusted’.

When the country went to war in August 1914 there was an immediate impact on Tunbridge Wells. Uniformed troops, marching in formation with rifles over their shoulders, became a familiar sight. Army lorries thundered through the town. Large numbers of soldiers from all over England assembled here before heading to the western front. Initially bell tents and a field kitchen were erected on the Common, but soon more substantial billets were provided in public buildings and in empty private houses. Food kitchens were opened and entertainments organised.

First Battalion Mid-Kent Volunteers marching up Mount Pleasant in 1914

At Christmas many of the men were given leave and headed home. However two and a half thousand of them enjoyed a lavish dinner in the town, organised and paid for by wealthy local couple, the Alves.

New Zealander Duncan Elliott Alves was an oil magnate, with interests in New Guinea and Venezuela. In around 1905 he moved to Tunbridge Wells, together with his parents, and in 1911 he married Hazel Wilson, a Canadian who was around twenty years his junior. Duncan involved himself in the life of the town, especially sport – he was president of the Tunbridge Wells Football Club and of the Grove Bowling Club. At his home, a house called ‘The Braes’ on Boyne Park, he had an extensive collection of pictures, an aviary with many rare and exotic birds and large garage which housed his collection of motor cars. Duncan would later be described as ‘tall, debonair and nattily dressed’ and as someone ‘who does everything on the grand scale wherever he goes’.

The dinner Duncan envisaged for the troops was certainly on a grand scale. The Courier commented ‘most minds would have shrank from the colossal task of carrying it out, but Mr Alves is not a man to be appalled by the magnitude of an undertaking’. At only two weeks’ notice detailed arrangements were delegated to the Tunbridge Wells Tradesmen’s Association, who recruited around 1,000 men and women to act as stewards, carvers, waiters and entertainers. (Such was the town’s enthusiasm for the event, they could have had double that number of volunteers). The catering was carried out by Messrs. Parker and Hammick of the Pantiles, whose manager Mr Coles had to call on all his experience of providing ‘colossal dinners’ for 3,000 or more. Under his direction cookers were installed at each of the venues and huge volumes of food prepared.

Corn Exchange. One of the Christmas Dinner venues

At 5.45pm on the day itself the troops marched through the streets to eight locations across the town, including the Corn Exchange, King Charles the Martyr church and Skinners School. Each had been decorated with a colourful profusion of greenery, flags, bunting and streamers. The men tucked into roast turkey, beef and pork, followed by plum pudding and mince pies. There was mineral water to drink, together with a pint of beer for each man that wanted it (apart from at teetotal venues such as the YMCA). Accompanied by Brigadier General McFie, Duncan and Hazel Alves drove round town, visiting the various venues. They were greeted with great enthusiasm by the troops, who drank to their health. In his reply Duncan Alves said that the cheers the men had given that night were no less than they themselves would receive when they went to the Front and had the Germans on the run.

After-dinner entertainment was provided by ‘the leading lights of the local musical world’, who performed songs likely to appeal to the audience. At the Skating Rink on Culverden Down, 600 or so soldiers showed their appreciation of a performance of ‘She’s a Lassie from Lancashire’, by roaring out the chorus. They also contributed performances of their own – even the Brigadier General sang a well-received song. Repeated choruses and encores filled the time there and elsewhere until proceedings closed at 9.30pm.

‘Well, short of getting home, we couldn’t have had a better time this Christmas” said a sergeant of the 4^th South Lancs regiment. The Courier reported that the event went down well and ‘the generous and rollicking spirit of Yuletide reigned supreme’.

Everything ran like clockwork and the occasion seems to have fully achieved the aim of Mr Alves and of the whole town – to treat the soldiers as honoured guests and show them a good time before they left to fight for their country.

Note

• For further information on Tunbridge Wells and World War One take a look at the Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society’s 2014 publication ‘Shock of War’.

•  Duncan Alves left Tunbridge Wells in the 1920s, moving to Tidebrook Place near Mayfield and then to south Wales, where he bought and renovated a castle and served six years as the Mayor of Caernarvon.

Duncan Elliott Alves as Mayor of Carnarvon