Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

[With thanks to Gary Budden @gary_budden] 

Across Romney Marsh rides the ‘Scarecrow’, AKA The Reverend Doctor Christopher Syn, leader of Kentish smugglers in Russell Thorndike’s novels. Here are the opening credits of the Disney TV series from 1963…

The Disneyfication of 18th Century Kent and Sussex was a dark thing indeed!

In this second clip, Walt Disney introduces Doctor Syn as a real-life character.

Mistake? Intentionally misleading? Or did Disney feel that his fictions superseded reality?

More Articles for You

A Journey Through The Ancient Commons of the Bristol Ring Road

Andy Thatcher explores the A4174 to seek out the relics of hard-won ancient rights

Unofficial Britain’s Weird and Wonderful Reads 2022

WORDS: Gareth E. Rees I’ve had an insanely busy year. It began with me finalising my debut short story collection, …

Climate Change, Ecological Breakdown & Neoliberal Anxiety in the English Edgelands

LOCATION: Southern England WORDS: Gareth E. Rees, author of Unofficial Britain “Global warming had gone past the tipping point, the …

Newcastle’s Haunted Alley: The Mysterious Origins of The White Lady of the Quayside.

Joe Barton and Jack Gardner search for the true life origins of a dockside spectre

Edgeland Visions: Heraldic Relics from an Imaginary Time

In advance of his exhibition in Margate, Matt James Healy shares his abstract visions of a world on the edge

Beer Cans, Wildflowers and a Dead Dog’s Ashes – A Dream Life Beneath the Pylon of Hackney Marsh

With the remains of his dead dog in a cardboard tube, Gareth E. Rees returns to the pylon that sparked his edgeland obsession