MORE GHOST STORIES

Here is the Inn mentioned in my ghost stories blog of yesterday.  I was there this morning - and shown the wall in which Mary Brown is said to be buried!

I plan to return very soon for lunch, in the hope of sensing her ghostly presence.  Of course I'll tell you whether these efforts meet with success.  (I have high hopes that they will!)

Before the great fire that occurred in Totnes on 4 September 1990, a building that dated from the fourteenth century had regular visits from an apparition in Elizabethan costume.

A Mrs Audrey Bulley, who lived at 1 Ramparts Walk with her husband Harry, saw a man wearing voluminous pants slit with white over black velvet, a green velvet coat buttoned to the waist, long stockings, shoes with silver buckles - plus a velvet cap boasting the longest feather she had ever seen. 

She stated that when the man saw her frightened face and heard her gasps he gave her a broad and wicked grin!  When Mrs Bulley next saw him, about three weeks later, he was blocking her bedroom doorway.  She exclaimed "Oh, you again!" and walked right through him ...

GHOST STORIES

I think that, living as I do in ancient Totnes, I really need to share some ghost stories with you!

This view of Totnes Castle, which towers above the rooftops,  was taken from my kitchen window.  While Totnes dates back to the Saxons, it was in Norman times that the stone circular keep you can see here appeared.

Not far from the Castle stands a lovely old inn dating back to the fourteenth century.  The Kingsbridge Inn in Leechwell Street is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in Totnes - often the scene of unexplained apparitions and odd happenings.
Mary Brown, a seventeenth century barmaid, is thought to have been seduced and subsequently murdered by the landlord - then buried in the building's walls.

Mary is a persistent ghost who seems to reveal herself chiefly to women.  If true, might this be because of her ill-treatment by a man?  She is often seen standing at the bar and gliding through to the kitchen, where - back in the 1980s - the chef and waiting staff grew accustomed to seeing her.

The owners' dog back then - also seemingly aware of a presence - would bark at empty tables, as did the dogs living in the pub more recently.  A former landlady and her mother both saw the woman, who wore her hair in a bun. 

Well, that's the first of these ghost stories.  Would you like some more?

ALIVE AND DEAD - MESSAGES FROM 9/11

Does the phrase alive and dead make any sense? It does to me, having just watched the TV program MESSAGES FROM 9/11.  Do watch this, if you get the chance.  The program focuses chiefly on the loved ones of people who died in the twin towers.

Impossible to watch dry-eyed as the widow of one victim described her husband's habit, during his lifetime, of collecting quarters so that he always had a handy supply.  She went on to tell how, after his death, she kept finding these coins in the most unlikely - and unexpected - places. She'd find one under her pillow, or in the fridge, or on top of the TV, or on a bookshelf - or wherever.

When she was feeling lost, or sad, or in need of reassurance that she was not alone, another quarter would turn up suddenly to demonstrate her husband's nearness.

Then there was the man who 'lost' his brother, to whom he had been very close. The two men had devised some special phrases by which to identify one another in circumstances such as these.  When the survivor visited a medium she said that she had a message for him that seemed to be in a foreign language, as she couldn't understand it.  She could relay it, however - and, sure enough, it was the exact phrase the brothers had agreed as identification years earlier!

One man told his grieving wife that he had arrived in a place far too beautiful to describe in human language.  She asked for a sign that he was still nearby and, on a day when there wasn't even a breath of wind, a breeze started stirring almost immediately in the trees.  This also ruffled her hair and seemed to whisper against her skin.  She knew her husband's touch.

Let's end with the little girl who was 4 when her father died in 9/11.  She saw him frequently after his death - and chatted happily with him as he sat on her bed.  When her mother questioned who she was talking to, the child couldn't comprehend why her Mom couldn't see him too.

Can we be both alive and dead?  You bet!

IS DEATH AN END?

Is death an end?  This is a question I never asked myself again after moving to Poundbury, the 'dream' Dorset village that Prince Charles built (with the help of his architects and builders)!

Poundbury is built on a powerful ley line linked to Maiden Castle - the largest and most complex Iron Age hill fort in Britain.  This was first laid out over the remains of a Neolithic settlement in 600 BC and it was extended over the next several centuries.  Its vast ramparts enclose an area that could accommodate fifty football pitches and during the Iron Age (800 BC - 43 AD) the site was home to a few hundred people.  Then the Romans claimed it and its inhabitants moved to Durnovaria (now Dorchester).

When I lived in Poundbury stories were circulating of a Roman centurion who kept turning up unannounced in people's homes and of such strong Poltergeist activity (with objects being thrown about and in one instance causing physical harm) that an exorcist had to be sent for.

My own experience occurred one day soon after I'd moved in, when some interior redecoration was underway.  My decorator - Perry - (a very practical, down-to-earth man- with no belief whatsoever in the supernatural) was about to begin painting my landing, stairs and hall. As he began his task he was standing on the landing by a window with an uninterrupted view across to Maiden Castle.

He was holding a large tin of pale pink paint when it was forcibly wrested from his grasp and went spiraling up into the air, turning again and again before slowly heading towards the floor.  In the process pink paint splashed simply everywhere - and Perry was so traumatized that he ran downstairs and out of the house.

It took some persuading before he would come back indoors - and that night at the pub he expected ridicule when he told his friends about the occurrence.  Instead, he found almost universal acceptance of this latest Poundbury 'happening', which came as no great surprise to most of those present.  In fact, his story opened up the floodgates to similar tales!

Glad to say that he returned next day (with great trepidation) to finish cleaning up the mess that had been made and continue with his decorating! 

So is death an end?  Well, yes, of life as we know it - but it most definitely isn't the end!

LIFE AFTER THE DEATH

I was astonished to read a feature by Eleanor Harding in Saturday's DAILY MAIL relating to life after the death of a 'Mrs Bell'.  My astonishment was because of the uncanny way this tale echoed the story behind my novel OUT OF TIME - and, to a lesser extent, THE PORTRAIT.

See whether you agree after reading this newspaper extract, headed 'HOW RETURN OF A LONG-LOST PAINTING LAID A GHOST TO REST':

'As ghosts go, she was rather a cultured specimen.  The pale Edwardian figure made frequent visits to the mansion home of Alan Smith, always accompanied by the music of Chopin, according to the startled souls who bore witness.

Her interest in the house was a mystery - until the discovery of a long-lost painting that appeared to feature the very same person, sitting at a piano.  When the portrait was returned to Heale House's drawing room, the sightings stopped.

Mr Smith was so fascinated he decided to investigate the history of the painting - and uncovered the sad story of the uninvited guest.  He identified the woman as a Mrs Bell, one of the 15-bedroom mansion's previous occupants, who had been bankrupted and forced to sell all her possessions - including her beloved portrait - shortly before her death in the early 1900s.

Mr Smith said her ghost "would walk along the corridors and in the bedrooms, usually at about one o'clock in the morning".

He continued: "She was usually wreathed in a blue haze and just drifted around - you couldn't see her legs.  Sometimes she would even arrive at the bottom of my bed in the middle of the night.  I thought there must be some kind of scientific explanation, but other people who visited the house were terrified - and they now believe she's been put to rest because she got her painting back."

Mr Smith's family had seen the apparition many times at the house, near Bideford, Devon, before Mr Smith was approached by the owner of a local junk shop, who asked him: "Are you the master of Heales?"

She told him she had something that should be returned to its rightful home and showed him the picture, thought to be by Cyril Roberts, a prominent painter who was based in Paris.  The face was eerily familiar to Mr Smith and he quickly realised it depicted the woman his family had been visited by - and she was seated at a piano in his drawing room.

His research unmasked the subject as Mrs Bell, wife of an Argentine beef rancher who lived in Heale House in the early 1900s.  "From what we know about Mrs Bell, she was a very cultured lady," said Mr Smith.  "It must have been sad for her to see all of her possessions sold."

He confirmed that after the portrait was placed in the drawing room, "she never appeared again."

So, what are your views? Does life after the death of Mrs Bell echo life after the death of Katharine Tice in OUT OF TIME?

DEATH IS WHEN LIFE BEGINS

Death is when life begins: this concept first entered my consciousness when I had just turned twenty-one.  I'd started a new job in Berne, Switzerland, shortly before my twenty-first birthday and, feeling homesick one day, I chanced into a churchyard nestling withinin the Bernese Oberland.

There, on the grave of a young girl, I read the words: WITH DEATH LIFE BEGINS.

At the time I was somewhat sceptical and felt that perhaps her parents had simply been comforting themselves with the hope that Agnes was continuing her existence elsewhere.  But I never forgot that engraving ... and, with life-experience, perceptions change.

Death is the end of our flesh, yes, and our physical presence.  However, we've simply shed our body in much the way that a caterpillar sheds its chrysalis.  Once the chrysalis has outlived its usefulness, the newly emerging butterfly spreads its wings and experiences wonderful, glorious freedom.

This, I have come over the years to believe, is how our spirit feels when it's set free from the encumbrance of a body.  Yes, emphatically, death is when life begins! 

AFTER A DEATH - THE FOREIGNER

In my After A Death series I can’t overlook my romantic novel THE FOREIGNER.  You see, although only my name appears as its author, I didn’t write this on my own!

Many years ago my grandmother told me that some day I’d be a writer.  An ulterior motive was revealed when she added that she’d like my first book to be her life story!

Well, she had died by the time I felt equipped to fulfill her wish – and I soon realized I hadn’t asked nearly enough questions during her lifetime.  So it was a simple decision to write fiction rather than a biography, besides which my imagination is too fertile for me to stick strictly to facts.

I still needed to do plenty of research, however, since my book begins in 1919 and ends in the 1960s.  At times my research seemed endless and I often doubted my ability to complete the work.

But when my doubts occurred some really odd things happened – and these happenings kept recurring!  Whenever I was stymied, help arrived …

Sometimes a word would come into my head – often a German word I’d never heard of – and I wouldn’t even know what it meant.  But when I looked it up, it had the exact meaning of a sentiment I was endeavoring to express.

At first I attributed this, plus my vivid dreams and numerous other events to coincidence.  However, there came a day when I simply began to say: “Thank you, Nama!” each time I was helped. 

I have a cousin in Vienna who had lived in the Czechoslovakian castle where Nama once lived.  After reading THE FOREIGNER Inge wrote to tell me:  ‘It is uncanny how you describe the place and its atmosphere so well, never even having been there.’

I believe that my grandmother, who was strong-willed in life, was equally strong-willed after she died.  She wanted her story told and didn’t mind that I was of necessity fictionalising it.  So she prompted and prodded from beyond death to ensure that I didn’t give up on ‘her’ project.

Let’s end with these further observations on my love story theme from Inge: ‘Life behind the scenes in the Tavistock Theatre seems somehow genuine, real experience – a perfect blend of imagination and fact.  It would be a great pity if this were not presented to a large reading public.’

So – did my grandmother help me write THE FOREIGNER?  I leave you to read it and decide whether she did and whether there is life after a death.

AFTER A DEATH - THE PORTRAIT

I said yesterday that we’d look at the phrase ‘after a death’ in relation to my novel THE PORTRAIT.

After we die, do we reincarnate?  Many great minds have made a strong case for reincarnation.  Three of these were Pythagoras, Schopenhauer and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Pythagoreanism is chiefly distinguished by its description of reality in terms of arithmetical relationships and the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.  Interesting, isn’t it, that arithmetic and reincarnation were considered by such a man as Pythagoras to be so closely connected?

But for those of us who are not mathematicians or philosophers, where does reincarnation come in to our thinking?

For Joseph Glenny, in THE PORTRAIT, it is a case of his heart telling him something that his head rejects.  It is not possible – is it – that the wife he had loved and lost is not lost to him after all?

He becomes gradually convinced that she has returned in a different skin.  But the girl for whom his heart has thawed takes much more convincing ...

Can you imagine standing by your own gravestone and ultimately coming to terms with its significance both to your past and your present? 

That, in effect, is the question THE PORTRAIT asks after a death.

AFTER A DEATH - OUT OF TIME

 

I wrote yesterday about the feelings that can arise after a death.  Now I’d like to acquaint you with the thinking behind my novel OUT OF TIME.

This is set simultaneously on two time-levels, with brides Catherine and Katharine Tice living side by side yet four centuries apart.  You might be asking how that can be and, if you are, my answer is that time is illusory.

While earth-bound we are tied to time – restricted by man-made calendars and clocks.  But once released from our bodies we are gloriously freed from these restrictions.

So Catherine, while having to come to terms with a death, is helped by Katharine who is free to move between centuries.  She begins to see that life does not end with death, as she had been brought up to believe, and her new vision gives her immense strength.

In my next Blog I’ll be exploring the concept ‘after a death’ in relation to reincarnation and my novel THE PORTRAIT.

AFTER A DEATH

After a death we tend to feel lost – and possibly abandoned by our loved one.  How dare they die and leave us behind?  This is desertion of the very worst kind.  The grief and sense of loss are beyond endurance.

Their physical presence has gone and yet we are left with their earthly possessions.  That’s hard – incredibly hard – because every item is a reminder and another spear through our heart.

It is brought home to us with huge force that we arrive with nothing and leave with nothing.  Money and the material things that we treat as important during our lifetime are of no importance whatsoever to the one who has died.

This is a sobering realisation, isn’t it?  And it’s so difficult to deal with the emotions assaulting us as we gaze at the ‘effects’ of a recently deceased loved one.  What’s to be done with them?  What’s to become of us?

All this assumes love in the equation, of course!  If there was no love, then there is presumably no problem …

I’ve shared with you in previous Blogs some of the experiences I’ve had after a death in the family.  I think these illustrate quite graphically that we are not abandoned and that, although it’s natural to feel grief, our sense of loss isn’t necessarily accurate.

My strong belief, prompted from my own findings, is that our loved one is not lost to us.  They certainly seem to be, initially – and, yes, we need in time to learn to live without their physical presence – but all is not as it seems.  Death does not separate.  It simply rearranges.

Let’s look, later, at this simplicity.  For today I’d just like to state (with the utmost conviction) that after a death there is life!

LOVE AFTER DEATH

What is meant by love after death? Surely that love does not – and cannot – die.

We are ostensibly born as the product of love between a man and a woman.  That ‘explains’ our flesh - but where does our spirit originate? 

Those of us unable to dismiss spirit as non-existent tend to acknowledge it as of Divine origin.  Few could claim it to be the result of human union.  So, coming from a non-human source, it is not ‘ours’ in the sense that our bodies are.

We house spirit within us during our life span, but upon death it returns whence it came prior to our birth. Do I have proof of this?

Yes, in that I have witnessed the essence of loved ones leaving as their bodies died – and hovering near me at their graveside!

No, in scientific terms because to the best of my knowledge science is not yet equipped to evaluate spirit!

I just mentioned ‘essence’.  My dictionary defines this as ‘the quality or qualities of a thing that give it its identity; the intrinsic or indispensable properties of a thing; the most important ingredient, the crucial element; the inherent, unchanging nature of a thing or class of things, as distinguished from its attributes or its existence; a spiritual or incorporeal entity’.

While alive we are not necessarily conscious of our spiritual selves.  We feed our bodies and often forget our souls.  Maybe we don’t even believe that we have a soul.  But most of us believe in the power of love.

If we’re fortunate, we feel this love from the moment our mother first holds us in her arms.  It is a tangible thing, giving us warmth and a secure feeling.  We are loved and so we learn how to love – first our mother, father and family.

Then, as we grow up, other loves come to us.  Ultimately, we fall in love.  How mind-blowing those feelings can be!  They take us over, body and soul, so that we experience oneness with another.

We also, at such a time, tend to experience oneness with the whole universe.  Our life is suddenly sublime.  We are whole, where before a crucial part of us was missing.  We have opened our heart to the infinite.

It is perhaps when we’re in love that we come closest to our Source.  Those feelings of bliss and of completion are akin, I think, to remembering our divinity.  We are mortal – yes, of course – but we are also immortal thanks to the divine spark within each of us.

It is said that God is love.

Rudyard Kipling wrote:

 ‘Once upon a time, or rather at the birth of Time, when the gods were so new that they had no names, and Man was still damp from the clay of the pit whence he had been digged, Man claimed that he, too, was in some sort a god.

The gods weighed his evidence and decided that Man’s claim was good.

Having conceded Man’s claim, the legend goes that they came by stealth and stole away this godhead, with intent to hide it where Man should never find it again.  But this was not so easy.  If they hid it anywhere on Earth the gods foresaw that Man would leave no stone unturned till he had recovered it.  If they concealed it among themselves they feared Man might batter his way up even to the skies.

And while they were all thus at a stand, the wisest of the gods said “I know.  Give it to me!”  He closed his hand upon the tiny, unstable light of Man’s stolen godhead, and when that great hand opened again the light was gone.

“All is well,” said Brahm.  “I have hidden it where Man will never dream of looking for it.  I have hidden it inside Man himself.”’

Where better to hide our spirit than within us?  As for the love we have experienced in our lifetime – and which we still feel when we die – isn’t this integral to our essence?

So our love for others doesn’t perish with our bodies.  It lives on in spirit and will echo through eternity.  Love after death?  You bet!

AFTER DEATH LIFE?

After death life?  Life of another kind, I suspect.  Once we are bodiless we are free in a way that we never are while still encased in flesh.

Imagine, if you can, the freedom of being anywhere at will – of thinking yourself somewhere and then of being there!  Forget traffic jams and the frustrations of traveling in a car, train or plane.  Think instead of instantaneous transportation.

Think too in terms of staying close to those you loved while embodied.  Death doesn’t separate.  It enables us to watch over loved ones as a kind of guardian angel.

How do I know this?  Because I am acutely conscious of being watched over!  My consciousness first arose about thirty years ago when I crossed the USA on a Greyhound bus.  I’d best mention here that I’m British – and was warned by Americans before my trip that I should abandon it.

They said it was unsafe and that it was mad for a woman to travel alone in this way.  Someone from Chicago even told me that I’d probably disappear without trace!

So by the time I was due to board my first bus, in Santa Barbara, I was seriously scared.  But, being headstrong and stubborn, I boarded it anyway.

Well, from that moment on I felt protected!  At the bus station in Santa Barbara I had met an old lady who told me her life story and assured me that after a bowl of chowder I’d see bus journeys as exciting – not scary.  We ate together before she saw me off on my bus like an old friend.

In San Francisco I met another old lady.  This one, aged 84, was traveling to Reno like me.  After asking whether she could recommend a safe place to stay, I was quite unprepared for her laughter.  She didn’t go to Reno to sleep, she told me – but to gamble all night!  This was something she did twice a week, in between watching the Giants play baseball.

I reckon it was her attitude that kept her so young in spirit.  Over a shared lunch in Sacramento Ruby proved to be a fund of fascinating information that stood me in excellent stead.  And when I told her I’d be having a stopover in Las Vegas she gave me a book of vouchers that had been given to her and that she would not be needing as she wasn’t going beyond Reno.

These gave me a free breakfast in the Lucky Lady Casino, a free 3-minute telephone call to anywhere in the world and plenty of other freebies in Vegas.  So it went on.  Whether I was at the Grand Canyon, or in Oklahoma, Memphis, New Orleans or between my various destinations, something or someone happened to show me I had nothing whatsoever to fear.

Who was it, watching over me?  I was so conscious of their presence that I wanted to know their identity.  And I found this out, after years of detection – but that’s another story, for another day.  I’ll be telling it, though.  I promise!

Back, now, to where we were when I said that death doesn’t separate.  Why would it, when dying is such a simple thing?  At the appointed time we shed our body in much the same way that a caterpillar sheds its chrysalis.

What happens to the caterpillar then?  Why, it spreads its butterfly wings and flies! 

How liberating … how exciting, to leave a cumbersome body behind!  This is especially so when the body we’re leaving is diseased, or creaking, or incredibly weary.

To be free of it must come as a massive relief.  But in our new-found freedom we see that those we love so much are grieving for us.

What’s to be done?  Well, we can help them.  Our lack of a physical presence is not a problem, for our spiritual essence is ever-present and the love that we felt is as strong as ever.

So we can help our loved ones feel our continuing love.  They might be unable to see us, but they can feel our remembered presence manifesting itself in their protection.

After death life?  Yes, and an abundance of the love that is never-ending.

WHAT IS AFTER DEATH FOR THE VILLAGE THAT DIED?

If you've been reading my most recent posts you might be intrigued to know what is after death for the village that died: TYNEHAM.  Well, today sees publication on Amazon Kindle Direct of OUT OF TIME: Tyneham Revisited!

Now that you know the story behind the story, do take a look at the novel itself and see if you can answer the question - did Dorset's cherished village really die?  On an outer level it certainly did, but look within to where it lives and see whether OUT OF TIME can solely be a work of fiction ...

COINCIDENCES GALORE - All Leading to Tyneham

In my last blog I promised to continue with the extraordinary coincidences galore that ensured the writing of OUT OF TIME: Tyneham Revisited.  So let's get started, shall we?

There have been two versions of my novel – the first, entitled THE TYNEHAM GAP, written way back in 1976, with OUT OF TIME written in 1989 and updated in 1993.  There was a very good reason why THE TYNEHAM GAP never saw daylight …

Despite my best efforts I had still never seen Tyneham House, so well hidden was it from the road and so determined were the army to stop people venturing anywhere near.  Somehow, without seeing it, I couldn’t do justice to my story.  While I have a vivid imagination, I did not – back then – have the confidence in my writing ability to put my fictional heroine in a house I wasn’t allowed to see.  I think this was in large part because I had met Mark Bond, whose old home it was, and because at that stage it felt wrong to ‘intrude’ in that way.

So I eventually wrote THE TYNEHAM GAP with a heroine who lived in the village rather than in the big House – and this simply didn’t work.  I couldn’t look at it dispassionately enough to understand this at that time, so when it failed to find a publisher I just put the manuscript away and later concentrated on writing other novels – the ‘biggest’ of these being THE FOREIGNER.

With the Tyneham project still in progress April suggested that, in order to see Tyneham from a new angle, we walk from Lulworth to Arish Mel.  By then we had visited ‘my village’ in every kind of weather except a gale – and there seemed little hope of one on this lovely, calm day.  But we wondered all the same whether our Guardian Angel might manage something.  Between Lulworth and Little Bindon we experienced a bit of a breeze, which had worked itself up to quite a wind by the time we reached the cliffs above Mupe Bay.  

Arrival on the Swine’s Back, overlooking Arish Mel, saw us clinging to a fence to avoid being blown over the cliff by a considerable gale!

Finding I needed some facts about Corfe Castle, I mentioned this much later to April who told me that only the previous day her mother-in-law had arrived with a book on the Castle’s history.  April loaned me the book, together with a leaflet belonging to her son.  Mention was made in the leaflet that Corfe is the old Anglo-Saxon word for gap and that the Castle is so named because it is situated in a gap between hills.  It also stated that ‘Mr Bond of Tyneham’ had written a longer work about the Castle, available on request.

That same afternoon, as I drove near St Mary’s Convent, Branksome, I remembered reading in the local paper that Lilian Bond now lived there.  So I trespassed, just wanting to see the building housing the author of the book that had started me on my journey.  As I rounded the last bend, an elderly lady waved to me from a window on the top floor.  She was not wearing a nun’s habit.  As I waved back, I wondered … could she be Mrs. Bond?  I’ll never know, but I’ll always believe that she was.

Next, I needed information about a Devonshire bull, and felt that ideally I’d like to set hands on a James Herriot novel giving such facts.  His would be the kind of treatment I needed.  Next morning, the post brought the October edition of ‘Reader’s Digest’, including an excerpt from a James Herriot book entitled ‘Danger – Beware of the Bull!’

April had rung me in fine fettle saying she had called in at her local baker’s to find the woman serving her in raptures over an amazing sunset she had seen the previous evening.  Several times, describing this spectacle, the woman mentioned the word ‘gap’.  Unable to contain herself, knowing that a sunset featured in my novel, April asked: “Did you by any chance see the sunset over Tyneham?”

The woman had, of course – and for me to do it justice on paper, I needed to see it too.  We made two abortive attempts before the seemingly ludicrous thought came to me that, in THE TYNEHAM GAP, Edward did not take Adelaide to see the sunset until after Harvest Thanksgiving.  As things turned out, the very next occasion when weather conditions indicated a likely sunset came on 4 October – the day after harvest!

I arrived ahead of April in the car park above Tyneham.  There was just one other car in the vicinity and it was empty.  

Then I saw a woman, walking with a stick.  She approached me and in due course told me she had been an artist, but that since her husband’s death six months before all her artistry had been blocked.  She had come here to Tyneham seeking inspiration.  This was like coming face-to-face with my fictitious heroine – also an artist unable to paint since losing her husband!  April could hardly believe her ears when I introduced Mollie Brodie to her and told of her reason for being there.

The curator of the Wareham museum put me in touch with Percy Best, a local inhabitant with a long memory, who wrote me a letter setting out some valuable information about the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth and stating that the man to help me with my fishing questions was Anthony Marshall of Gaulter Cottages, Kimmeridge.

On Monday 25 October April and I visited the Marshall home, where Mrs Marshall kindly provided all the information I needed, plus a bit more for good measure.

Well, as I’ve said, THE TYNEHAM GAP never found a publisher and languished on a shelf for a few years.  While it was languishing, as I've said, I was writing other things and trying to become as proficient as I knew I would ultimately need to be.

Then, early in 1986, I was with another friend, Yvonne Rice, in Corfe when – in the National Trust shop – she spotted a newly published book LULWORTH AND TYNEHAM REVISITED by Rodney Legg.  I had been in touch with Rodney (via Philip Draper) ten years earlier in the course of my research for THE TYNEHAM GAP and he had been very helpful.  Now, through his book, he became instrumental in the birth of OUT OF TIME – for he showed me old photographs of Tyneham House that set me on the path of finally seeing the House for myself.

The bluebells were in bloom when I drove one Saturday with Yvonne to Tyneham.  Driving down to the village, I experienced a profound sense of coming home and there was something magical about that morning.  I started talking of trespassing, if necessary, and risking being blown up by a bomb, so great was my need to come home fully.  Yvonne pointed out that if I were blown up the new book would never be written – which soon sobered me!

In the car park was an army Land Rover.  I drove over to this like someone demented, leaped from my Mini and asked the startled driver – a range warden named Brian Morgan – how I could arrange to see Tyneham House.  When, he queried, did I wish to see it?  To my reply “as soon as possible”, he questioned mildly “would now be soon enough?”

No, my hearing hadn’t deceived me.  He meant it … but did I mind if he finished his sandwich first?

Soon we were driving back up the hill we had just descended, in convoy with the Land Rover.  Parking by a big gate that was securely padlocked, the warden unlocked it and told us that we were free to cross the field unaccompanied (he seemed to see that for me this was some deep experience) and to take our time.  We should stay on the path for safety’s sake.  He would wait, if necessary, indefinitely.

Sheep watched us as we crossed Cowleaze Knap.  I could scarcely believe we were crossing it and that we would soon be seeing the sight I’d dreamed for so long of seeing.  Then I was standing on Shoemaker’s Lane, at the gate to the House of my dreams.

A sea of blue greeted me, amidst all the tangles of green – and over there, by the old stone wall, was one scarlet bloom on the Smithii rhododendron.  There used to be so many …

Ah … used to be!

Was I now seeing, or was I still dreaming?  Rounding the last bend and not knowing quite what to expect, I had certainly not expected such a ruin.  Lilian Bond’s old home had crumbled almost to dust … and yet … and yet there was still something left of the atmosphere that had for so long prevailed here.  I soaked this up, wondering, marvelling, feeling at times like crying.  I felt, for sure, a watchful presence there …

So Katharine was born and, with her birth and that visit came the confidence I needed to install my fictitious family in the Bond family’s cherished old home.

I wrote to Rodney Legg, thanking him for inspiring me to begin again – and he invited me along to see him in Wincanton.  There, he had on his desk a letter from Miss Margaret Bond, Lilian’s sister.  He had answered this, he said, and subsequently gave it to me.  Lilian had died by this time, but Margaret was living in a home for retired gentlefolk at Winfrith (close to the Rectory where, in 1943, the Bond family’s books were stored in the new granary).  I wrote to her and she telephoned by return asking me to pay her a visit.  She was in her nineties by then, which I would never have known from the strength of her voice on the telephone.

I visited her twice altogether and she showed me old photographs and reminisced at length about the life that had been lived in Tyneham.  During my second visit her nephew – Major-General Mark Bond – arrived and it was at this time that they both gave their blessing to my using Lilian’s poem.  I also received Lilian’s publisher’s permission to use it.

Margaret mentioned having lived, post-Tyneham, at The Hermitage, in Parkstone.  On the morning after my first visit to her, I received from an estate agent whose books I was on, having a vague notion of moving away from Bournemouth, details of a maisonette in a newly converted Parkstone property … The Hermitage!  

I went with all speed to see it and there was immediately no doubt but that this was where Margaret had once lived.  Hidden away in its own grounds from the main thoroughfare and hurly burly, it stood imperiously with turrets and with a character vaguely reminiscent of another house, in another time.  I looked over the maisonette, which was lovely but impractical for me.  Then I closed the door on another of the Bonds’ old homes.

Needing some more information about the Telecommunications Research Establishment, I couldn’t quite remember where I had acquired this before.  Then, in a place where it had no business to be, I found a scrap of paper bearing the name and address of Percy Best.  

I wrote to him and was soon on my way for a visit.  Yvonne was with me and we had no map of Wareham, but by this time felt we had no need of such material things.  Sure enough, using just instinct, I drove straight to Percy’s home with no false turnings.

And he was, of course, able to supply the facts I needed.

I had just introduced the character of Jeremiah to OUT OF TIME when Yvonne and I visited Tyneham again.  We made first for St Mary’s church, which had by now long been open to the public and contained all kinds of data about Tyneham past and present.  Yvonne’s feet took her for some reason to the pulpit, where she glanced down at the big, open Bible.  Upon glancing, she gasped, for – quite differently from our previous visits – the Bible lay open at the Book of Jeremiah!

Having by now ceased to be overly surprised by the various things that kept happening, we headed for Ocean Seat to have our picnic.  Seated up there, looking across to Long Ebb, we became aware of a lone figure striding purposefully in our direction.  Upon reaching us, he introduced himself and enquired whether we knew it was Ocean Seat that we were sitting on.  Before long, he and I were engaged in earnest conversation and had virtually forgotten Yvonne.  When, some while later, he had gone Yvonne and I stared at each other, disbelieving and yet believing …

You see, Chapter Two started with Jeremy striding up from Long Ebb to Ocean Seat and engaging in earnest conversation with his future (but hitherto unknown) wife, Catherine.  Life was emulating fiction!

After a chance meeting at the end of August 1993 with an old schoolmistress of my daughters, whom we hadn’t seen for donkey’s years, things suddenly started happening.  For Miss Nightingale asked the question: “What’s the news of the book, fifty years on?”

Yes – of course – we were fast approaching the fiftieth anniversary of the Tyneham evacuation.  Now, without doubt, was the moment to publish OUT OF TIME (assuming a publisher could be found).

Instinctively, I rang Rodney Legg at Wincanton Press to ask him if he would be interested in publishing it to mark this historic anniversary.  He had, after all, already written my book’s last few words (which I had taken, as part of my factual after-word, from his book TYNEHAM: DORSET’S GHOST VILLAGE).  Rodney’s reply?  Yes, he would certainly be interested – subject to reading and approving it first!  

The rest, as they say, is history - for OUT OF TIME: Tyneham Revisited was finally born, thanks entirely to all these coincidences galore!