Our Only Castle

 

The Chiltern Hills, were, in my personal geography, a barrier to be travelled through, on journeys between family home and study/work.  I seldom gave the area much thought. Later, much later, a home in Metroland Bucks chose itself for us as a map decision, a logical calculation based on research rather than experience. And on the whole it’s been a worthwhile move and we have a great family life. But the human continuity here is surprisingly limited. I’ve read that in the years before my house was built, the land where it lies was known as the Mushroom Field. It was only built in the 1950s, and an old neighbour remembers seeing combine harvesters working where now houses stand.

But I was brought up in an 1830s house on the edge of a medieval town.
It’s remarkable how neglected the Chilterns was over hundreds of years. My personal geography was everyone’s. In his enjoyable book ‘If Britain had Fallen’ Norman Longmate postulates a 1940 Battle of the Chiltern Hills. But in fact, it never happened and the area stays in its pretty obscurity, well-known only through its railways. This lack of pre-railway history was something of a disappointment to me, having grown up in a county with five or six standing castles including some of the country’s most famous.
That’s why Berkhamsted Castle was such a refreshing discovery when I finally saw it close to, rather than as a blur from the train. Its ruined state is due to stone thieves rather than sieges. Of course here in the Chilterns we have no workable stone, only endless jagged flints, both difficult to build with, and ensuring years of uneconomic farming.

The castle, and town, defend a strategic valley where the road was later joined by the canal and then the railway – the latter obliterated part of the castle, though it fared far better than its contemporary up the line in Northampton, which was destroyed without trace to build the ‘Castle’ station.

This is a scrap of medieval stone, water and earth, very beautiful, and surprisingly quiet, unless there are children running and climbing.

It’s also a lovely link to one of my favourite novelists. Early in The Human Factor, Graham Greene’s hero Maurice Castle wonders if his surname links him back to one of the medieval masons who worked in stone there in Berkamsted.

The castle English Heritage property but not an expensive one – in fact it’s free. There are no ‘facilities’ apart from the Castle itself and some simple display boards. Parking is difficult because of the draw of the railway station.

But then again, this is not a touristy area. Is it?

Scenes in Pubs

'You love putting scenes in pubs' said my aunt Bernadine in one of our last conversations, one when she would have said, kindly, we were speaking author to author.
A quiet pub, busy, not too full, is a consulting room, exhibition gallery, human zoo. You sit quite comfortably with a drink that is refreshing rather than strong, and observe the scene around you, watching, joining (and overhearing) the banter, the illicit contacts, the phatic arguments, the endless competitive verities and massaged memories that make up the stories that fill the air.
There is a golden moment, maybe during the third round of drinks, when guards are down yet reactions are still sharp enough for conversation to flow with accurate listening as well as poetic speech.

Later of course, there is the inevitable, enjoyable slide. Poetry and sometimes song take over, then all becomes a little too subjective, solipsistic and self-parodying. Though there is continuing fascination in observing, joining, the endless range of effects the same number of pints can have on different people sitting around the same table.
Of course it's all very expensive and can be ruined by the intrusion of music or food (both necessities of life, of course, but not necessities of pub life). It can still, though, be bloody brilliant. Both in life and in writing.

 

Not just 'reassuringly' expensive

Reassuringly is a clever word to use for a product that is knowingly expensive. Stella Artois no longer markets itself under that label, but lots of other people do. Thames Valley Farmers Markets is a company, or franchise, that seems to encourage its vendors  to ramp up prices to sometimes eye-watering levels, and for products that are not so very different from the better supermarket lines. But sometimes you do get something really unique, something genuinely worth double the price. Like

 this cheese. Two years old, a bit crumbly but incredibly powerful. The market's monthly visit to my village is the only time you can get cheese with your ploughmans that tastes stronger than your pickled onions.  It makes 'Seriously Strong Cheddar' taste absolutely mild. There's a kind of noble rot going underneath all the other tastes. Great if you like that sort of thing.  And it's not *that* dear!

They don't normally misspell the label, either.

Aaron Kosminski - ????

So someone is using DNA evidence to try and track the Ripper again. The work that Russell Edwards has done seems, from what I know so far, to be more convincing than Patricia Cornwell's efforts to nail Walter Sickert via DNA on an envelope flat. And, unlike her multi million dollar extravaganza, Edwards has proceeded with refreshing English amateurism - enlisting a scientist from John Moores University to work on the DNA 'during his spare time.' So good luck to him and his book. Of course we can ask lots of questions about  contamination of  Catherine Eddowes' scarf over the years, about DNA not being totally unique in fact, and about whether be semen and the blood can be definitely shown to have been deposited on the same night.

But leaving those questions aside, I am a little troubled by Edwards' reliance on Melville Macnaghten's notes. 'Kosminski, the insane Jew, Michael Ostrog, the Russian doctor, and Montague Druitt the sexually insane teacher', are three names that have been trotted out again and again over the years. If any of them were *really* the Ripper, would Macnaghten, only writing in 1894, simply have left their names in a secret notebook and done nothing about prosecuting them? This was only three years after the death of Frances Coles, after all - and who knows, really, whether or not Frances is canonical?

No.  I think these names were listed in an attempt to exonerate Thomas Cutbush. And as we can read in David Bullock's interesting little book, 'The Man who Would be Jack', Cutbush had to be exonerated as he was a close relative to a senior policeman.

Whether it was really Cutbush, whether it was someone else... No, I don't think the case is closed quite yet. 

Too good looking for their cars

Ian Fleming's outlook on life was unashamedly elitist. Towards the end of On Her Majesty Secret Service, James Bond sees a Maserati at a filling station and observes of the passengers 'It was too far away to see if they were good looking enough for the car, but the silhouette of the woman wasn't promising.' He is proved right, tragically, when they turn out to be Blofeld and the hideous Irma Bunt.

The opposite applies to some people and some cars.
Andy Thompson's Cars of Eastern Europe (Haynes 2011) tells a fascinating story of how political doctrine, and the lack of a raft of small versatile component makers, sidetracked development for fifty years. East Germany's  Wartburg and Trabant  were lumbered with two stroke power plants  long after sumpless engines had been abandoned elsewhere. The Czechs stuck with tail-heavy rear engined layouts, including the extraordinary air cooled V8 in the Tatra (a more powerful engine than the water cooled V8 in our contemporary Rover).

The poor Poles had to squeeze whole families into Fiat 126s, rear engined and agonisingly tiny. Twenty years ago I drove one of these across much of Poland and I remember well its slowness and the discomfort of the offset pedals. However there was something perversely fun about it. My daily drive today is its natural successor, the Fiat Panda (made in the same Polish factory.)

And yet the people who drove these cars are shown here to be glamorous and extremely good-looking. Much more promising than their cars, in fact.
Stylish attractive and gallant people rising above ugly settings - that's the romance of Eastern Europe.

Synopsizing (1)

One of the trickiest and most annoying things about writing a novel, particularly anything at all plot driven, is having to turn your finished book into a synopsis. It's like painting a picture and then having to describe it to a blind person.
Despite the salience of synopses to commercial book selling, I've not found finished synopses easy to find. It's much easier to find film synopses than books'. And of course spoiler alert is the phrase that comes to mind. (Interesting that the word 'spoiler', in this sense, is very new. Apart from being an aerodynamic device on a racing car it traditionally meant a plunderer or robber, as in this enjoyable Desmond Bagley book I read many years ago http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Spoilers.html?id=-opiAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y)

So as a way of improving my own plotting, I've prepared synopses of some successful books. Here is Tripwire, one of Lee Child's most satisfying books, a fairly early Jack Reacher novel. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tripwire-Jack-Reacher-Lee-Child/dp/0857500066)

Whilst this is in no sense a review - I'm not making any value judgements, it's fascinating to coolly analyse how such a skilled writer gets his emotional effects. The synopsising process takes the 'excited' emotional response from our reading, thus enabling a careful study of the plot foreshadowing and character clues.  But DON'T READ THIS if you have not yet read the book!

TRIPWIRE by Lee Child

Italic Prologue says that Hook Hobie has received two tips off, from thousands of miles away, but doesn’t run. He decides to stand and fight.

Reacher is working in Key West as a bouncer (and swimming pool excavator). A private detective called Costello comes looking for him, mentioning a client named Mrs Jacob. Reacher denies his name. Similarly with two men who come to the nightclub.

In New York, the MD of a company making cameras and projectors is shown in financial difficulties.

Reacher finds Costello murdered, fingers removed. He had identified Costello as a New Yorker from his accent, and now travels to NY.

The company MD, Chester Stone, leaves his wife Marilyn at home and goes to see a loan shark – Hook Hobie. A temporary loan is agreed, secured on stock.

Reacher identifies Costello through a call to NYPD. He learns that he only worked for lawyers.

Hobie’s two enforcers who have killed Costello were unsuccessful in finding out who he was working for. They go to his office and kill his secretary.

Shortly afterwards R. arrives at the office and finds it empty. He obtains the name of Mrs Jacob’s law practice but finds out she is at home in Garrison, north of NY. There he finds the aftermath of a funeral. The funeral was for his old army boss Leon Garber. Mrs Jacob is his daughter, Jodie. Meanwhile Hobie’s men have followed him and are watching the house.

When the mourners have dispersed, the enforcers confront R & J but are fought off.

Back in NY they tell an embroidered version of the tale to Hobie to justify their failure. He asks one of them to kill the other and bring him his hand as proof.

J & R visit the hospital where her father was treated, and are told he was very thick with an old couple called Mr and Mrs Hobie.

Some backstory about Hobie, mentioning Vietnam, losing a hand, becoming a money lender.

Chester Stone’s FD tells him that the company’s stock has been put on the market, at very low prices. This is Hobie’s work, but the FD resigns in disgust. Now the company is almost worthless, the bank who was Stones’ main creditor tells him it has sold their debt (to Hobie.)

One of the enforcers proceeds to murder the other, and brings the hand to Hobie. He puts it in his fridge.

The survivor, plus another of Hobie’s men, attempt to kidnap Jodie on the street, but R fights them off.

R goes to see the Hobies and discovers they have been searching for years for details of their son, missing in action in Vietnam. They paid for him to be traced and an investigator came up with a picture of a man in a jungle being held at gunpoint.

Marilyn puts her house on the market via an estate agent named Sheryl. Hobie poses as a buyer and kidnaps Sheryl and Marilyn. He needs Chester’s signature on a stock transfer for the whole company.

R steals a gun on the street.

A relationship, based on an old infatuation, develops between J and R.

R takes her to the zoo and reveals that the Hobies’ photo was faked in a zoo conservatory. He visits the investigator, Rutter, beats him up and makes him pay back the money they gave him, and also give him a car.

Bodies are seen being brought back from Vietnam to Hawaii, with an old general in charge.

R and J travel to military archives and research Hobie’s life, and then to Hawaii and meet the old general, Nash Newman. They view the skeletons that have been brought back from a Vietnam helicopter crash site. One of the skeletons was of a man named Carl Allen who was being returned under arrest. Two other skeletons are of the MP’s escorting him.

Marilyn insists that Sheryl, injured by Hobie, goes to hospital, and that a meeting with a lawyer is essential before Chester can sign the stock certificates.

At the hospital Sheryl arouses police suspicions. Two cops go to Hobie’s office, but (later) are killed.

It appears that Hobie’s body was not among the skeletons, and that he survived and avoided his parents. Reacher discovers an old report that a one-handed crash victim escaped from military hospital, killing an orderly.

Marilyn arranges for a ‘lawyer’ to attend a meeting with Hobie. In fact this is a private detective.

R finds an extra hand in the collection of skeletons.

He seeks a piece of identification information from Newman. This is found via a search of dental records. We are not told what the information is.

Hobie is bribing a captain in Newman’s unit, so knows that R. is onto him. He contacts Jodie’s lawfirm and summons her to a meeting.

A meeting is set up, with Hobie and Stone, and two lawyers, Jodie for one side and the disguised detective for the other side.

Arriving at Hobie’s office, the detective is immediately spotted. He is disarmed, relieved of two small calibre pistols. He and Jodie are taken hostage along with the Stones.

Hobie forces J to phone Reacher. Through saying ‘Hi Jack’ she alerts him to the fact that she is being held captive. R lies about his whereabouts then tricks his way into Hobie’s office by pretending to be a postman. He kills one of the henchmen, removing his hand, so as to distract Hobie. He shoots another henchman.

There is a showdown when Hobie threatens J with a gun while R, already badly wounded, threatens Hobie. He tells Hobie he knows he is really Carl Allen. R feigns a worse wound and deliberately takes a bullet from Hobie, hoping the small calibre revolver round will not be fatal. He just has time to make sure of Hobie with a shot to the head, before collapsing.

He awakes in hospital three weeks later, and explains to Jodie that he realised ‘Hobie’ was in fact Allen, and that he had swapped dog tags with Hobie as the sole survivor of the helicopter crash. 

It was noisy, but it was public

Many's the time I've been heading to or from the West Country and I've pulled onto the A344 for a 'comfort/heritage' break.

Half an hour has been enough to give the kids a flavour of the stones. Usually when they realise they can't climb on them they don't want to stay much longer. You could even get a reasonable view for free, from the public road, not that different to the view from the rope circle.
Now though, that road is being closed http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/our-plans/stonehenge-visitor-centre-faqs/and visiting the stones becomes a question of advance planning. Timed tickets will be needed for the shuttle buses from the new visitor centre some way off. Yes, there will be less traffic around the stones, so visiting will be a lovelier and quieter experience for those with the time. But for the rest of us, with precious weekends into which we have to cram travelling and friends and family and maybe a bit of heritage, visiting will be much less easy.
It will be interesting to see how visitor numbers hold up in the face of a dirigiste and un English policy that makes the 'best the enemy of the good.' Meanwhile local people are coping with predicted traffic chaos. http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/68337000/jpg/_68337800_stonehenge_andy_rhind_tutt.jpg. The A303 narrows as it passes the stones anyway and the A344 was useful extra capacity. I think this local mayor who presided over some kind of reverse ribbon cutting ceremony to close the road may have cause to regret his complacency:




Yes, it would be beautiful if it was all back in its bronze age glory, so silent and stately, but then we wouldn't be visiting at all, would we?