The Green Thief at Hodders Combe

It was a crisp morning which lazily flowed into afternoon before my family and I finally arrived at Holford, and every time I had been there in the last few months it had been deserted, wet (British) and very muddy, the perfect head space to site a trail, and write a tale.

All tales need some spark, something to get them moving, then it's written and parked (it's been a few months since I wrote it) so I thought now was a good opportunity to put it to the sharp critics (my family) and do a field test.

My youngest who is only seven had already heard the story which I had been telling him at bed time over the weeks when it was evolving, and unlike me he remembers it, and often adds the bits which I forget I had added. This is the best technique for me, tell the tale as much as I can, walk the path and place, and the story kind of tells/writes itself (ish!) or the faults get ironed out, and the plot starts to knit better.

So there we were, at Holford bowling green, beneath a fabulous winter sun, and even though we were in Hodders Combe, which is on the North face of the Quantocks, it was still catching a little of that golden magic in the branches. But what I was not expecting was that on this day, the first January weekend when the weather was not madly wet, everybody had decided to come walk (and cycle) here as well! 

So I felt a little on display with my iPad and family listening in to the tale, and then everything conspired against me, the iPad said no to finding satellites and rather than have my family stand about in the cold for ten minutes whilst it woke up, I thought no, this is a great place for a walk, with or without a tale.

So off we set, up the valley, chasing sticks and telling tales of other things that have happened here.

Coleridge and Wordsworth (and Dorothy Wordsworth's sister) discovered this place long ago, and the poetry they wrote laid the foundations for the Romantic Literary movement. Ever since people have been walking in their footsteps and adding to this legacy in some way or another.

But today was just a walk with the family and the dog (Fable) in a fabulously beautiful place, if any where were to take credit for the birthplace of Romantic Poetry then this should be it. We jumped streams, splashed rocks in the stream, the boys climbed trees and got muddy dirty (again) and then when we got back to the green I took them along to see Dorothy's glen, again made famous by the three some 200 years ago.

So I'll have to go back and test the walk another day, it won't be set live till then, so you'll all have to be patient, sorry.

But in the mean time here is a little snippet to wet the appetite.

Intro

Many years ago, and well before living memory, a curious man came calling at the local Inn with a proposition for the good people of Holford. Who were they to refuse such an offer and they accepted with good cheer but little did they know how simple things escalate, and what payment he would ask for his services.


Chapter 1

It was a dark night with a blistering wind and seeing as the cost of fuel has always been high, it was common for locals to gather here. Late into the evening, the door opened but a crack and in stepped a tall skinny man who brought the ice of the night right into the heart of the hall.

’Good people of Holford I have a little proposition for you.’ Everyone was quiet, listening to the stranger.

’Would you like a warm winter?’

’Yes’ came the reply.

’Would you like the snow and frost to stay away?’

’Yes’ they said a little louder.

’Would you like a calm and balmy winter without the need even for a hearth?’

’Yes’ they all cried and raised their tankards to the rafters.

’Well then, I can give you this but I will want a little payment in return.’ There was a long pause, and he then continued. ’All I ask is a single Goose to be brought up the Combe to where the beck splits in two. Leave her there on the 21st December, the winter solstice and your winter shall be stately.’

This sounded good to the villagers, but the thin man had not finished speaking.

’But if you do not leave me a single Goose, then on the 1st May I will expect six in the same manner.’  And then he was gone through the crack in the door into the cold night.

The Digital Edge Shepton Mallet Digital Festival

And the winner is, me!

On Saturday I went to the Shepton Mallet 2012 Digi Fest as I had been shortlisted for photography and digital innovation. Before my wife and I drove over to the ceremony I had a good look at the other finalists and was pretty certain who I would choose to be winner, (which wasn't me!) So you can imagine how brilliant it feels to be chosen over works which you admire, respect and rate considerably higher than your own.

Now I am not one to bang my own drum, as I would rather be humble than showy, but every now and then I get pulled up short and this is one of those occasions. I am really pleased with the story walks works I have created, and feel they are new and progressive in my own way, but to get high calibre names reinforcing that is just wonderful. 

On the night, before the awards were given one of the judges Angela Williams (below) came up and said some really positive and encouraging words to me, which I took as 'you've got some great work so don't be too despondent when you don't win!' So you can imagine how chuffed I was to be stepping up onto the stage receiving the award for Fine Art Photography a short time later.

But then came the award for the overall best in show for 'photography and digital innovation', and I was called up again! So I now have book ends, and lets just say that there are not many trophy's in my history (none) though I do remember winning a ribbon for speed walking at my primary school though I'm not sure if I can put my hands on it just now.

But the real key part of the night, wasn't the award, but the people, those who you respect and admire have just turned around to me to say they like what I am doing. So thanks to every one, I am keen to stay in touch and do some work with this storywalk player. No point in leaving it idle now, that would be criminal! 

Where shall we lie Timber Toes?

What shall I do with you? I have been beavering away with my storywalks over the last month or so and have three new tales which are yet to be christened for public consumption, (it won't be too long, but more of that on another blog.) But the most recent, has yet to be linked to place. 

I must explain to those who are less familiar with my story walks, that the place where the tale is located is an integral part of the writing process. My most recent, and currently unavailable stories are 'The Twins Tale' at Nutcombe Bottom (fabulous name of a place if every there was one), and 'The Green Thief' at Holford, on the north side of the Quantock hills. Both tales respond to place in some way, and all though I can extract these stories and put them in a book, somehow that's not what the Storywalks were ever about.

When I walk in a place, the story evolves, the pacing changes, the interactions of reader and walker become one, and this tale 'Timber Toes' has just started and I need a home to place it, a bed for it to lie in.

So the question is dear reader, where would you like this tale to be placed?

Timber Toes

There once lived a young boy and his mother in a broken thatch hut which was little more than a bramble covered lean to. But it was dry and they kept each other warm through the winter months and shared the work the best they could. When she had been a child she would run bare foot through the forest and some how it had lodged there for now in later years her feet were turning to wood. 

Every night he would massage them and rub life back into them, but they seemed to get harder and stiffer as the days progressed, until she could hardly leave the cottage at all. The boy was a different matter though for he could catch sounds in his hands, and though this seemed like magic or impossible it was neither. 

He would bring her the lace work which she was so poorly paid for, and run errands about the home to keep their ship from sinking, and when she was bed ridden he would go out into the forest and catch the sounds of birds singing, or the trickle of the stream for her. He could only catch one sound at a time, and would run, and run, and run with clasped hands until he came home to share it with her. Her eyes would twinkle, and her toes twitch at these fresh sounds from the forest, and so he called her timber toes.

The boys father had been lost to a war which had forgotten it's reason for ever having started. He believed he had a heart made of feathers, but this was not true for one frosty morning as snow flakes landed on his broken body, he looked to see and there was nothing but flesh, bones and blood. The low paper sky and the trees about him felt like ghost parts, and as the sound of the battle rolled away over the ridge he remembered running barefoot with his wife in a forest just like this one. He wished that he had had a chance for his toes to turn to timber too but that was not to be.