THE HONKEYMOON CAFE

Dotty was an eccentric every village would be proud to have.  Her theatrical fantasies, her imagining she  appeared in silent films and on the stage,  and her relationships with the stars she claimed were friends were fanciful beyond belief.  What did it matter if none of it was true. Except . . .  Dotty Wyndham, had died some years before my arrival in the village but her presence lingered on in the use of her name as a comparison by those villagers who had known her. Someone was worse than, as bad as, or demonstrating some similarity. It was something that bonded the older inhabitants, as the incomers, of which I was one, didn’t know what they were talking about. It was their private joke.  Dotty was presumed to be short for Dorothy, and it had entered the village lexicon as meaning eccentric in nature, which differed from its common meaning of being mentally unstable. Dotty may well have been that as well, but it was her theatrical fantasies that picked ...

Taking up an interest can not only be a way of filling one’s spare time and be a change from our daily routine, but sometimes a way of finding ourselves and even a liberation. In the same way as we only have one life, or at least can only experience one life at a time, though even that’s debatable, we can only be in one place at a time, so you might think. Yoga and meditation are commonplace, but the closely related transcendental meditation, and astral projection are yet to appear regularly at our village hall. Astral travellers claim to be able to lift themselves out of their physical body and go for a wander, so I suppose they can be in more than one place at a time. I used to think that OBE used to stand for Order of the British Empire, but now I discover it also stands for Out of Body Experience. This phenomena is not recognised by the medical fraternity and it’s difficult to prove it exists but that won’t stop some in our village from having a go. The British eccentric is alive a...

The past is only ever just behind us. If something disturbs it, it takes very little for it to catch us up. I remember it was a Thursday night when Dave asked me if I knew any reason why Jean hadn’t turned up that evening to help out. I shook my head and could see Dave was both confused and worried.  Jean lives alone which is not unusual, but when for no reason we know of there’s no answer, all sorts of disasters spring to mind. In previous generations living alone was seen as a sad outcome as, due to illness or bereavement, an individual might be forced into a state of loneliness. Nowadays it’s more likely a lifestyle choice. After the raising of children and or the collapse of a long term relationship that independence is sometimes hard to surrender. Two fellow dealers in antiques had lived independently for some years. When Mike proposed to Josephine, after giving it some thought, Josephine accepted provided she could keep her flat and live there too, so maintaining some of the ...

What makes us think we have any control over our lives? If we are lucky do we put it down to our determination, our skill, or craft? And what of those that have no luck, do we blame them for where they are, what they do not have? The line is very fine between success, if that’s what you think it is, and failure, and some people are in no way to blame for where they are; but we’d be better people for offering them a hand, should they need it. Most lives are subject to fate’s bagatelle, a game of chance, and one wonders for whom the game is an entertainment?. Anyone but the Dawsons in our village, who always seem to ‘come up trumps’, will recognise the serendipity, and misfortune, that most lives are subject to. One morning in our village shop, ahead of me in the queue was a character I knew only slightly. After serving this person Paul our shopkeeper shook his head, and I raised an eyebrow,  ‘Terry,’ he said and nodded in the direction of the person who had just left, ‘if it weren’t...

More Dawson catastrophes. Charles Dawson and his part during the WW1 in Egypt alongside Lawrence, then Captain Nathanial Dawson, accidental discoverer of islands and coloniser, both knighted for their services to the Crown. Trawling through dusty old papers, diaries and correspondence is not my idea of heaven, however it is Rachael’s, our village historian. She sometimes refers to herself as an amanuensis, not necessarily copying manuscripts but spending as much time with them, researching the background to my stories, and more profitably, the history of the Dawson family and their catalogue of catastrophes.  The political map of the middle east is complicated enough now but during the first world war it makes the current situation look almost straightforward. The French and British had not given up colonial control but needed Arab help to overcome the alliance between Germany, and Turkey and their Ottoman empire which had possessed Arab lands since the fourteenth century. India to...

Gone for nearly everyone these day are the milk floats, the clink of bottles on the door step and the cheerful, friendly milkman. The village ceased having its milk delivered many years ago, but milkmen had a reputation. Did ours leave something behind? It was while Paul Goggin in our village shop was stacking milk into his chiller that prompted me to ask him if milk bottles were still delivered. In fact do they still exist? ‘Not round here they don’t,’ he told me. Continuing my shopping I thought I could remember when I was in Bristol the chink of bottles being put on door steps, but that might be my ‘false memory’. Certainly in my childhood in South London milk was delivered every morning, except Sundays, and with a carton of cream, if you’d ordered it the day before. I was probably the last generation to have milk at school. Metal crates with serried ranks of small bottles, perhaps a third of a pint, in the shade of a school entrance waiting for morning playtime. To each child a hea...

Ridge Farm changes to Ridge House, and the new owners plan to modernise. The Old Laundry to be partially demolished and the fireplace opened up, and what will they find? No matter how up-to-date it might appear, you can’t change its past, and you can’t make something leave, that doesn’t want to. The death, apparently accidental, of Jean Carter’s little brother Pauly in the old laundry, followed by the family’s prompt move to Shipston, caused suspicion. When there was no evidence of Pauly’s death having being recorded, and then during the development of Ridge Farm, the Carter’s old home, the bones of a child were discovered, it appeared to be obvious what had happened. But appearances can be deceptive.  During my enquiries about ‘imaginary friends’ I had spoken to Jean regarding hers. She called him ‘Edward’ and had said how much her Edward had hated her little brother. Rachael, our village historian, and I, wondered how much influence could an imaginary friend have, and was it enou...