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Kathy West

Oct 276 min read

Griselda Cann Mussett our much loved and missed Safari Girl.

Not only an increadably intersting news letter but included in it is a tribute to our much loved and missed Griselda Cann Mussett.

https://newsletter.favershamsociety.org/faversham-society-news-november-2024/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGLHOZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHf13WyWJo21bCc8w5YhW5HdmEXbP8xo4zEDAjnK1nFsxfndj-2MtvQjBBw_aem_2FnyxcvsuIKksQjpZd7TsQ

Taken from the news letter.

Always remembered.

Griselda Mussett, writer, campaigner and fighter … ... conservationist, tree-planter, and historian

THIS TRIBUTE IS BASED ON THE EUOLOGY GIVEN AT HER FUNERAL

Griselda Mussett, who has died at the age of 75, was a woman of many parts: journalist, writer, artist, environmentalist, creek-lover, feminist and campaigner among them.

Her many triumphs included being at the forefront of the campaign to stop a series of developments that would have allowed the building of hundreds of houses on the flood plain to the north of Abbey Fields.

She and her husband Andrew moved to Abbey Street in 1987 with their children, David and Lucie.

Griselda was the eldest daughter of Marcus and Diana Cann, who had met in the army in 1946 in Stars in Battle Dress while touring Germany. Her father had trained at Rada, and subsequently worked for BOAC. Diana had previously played netball for Scotland when stationed there, and as an army driver, once got mistaken for a diamond smuggler when bringing back highly-prized boxes of matches from Germany.

Griselda was born in Hampstead in 1948, and won a scholarship to South Hampstead High School for Girls. Aged 16, she later won another scholarship, to spend a year studying in Minnesota, where she made instant enemies because her superior British education knocked their star students into middling territory. However, she won them round again when she obliged their request to make them a “traditional English triff-lee”. She went on to do a degree in American studies at Manchester University.

After university, Griselda worked in a variety of temp jobs: she was quickly promoted from the typing pool to the pictures department at the Daily Mirror… and in the head office of Woolworths, where she was quickly demoted for correcting the managing director’s spelling. From there she became a trainee studio manager at BBC Radio in London, and then worked at Bush House for BBC World Service, which is where she first met Andrew, who was on a training course.

After that she took a journalist training course and worked as a news reporter and producer for local stations including Bristol, London, Belfast and Merseyside. After attachments to Radio 4 and in children’s TV, she left the BBC to join Anglia Television for three years as a reporter.

In 1981, Griselda and Andrew were married in King’s Lynn where she was working. The next year she joined him in London where she worked as a freelance presenter for video and TV production companies.

Griselda and Andrew lived in south London, and she became a founding member of the Friends of Brockwell Park, putting her on the path of environmental campaigning.

After the move to Faversham, her inquiring mind soon involved her in local issues, including campaigning for restoration of our tidal creek, to ensure it did not just become a development of waterside properties, but could continue to be used as moorings and workshops for traditional craft.

Her interest in history, led her to produce lectures on several subjects that she gave around Kent to groups such as the women’s institute and townswomen’s guild. She was reworking her talks on “the Invisible Women of Faversham” into a book in the last days before her death, and a Faversham Society team is preparing it for publication now.

Griselda was interested in a diverse array of subjects, and could often be heard talking rapturously about her latest intrigue: brickwork, etymology, the role of fig trees in rainforest ecology, the life and works of Dorothy Wordsworth, internet conspiracy theories (falling for more than you’d think she would permit), place names, goddesses, antiques, architecture (especially doors, finials and Dutch gables); energy, wellness, and whether children and animals could communicate together psychically.

Griselda was a connector of people, never not networking everyone to make sure ideas and information and friendship flowed for maximum benefit, and so that local artists, businesses and creators could be supported and encouraged.

She was a true lover of nature. She rejoiced in and was knowledgeable about her garden, and carefully cultivated it into the casual jungle and haven for birds she and Andrew would watch every day from the kitchen table, and latterly where she could hear the blackbirds singing from her bed in the morning. She knew wildlife and plants, and loved their names: pellitory of the wall, viper’s bugloss, Ampelopsis brevipedunculata. Ever since those early days in south London, she campaigned for the protection of green spaces, working tirelessly to guard and restore Faversham Creek, planting the seed for the Abbey Physic Garden, and working with fellow dendrophiles to champion, protect and include trees in public life.

She had wanted to rewild land and plant a woodland, perhaps in England or Ireland, but sadly her time ran short before she could make that happen. She has various trees dedicated to her around the world, as gifts, part of environmental projects, and in Faversham Rec to honour her work on Faversham Tree Week, and is likely to have more yet to come as part of her lasting legacy.

She was very visually aware, and loved art of all genres. Galleries, museums and exhibitions fascinated her, but her own creativity was one of her greatest pleasures. She had always drawn and painted, but the past 30 years saw a burst of activity including printmaking, linocuts, pottery, sculpture, and photography. She also turned her harrowing journey through chemotherapy into an art exhibition, mounted at the town hall.

Griselda had a keen sense of social justice, and hated liars, bullies and greed. Hers was a politics of love, equality, peace and opportunity. She was fiercely pro-Europe, and participated with Andrew and other friends in many anti-Brexit marches; her blue beret with gold stars was a familiar sight. Griselda was a lifelong, staunch, and vocal feminist. Throughout her life she championed and defended women’s rights, representation and inclusion.

In 2015, Griselda became a grandmother, and gleefully adopted her new name: Ziggy. First Alex, and then Finley, who arrived in 2018, were the lights of her life, and seeing them grow enraptured her.

During the lockdowns of 2020-21, Griselda felt her notorious energy was becoming depleted, and was eventually diagnosed with metastases of a breast cancer that had been removed 10 years previously. For the next three years, she underwent a variety of treatments of varying ferocity, but in the knowledge that the goal was management and not cure.

In the end, the cancer evaded the treatment, and sapped her strength, though it left her enough time to make some final goodbyes to her beloved grandsons and let us know she was ready to leave us. Some of her last words were “I did not know it could be so smooth”. She died early in the morning of 16 August, peacefully, and with her family at her side.

She managed to retain her humour, her philosophical outlook, and her enthusiasm for the world until the end.

A tribute from Sue Akhurst

Griselda’s passion for Faversham and its history as a limb of the Cinque Ports made her an enthusiastic campaigner for the regeneration of the creek and basin as a working maritime asset. Faversham was founded on bricks, beer and barges, and Griselda was one of many who want barges to sail into the basin again.

In 2011, after the failure of the Faversham Creek Consortium, Griselda joined a group of like-minded people to set up Faversham Creek Trust. She was a board member/trustee for the rest of her life, and chaired the board for several years.

Griselda made so many significant contributions to the work of the trust, including major fundraising to restore the Purifier Building to the impressive condition it is in today, and being a member of the team that raised £125,000 towards an opening bridge in 2015.

Her background enabled her to build and maintain awareness of the work of the trust and to make our campaigns heard locally and nationally. She helped to organise many community events to raise funds and raise awareness of the trust’s aims. She was always brimming with ideas about things we could do to engage people and help them understand the importance of the creek and basin to the community.

Griselda’s tireless dedication, enthusiasm, ideas and passion helped lay the foundations of the Creek Trust and then build it up into the established local charity it is today.

A tribute from Noaj Laurance

Griselda leaves a legacy of that bravery, and all she achieved with it: the world is a better place for the work she did, and we have seen a true example of facing mortality with fortitude, acceptance and humour.

Most importantly, she believed we are all artists, and only need to admit it. In the last weeks of her life she wrote “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to teach every person in this land that to follow a creative path is the very best way to live your life?”

FAVERSHAM SAFARI

Charity Art Auction

Community Creek Clean

Griselda Cann Mussett our much loved and missed Safari Girl.