So who was J.P. Ede?
South West Whispers
NATURE POET
By The Falcon
PREACHER, poet, naturalist, author — these are a few of the activities that have given Mr. J.P. Ede of 39 Broomwood Road, a full and contented life.
As I chatted with him in his comfortably untidy study the other day he showed me a few of the wild flowers and plants he has been collecting over the past 40 years: a fern from the Catacombs at Rome; an elm twig from Wandsworth Common; or a tiny flower from the Welsh hills All are labelled with the date and place of their finding—but fancy Latin names do not feature in Mr. Ede's collection.
"I'm no botanist," he says. "I know many of the plants from experience but there are a good many I don't know. I like to keep them to bring back memories of the places I have visited."
Always something new on the common!
Mr. Ede generally spends an hour each afternoon wandering over Wandsworth Common. He always finds something new to file away in his collection or to tuck away in his mind. Then he'll either write a letter to the "S.W. Star," put together a poem or write an article on his new find.
Mr Ede took to writing when he was serving with the R.A.M.C. [Royal Army Medical Corps] during the first World War. He composed a series of barrack room verses for the unit notice board and subsequently had them published at Basra in 1918.
450 poems — 200 articles
SINCE then he has had published over 450 poems and about 200 articles. His verses cover hymns, history and humour and he has Just completed a series on Battersea places and people.
Since he retired from the Inland Revenue In 1948, Mr. Ede has devoted much of his time to the Battersea Chapel which he first joined in 1912. He is also this year's president of the London Baptist Association, South Western Group, an office he also held 11 years ago. On top of this he is treasurer of his church and still does a fair amount of lay preaching.
[BNA: Link]
photo
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Other letters?
SKELETONS ON THE COMMON
Even in the dull days winter Wandsworth Common is not without its interest and charm. In damp places on the ground, for instance, skeleton leaves may be found. How wonderful they are. The fleshy tissues have been dissolved but the fibrous framework remains. From a central support like the trunk of a tree radiate on each side the resemblance of boughs, branches and twigs, revealing the most delicate and intricate lacepatterning.
J. P. EDE. 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[Ed.] Reader Ede must be a man of great patience. He encloses a sample of skeleton leaves expertly mounted.
[BNA: Link.]
South Western Star — Friday 25 August 1950
WITHOUT HUMAN AID
Last Autumn when acorns were plentiful, I noticed a spot on Wandsworth Common where a horde of them had been deposited.
Some boy, I imagine, had been collecting a pocketful and then, tiring of them, had dumped them by a gorse bush.
Visiting thr rembered spot recently, I found that a number of the acorns had taken root and produced there a little colony of flourishing young oaks.
J. P. EDE, 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[BNA: Link.]
South Western Star — Friday 8 September 1950
INTERLOPERS
Blackberrying is a very popular pursuit on Wandsworth Common just now, especially as the berries seem to be so plentiful.
Among the many bramble bushes there I have discovered two whose deeply indented leaves shew them to be of a different species from those commonly found. I believe they are a cultivated variety but how these interlopers got there must be left to conjecture.
Incidentally. there used to be a similar bush on one of the allotments. Possibly this accounts for their origin, though their situation is some hundreds of yards away.
J. P. EDE. 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[Ed.] And to prove it, Mr. Ede has sent us mounted specimens of leaves, one of which looks more like a smali rose leaf and the other nothing like any bramble leaf we have seen.
[BNA: Link.]
South Western Star — Friday 13 August 1948
Under the heading THE ACCENT ON ROMANCE: Change of bell for teachers."For a photograph and description of his son's marriage to a fellow teacher, Joyce Phillips, see https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004606/19480813/086/0005. He had been a navigator in Bomber Command during the war and was now teaching at Sellincourt Road School, Tooting.
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South Western Star — Friday 6 October 1950
SURPRISES FOR THOSE WHO LOOK
Surprises are somtimes in store for those who roam the wilder reaches of Wandsworth Common.
Only the other day, for instance, I encountered one of these unexpected pleasures. There growing in the midst of a large, burnt-out gorse bushm was a tomato plant. It bore a number of chracteristic blossoms, and now, a few days later, a few green tomatoes are to be seen.
How did a tomato plant get intoi that gorse bush?
J.P. EDE. 39 Broomwood Road. Battersea. S.W.11.
[BNA: Link.]
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