#Losel

[mikegunnill]

First World War Kent Spies.

There were so many spies before and during World War One, that they were almost, falling over each other.

The trouble with spies of course, is that they are so hard to track down and even harder to research, changing names, birth dates, and addresses.  My mission starts in Sheerness, Kent in the United Kingdom.

Under the orders of Gustav Steinhauer 1870-1930, the head of the German Admiralty Intelligence Service, many spies were in key locations and well established locally years before the outbreak of war.  Steinhauer was so proud of his achievements he wrote a book, ‘telling-all’ after the war.

Ten years later, Losel had taken over the business and was living alone at the rear of 2 High Street in Sheerness.  He was listed as a photographer and maker of frames, of German nationality and the ‘employer.’   John Hunt died in the first quarter of 1887, aged 74 still living on the Isle of Sheppey as did his wife Mary Ann Hunt, who  died December 31 st. 1891.

In 1901 his address was Beach House, Sheerness which had a huge glass conservatory, which was used as a photographic studio.  It was noted later in the magistrates court, it also provided “uninterrupted views to Sheerness dockyard, showing the arrival and departure from the area.”  Losel had first been reported to the authorities in 1904 and a year later had been detained for taking photographs on the sea-wall at Sheerness.

Karl Hentschel ran a successful family spy ring in Chatham and visited Sheerness often.  In Central Intelligence Agency files released in 2015, they gave  1884-1959 as his birth and death. 

Part of his bargaining with the British authorities forwards the end of his spy days in Kent, he provided Scotland Yard with details of his previous spy-ring.  

 Hentschel said Losel was a German agent in a statement of August 1914, and had been for some years.  He also revealed that Losel took regular trips to Germany with his photographic portfolio. 

His early photographic cards were labelled as Franz Heinrich Losel.  As war hysteria against Germany increased, the name was changed to a more anglicised, Francis Henry Losel.  This didn’t help the Sheerness locals who knew him well and didn’t speak to him, when out walking.  

On the outbreak of war, local children made their feelings known and smashed his studio conservatory with stones, and it was never used again. 

On one such occasion, he took photographs on board HMS Victoria, during March 1890.  A group photograph was taken on the forecastle deck of the ship and it proved to be, one of the last images of the crew in England before the ship sank.  

During exercises on June 22, 1893, near Tripoli, Syria now Lebanon, the ship went down within 15 minutes after a collision with HMS Camperdown and a loss of 358 crew. Photographs of the crew of HMS Victoria and many other ships visiting Sheerness may have been included in his portfolio visits to Germany.  A photograph of the crew of HMS Victoria was shown earlier, as my picture number one.  It was found, after a long search at the National Archives, Kew,  and the image has not been published before.  The connection hadn’t been made, that the crew, while in Sheerness port, had been photographed  by a German spy.

Losel spent nearly 30 years in Sheerness as a photographer and for various reasons, was well known.  Remembered by a Sheerness resident Ivy Russell in Bygone Kent volume 37, number 6 “ As a sinister, menacing figure who frightened her as a child.”  He was also recorded at the local police station as “a suspicious German photographer who spends a good deal of money, but does little or no work.”

Losel was one of 24 interned aliens moved from Brixton Prison to Reading in January 1916.  He returned to Brixton on August 6, 1917.  He hadn’t been convicted of anything and there wasn’t any evidence, he just detained as a foreign alien.  It is thought he was finally deported back to Germany in 1919.

Losel was deemed ‘small-fry’ by local spy master Hentschel. Perhaps there was a class-system for spies, as the top man Steinhauer himself had interviewed and placed Hentschel in Sheerness and given him his initial instructions to set up a language school.

[subnitida]

Losel Yauch

[musicmags]

[mcforwhatiam]

Posted by Losel Yauch on Instagram

[jltejo]

Losel Yauch.

[boylikelinus]

Losel Yauch

[oflowtides]

location: emmeline’s place closed starter for @shallowsfm​  

The compassion Losel had for Emmeline was endless, and she did whatever she could to help the other woman out.  It wasn’t every day your husband suddenly decided he no longer wanted to be a father, and with Clara being so young, Losel was in extra helpful mode.

“I brought some food,”  Losel had a bag she’d placed in the kitchen upon her arrival.  “Some stuff that you can throw in the oven and have for days as leftovers.  I know you probably don’t have a ton of time for cooking lately, and as great as eating out is, nothing really beats a home cooked meal.”

[nevver]

At this hour, Losel Yauch

[oflowtides]

While Losel's partying days were over, that didn't mean that she never spent time in a bar; it was good to eavesdrop, figure out what was going on, who was sleeping with who, who was in a financial crises. People talk more than one would imagine, and Losel was good at going unseen. She had been curious as to what the man's deal was, who sat next to her and seemed to be drinking exclusively water - not that she was really one to judge, but it seemed out of place. "Must be my lucky night." Her demeanor brightened, quickly finishing her own drink. "Moscow mule, thanks. To what do I owe this generosity?"

location : any bar status : open to all

One drink. That was all Roman ever allowed himself anymore, one drink and he would leave. He looked around at his surroundings as he sat at the bar, watching as the people filtered in and out of the place. He had been sitting there for about 30 minutes now, slowly drinking out of a cup filled with only water and ice. Being at the bar was comforting to Roman, he had ordered himself a water to begin with because he knew after his one drink that he would have to get up and leave and he wasn't ready to go yet. A quiet sigh left his lips as he finished the rest of his water from the glass. Waving the bartender over to him, he pushed the glass closer to them. "Could I get a whiskey on the rocks and.." He glanced over at the person who was seated beside him, "I'll pay for whatever they are having too."

[overlyinvestedinlife]

As someone who’s been through one too many winnable Jannik Sinner five set heartbreaks everyone saying that “with a Novak out this is Jannik’s tournament to losel and placing him as the firm favorite to win it all are ignoring two very important facts:

1) Jan’s biggest op is all and always will be Daniil Medvedev on hard court. Don’t let these last few matches fool you that octopus mf will never not be a problem 😭

2) when faced with 5 sets Jannik Sinner can, and has, found a way to lose. No matter how advantageous the position man can always fuck it up.

[xenostalgic]

Toads (Philip Larkin)

Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison – Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits: Lecturers, lispers, Losels, loblolly-men, louts – They don't end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes With fires in a bucket, Eat windfalls and tinned sardines – They seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet, Their unspeakable wives Are skinny as whippets – and yet No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough To shout Stuff your pension! But I know, all too well, that's the stuff That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like Squats in me, too; Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck, And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney My way to getting The fame and the girl and the money All at one sitting.

I don't say, one bodies the other One's spiritual truth; But I do say it's hard to lose either, When you have both.

[thesiouxzy]

May the Fourth Be With Yauch 👊🏽

Remembering Adam 12 years later 💗

Before Prince, the loss of Adam Yauch (MCA) had been the only other celebrity death to hit me hard. Such a lovely, talented soul; I think of him often. Attending MCA Day in NYC in 2014 and again for the 10th anniversary in 2022 were beautiful experiences. I have a lot of photos from those days in a fb album if anyone is interested. Side note: Adam’s daughter Losel (pictured here) will turn 26 this September

[subnitida]

Losel Yauch

[word-for-today]

Word for today: losel

An archaic synonym for "loser"

[mcforwhatiam]

Posted by Losel Yauch on Instagram

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Music For the Soul by Alexander MacLaren

The Christ at the Door

Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me, — Revelation 3:20

We have here the exalted Christ asking to be let in to a man’s heart. The latter words of the verse suggest the image of a banqueting-hall. The chamber to which Christ desires entrance is full of feaster’s. There is room for everybody else there but Him. Music and dancing and lights and good cheer and laughter fill the house, and He stands without. There is no room for Him, as there was not at His birth.

Now the plain, sad truth which that sets forth is this, that we are more willing to let anybody and anything come into our thoughts, and find lodgement in our affections, than we are to let Jesus Christ come in. Is it so, or is it not? The doors that swing wide for vanities and selfishness, lust and passions, whims and fancies, and favourite pursuits, are barred and bolted in His face. We welcome to the chief seats in our hearts His and our worst enemies. They flock in; He stands without, like some exiled and dethroned monarch, who, coming back to his own land and his own palace, stands amongst the ragged losels on the pavement, and sees the upstarts and the rebels passing into the lighted halls; all His own, where He may not enter. Is it so, or is it not?

The reality of Christ’s knocking is represented not only as being the touch of an importunate hand, but is accompanied also with the beseeching of a voice. That is not a pretty metaphor only. Jesus Christ is living and working to-day; He is at your side, present though unseen, working upon you though you know it not; trying to draw you to Himself; pleading with you year by year and moment by moment. It is one of the deepest facts of human existence, a barred heart, and a present Saviour suing for entrance.

And how does He sue? Does He not knock at your heart by that Book of which the very spirit in all its parts is the testimony to Him? Is He not knocking at your heart loud blows, by sorrows and gentle touches, waxen touches, soft and warm and sweet as a baby’s hand; by the mercies that come to you day by day? When Absalom would not go to Joab, Joab burned his corn, and then Absalom came to him. When a man will not come to Christ, sometimes He burns his corn, and then, sometimes, the man comes. And the further we go from Him, the louder the beseeching impressiveness of the knocks of His hand. Have you never found rising up in your soul a sudden conviction, with which you had nothing to do but to listen to it; telling you what you ought to do and to be? Have you not sometimes had flashing in upon you, like a sudden glare in the dark, the conviction, "I ought to be a Christian and to follow Jesus Christ"? Such voices -

"Our inward ear Catches sometimes from afar. Listen, ponder, hold them dear, For of God- of God, they are."

Every conviction, every impression, every half inclination towards Him that has risen in your hearts, though you fought against it and smothered it, and did anything with it but obeyed it, has been His knocking there.