p.73 W. W. SKEAT

In a letter composed in response to the publication of Canon Tatham’s “Dragon Folk-Lore in Sussex” in the previous month’s issue of the Sussex County Magazine, F. Fleetwood Buss writes:

“Surely, whatever may be the modern spelling of this word, the actual spot must originally have been known as the Nucker-Hole!”

He goes on to list a succession of biblical and folkloric dragons with watery habitats, and concludes:

“Cumulatively all these folk-tales, connecting dragons with wells, seem to emphasise the derivation of the Lyminster Knucker-hole from Nicor, the water-monster of the South Saxons, rather than from any Celtic word, knuck or knuckle.”

This is printed along with an editorial reply, in which it is reported that:

“The late Rev. W. W. Skeet [sic], Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge, once informed me that in his opinion the correct spelling of the word is ‘Nucker’, which is from the Anglo-Saxon nicor, … as Mr Fleetwood Buss points out.”

Although this statement dates from twenty-eight years after the publication of Johnston’s article, and nineteen after the death of Skeat, it suggests that the latter was indeed aware of the Knucker Hole, and had formed the opinion on its etymology asserted by Johnston.

p.74 CHARLES G. JOINER

Charles G. Joiner makes five appearances in the Sussex County Magazine during the course of 1929, although I cannot find any trace of him elsewhere in its run. In the March issue, it is stated that he has won the first prize of one guinea in a competition, for sending in the best imaginary conversation “between Charles II. and his attendants during the historical ride over the Sussex Downs to Brighthelmstone”. He has letters printed in July, August and December: “The Knucker of Lyminster” is also published in the December issue, perhaps marking the culmination of his interest in the magazine. In the competition announcement, his address is given as Charlton House, Arundel, but he is not listed as an occupant there in either the 1921 Census or the 1939 Register. He evidently had family roots in West Sussex, as he writes of his great-grandfather holding land in Watersfield in his final letter.

p.77 JOHN BISHOP

John Bishop was born in Kemble, Wiltshire, on 25 May 1874, and was recorded as resident in Lyminster in both the 1921 Census and 1939 Register. He is shown as having a dual occupation, as the village’s sub-postmaster and as a gardener, in each of these surveys: the post office is given as the address for himself and his family in 1921, but by 1939 he is living with his wife at 251 Church Road, which is actually located in the neighbouring village of Rustington. His gravestone, in Saint Mary Magdalene’s churchyard, gives the date of his death as 1951, and is inscribed as follows: “The birds sang for him, / and under his hand / the flowers bloomed.”

I had wondered if Bishop might have proved to be the single source of both Joiner and Sisson’s tales, but he is not a good match for Joiner’s hedger, if the portrayal of the latter is based upon a genuine informant. While the hedger had “lived at Toddington all my life”, Bishop cannot have settled in Sussex before the age of thirty, as the two elder children listed in the census were born in Acton and Amersham respectively: his youngest son was born in 1905 in Coldwaltham, less than ten miles from Lyminster.