Obituary and tribute to Mike Perring

By Jon Dickson

Such sad news just before Christmas was the passing of Mike, so long the backbone of the KAS archive team over the past 30 years or so in the library room at the Maidstone Museum. It had been his 90th birthday only 23 days before. He had invited the small and ageing group of the “Wednesday Club” together with young ladies Pernille and Ruiha to a party at his house in Sandy Mount. Still, he had second thoughts about fitting us all in, so he treated us to a meal at the Sir Thomas Wyatt Beefeater on the

6th of December instead, where we presented him with a copy of the new Maritime Kent book.

I had been round to see him from time to time over the preceding years for a cuppa, swop a couple of books, and chat about his life before KAS. He had been born in what is now Sri Lanka, but then known as Ceylon, but had come home after a couple of years when his father, an engineer, had had to return to England with leukaemia, from which he died soon after getting back. So Mike then lived with his mother and grandmother in Holtye Crescent in Maidstone, where he practised, amongst other things, the usual boyhood hobby of bomb-making in the garden shed (presumably with the weed killer and sugar formula that I would learn to use fifteen years later).

Come the war, he and friends would rush around after a raid and collect the still-hot bits of shrapnel, and probably trade them for a gob-stopper or something, before going to Maidstone Grammar School and doing his National Service with RAF as a radio operator based in the Middle East, where he had many exciting experiences, including visiting the Nile where his grandfather had

Top, left Mike Perring Top, right

You can see why Joan was attracted to him

Bottom

Mike at Kits Coty in 2008 set off down the river as part of the force with General Kitchener in 1899 to retake Khartoum.

On returning home after his National Service, he started work at Ditton Lab, which later morphed into East Malling Research Station and was highly regarded for his expertise in fruit storage, particularly apples; which is probably the one fact that most of you will know; before becoming a PhD supervisor, despite not having attended university to get the more-or-less mandatory degree, but he did become a member of the MRSB (member of the Royal Society of Biologists) and CBiol (Chartered Biologist) in 1976.

Left

At Boxley Sarsens

Below

Enjoying the garden with Pernille, Kate and John (author)

It was there that he met his future wife Dorothy, usually known as Joan, and went on to become more involved in the local community in many ways, becoming a long- serving churchwarden at St.Mary’s church in Thurnham and in keeping the many parish footpaths open, walking them regularly with various friends to maintain their status. He later successfully campaigned to keep the projected International Freight Terminus from being established in the area, earning him much local kudos. The family now comprised Rowena, Liz and Andrew, living in Bearsted. He did much-respected research in his specialist field, including a long trip to North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, collecting various goodies for his family, and many good family holidays were enjoyed together.

My late wife and I went up to stay at Durness around ten years ago. I went to visit Cape Wrath (probably one of the least visited places in the United Kingdom), which involved crossing the Kyle of Durness in a minute boat, then a 12 mile trip in a Transit minibus over a route that did not qualify as a track, let alone a road. This was quite a little adventure for me, which I proudly related to Mike a few weeks later.

But he had, of course, already done this in 1989 (by this time a widower as his wife Joan having died in 1986), having walked it from Kinlochberbie, passing the best beach in Scotland at

Sandwood Bay, crossing six rivers and back to Durness, some 25-30 miles, including an overnight stop in his tent.

Going back to the KAS and the library room, my first memories of him were listening to his introductory talk on a Saturday,

I think, and then settling in to enjoyable weekly visits with a usual permutation of 8 or so members out of dozen-odd regulars, with Mike providing tea or coffee for us all from several thermoses and a bottle of milk carried in every week in his little, but quite a heavy knapsack, with, in my case, sugar supplied by Costa.

On one of my occasional visits, his front room seemed to be ever more full of boxes of paperwork. He said he would burn it all through the winter rather than buy wood, but it didn’t look much different the next time I saw him, but the room was warm, so perhaps it had been a good idea.

As this little tribute draws to a close, it seems appropriate to mention some of the others no longer with us, I think in order of passing, being Frank Panton, Ella Skeen, Joy Sage, Diana Webb, Frank Alston and now Mike, and there may be one or two other not-so-regulars I have forgotten. We miss them all, but Mike was the glue that kept us all together.