THE HONKEYMOON CAFE

Around Christmas ‘Old Ethel’ a bag lady, makes a regular appearance  at the bottom of  Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, at a time when such people were greeted with suspicion,  but was Old Ethel a witch?  A kind gesture from a child who knows no better, is rewarded and the benefit doesn’t stop there. Next to the Old Drum and Monkey is a building built around the same time and our village museum records it as being the home of the brewery owner when the pub itself was the brewery. In the past when water was unfit to drink, farm workers, particularly during harvest, would quench their thirst with small beer, a cheap low alcohol beverage. John Humby now occupies the house and has done so since his predecessor bought it over a hundred years ago. John’s family owns Shiplane Farm, land that once was part of Delamere Park. The farm is very successful and is now being run by John’s daughter. There are minor dynasties everywhere in the country and it is worth taking care to know who y...

To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose, in other words nothing lasts forever and no one.  Those who were masters have ceased to be, and those who were poor become less so, everybody’s going through changes, and everybody changes places, but the world goes on the same. Drive up the high street then just before the village shop on the right there’s a turning. It’s a winding lane that heads south of Shipston and eventually to a village called Shipston Delamere, referred to by those locals who have a sense of irony as ‘The Delly'. Two substantial stone pillars surmounted by finely carved eagles stand proudly as an entrance to - nothing but open fields. They are all that remain of the entrance to Delamere Park, once the seat of the Delamere family. Like many families their wealth was built on commerce and farming. The Delamere’s were traders and their ships travelled the oceans carrying herbs, spices and other exotic foodstuffs, hence the name, ’The Delli’. During ...

It could lead you to believe there is as many dead wandering the lanes and cottages  as there are those that appear in good health.  The Old Mill in which both Lucy and Mark Musgrave met their ends still creates much discussion as to whether both deaths were accidental, or ‘something else’. The something else being paranormal activity for which the mill had already a reputation. I can understand the caution over moving-in fearing that the presence of Lucy and Mark may still persist. One shouldn’t forget Diana of course, Mark’s first wife, who’s ghost, he claimed, was the cause of Lucy’s death. Then there was whatever existed there before the Musgrave’s moved in. If one prefers to believe in the supernatural then the Old Mill would seem a busy place if it’s ghosts you’re after. It has taken some time for the new owners to arrange a visit from a ‘house whisperer’, apparently it is better that they come recommended and they have gone to great lengths to find someone with any cred...

Michael Corrigan says he knows how to see 'the little people'  but it's not easy and you have to keep still, very still  with no more light than a lighted candle. A lane once made its way up to Kilnbury, an ancient hill fort where the earthworks are still prominent and from where the village, nestling as it does below, looks like a typical example of a rural idyll. The lane was never used for much even in its heyday but when a pair of farm workers cottages were built by it towards the end of the eighteen hundreds, some of the lane was at least destined to survive. Between the wars the cottages became uninhabited then in the fifties they were both sold and combined into one. Beyond the cottage the lane became a track and then the track became a footpath inaccessible to traffic. It may have been then that the cottage got its name, ‘Turnabout Cottage’ though for the last twenty years it been known by the locals as Corregan’s.  Michael Corregan, if he’s in the mood, will tell...

Episode 2 of the Dawsons where some of their history comes to light and the research done by Sir Mordant Fitzneatly into the story of King Alfred and the burning of the cakes.  Could the Dawsons be involved in that? Jack Dawson, the head of the Dawson clan residing at Brimstone on the outskirts of our village, can trace his family history back to the dark ages and beyond. Whenever, or wherever there has been a disaster the cause of which can be apportioned to human error, interference or involvement however well intended, the Dawsons search for a predecessor is seldom wasted. In the forthcoming edition of the ‘Dawsons Miscellanea of Mishaps’, it features several events that occurred while he was at his preparatory school, an elegant institution sited amongst rolling hills on the south coast. With several other boys Jack was in the games field preparing for their forthcoming sports day. The school could not have been aware of the Dawson history and particularly their inclination tow...

This follows on from ‘Whistling Jack’ and is the investigation into how Jack came to the village, and took up residence in the woodman’s hut.  It covers his young life and an accident which would affect the rest of his life  and how he would be treated. If you remember it was Paul our shopkeeper who told me that the discomfort I had felt up in the wood was what some call ‘Whistling Jack’. Not wanting to appear too affected I had made little of an experience, the memory of which still terrifies me. Being drawn towards that ‘inhabited darkness’, an old man’s tuneless whistle and the dread helplessness still makes me shiver and disturbs my sleep. If it wasn’t for Lola, Paul’s Collie cross, I may not have lost my life, but I may have lost my mind. It was her urgent barking that had pulled me away from whatever it was she could see, and I was lost in. It became a mission to discover more about Whistling Jack, not only out of curiosity but to reclaim some power by understanding what...

A disused path leads the storyteller to where a dog he walks looks fixedly, but nothing appears unusual.  The dog is right and the storyteller regrets his wandering into something terrifying.  On the brink of being lost he is drawn back by a familiar sound. An animal’s senses of hearing and smell are phenomenal, what other finely tuned senses they possess we can only guess at. If you’ve ever had a pet, particularly a dog, you can get a feeling they are sensitive to things about which we have little or no knowledge.What I have found disconcerting is how a dog will sometimes look fixedly at something which they can apparently see, but we cannot.  I no longer have a pet, my dog died some years ago, but as a favour I take Paul’s dog ‘Lola’ out for a walk. Paul has the village shop and gossip exchange, his description not mine. He seldom has the time to take Lola out for a good run so if I’m in the mood for a walk up onto the common and the woods beyond, I call in and see if L...

A predecessor of the current Lady Blythe makes a discovery that she cannot allow to become public knowledge. Only now after many years can the events leading up to the annual Guy Fawkes celebration, and the disappearance of Creak, the butler, be shockingly revealed. Preparations were under way for Blythe Hall’s annual celebration of the gunpowder plot. It was thoughtful of Guy Fawkes to stage his event at that time of the year when there was always a surfeit of combustable material. The stack always grew alarmingly and the villagers would have been in high spirits looking forward to that evening when it would be set alight. Standing the height of a small cottage the bonfire would have been a splendid sight. Like the haystacks at the time it would have been covered with oil cloths to keep it dry.  Nearly a century would pass before the events of that morning would come to light. It all started when Creak the Butler, a faithful old retainer was absent from his morning duties. Lord Me...