Information
In his contributions to Punch and in other writings Jerrold made many references – some mocking, but most of them affectionate – to Herne Bay and the Kent coast. His impressions must have derived from the holiday visits he made from the early 1840s onwards. A sufferer from rheumatism, he found fresh air and calm for himself and his family at a rented house on the outskirts of Herne village, near Herne Bay.
Quotations
Jerrold wrote to Charles Dickens in 1843:
My dear Dickens, – I write from a little cabin, built up of ivy and woodbine, and almost within sound of the sea. Here I have brought my wife and daughter, and have already the assurance that country air and sounds and sights will soon recover them …
I am about to take advantage of the leisure of country life, and the inspiration of a glorious garden, to finish a comedy begun last summer, and to which rheumatism wrote ‘to be continued’, when rheumatism, like a despotic editor, should think fit …
In a collection called 'Cakes and Ale' (1842-3) he returned to the theme:
Reader, be with us for a brief time, at this beautiful village of Herne … It seems a very nest – warm and snug, and green – for human life; with the twilight haze of time about it, almost consecrating it from the aching hopes and feverish expectations of the present. Who would think that the bray and roar of multitudinous London sounded but some sixty miles away? The church stands peacefully, reverently; like some old, visionary monk, his feet on earth – his thoughts with God.
Place | Extract |
| Herne | In his contributions to Punch and in other writings Jerrold made many references – some mocking, but most of them affectionate – to |
| Sheerness | This eventually led to his successful career as a journalist and playwright whose early acclaimed plays had a nautical theme... |
