I was born in the Weald of Kent and live in the Weald of Sussex and have
never heard, I admit, of wildisher as a name for a Wealden person. 'Weald'
is cognate with 'Wald' meaning wood not 'Wild' and so anything Wealden is
essentially 'of the forest' which makes the whole thing more confusing.
Certainly Weald and the idea of forest were closely connected in Kipling's
mind - see 'Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,/Blue goodness of the Weald' in
the poem called 'Sussex'.
None of this helps much with wildisher. The big OED has never heard of it.
One possible lead might be the Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect still in the
Bateman's bookshelves a couple of feet from Kipling's chair. It is extremely
heavily read, annotated and ink-blotted.
So maybe a phone call to Bateman's might find the answer?
Adam Nicolson
> From: David Page <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: David Page <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 15:02:14 +0000
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: A question
>
> Dear Max
>
> My best guess at this is that 'wildishers' is a
> dialect word and refers to the people from the Weald
> of Kent, which is within the '100 miles of London'.
>
> In the sentence, 'neither chalk nor forest' implies
> that they are not from Sussex (the neibouring county)
> and there is a town of Crayford in North Kent of which
> Mrs Chapin was 'not of the lot'. I think that the
> other sites mentioned are fictional.
>
> Perhaps a native of Kent can comment on the
> supposition?
>
> With best regards
>
> David Page
> Harrow UK
>
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