An Imaginary Friend ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 52 )

Imaginary friends are not uncommon, they can be a child or an animal. Are they just an innocent fantasy? Or can they have a darker purpose? 

Is an imaginary friend always just that?

It was Terry Marshal our film buff who mentioned the film ‘Harvey’ in which James Stuart has an imaginary friend, a six-foot three inch tall rabbit, known as a Pooka. It was when several regulars were discussing what the cross between Liz Wintern’s errant Cocker and the  Carbright’s Poodle might be called, before the name ‘Cockapoo’ had reached us. Subsequently I have discovered imaginary friends are not uncommon up to the age of about nine or ten. So in Harvey’s case, an imaginary friend is somewhat unusual for a mature adult. 

One of the people I asked was Jean, who assists Dave at the pub occasionally and incidentally, is still attending Penny Marshall’s singles dinners though the rep from Swindon is long gone. She grew up on the outskirts of Leigh Delamere. Her family had been farmers for generations and had acquired land and buildings when the Delamere estate was sold off. Some reckless ambition amongst the menfolk had meant that the farm was crippled with debt before Jean was born. By all accounts, Jean’s early life was pretty hard and when she was fourteen the family left farming moving to Shipston and eventually running a garage on the A30 near Shaftesbury.

‘He was as real to me as you are now,’ she told me regarding her imaginary friend, ‘he was only ever in one of the outhouses, the old laundry, so I was always playing out there. I can remember getting told off by my mum for telling stories, so after that I never mentioned him. I don’t think I ever have, until now. I know these imaginary friends as they are called, are just your own imagination, but sometimes he would say things what I couldn’t understand and he could be quite nasty.’

What did he look like?

‘Well he were well dressed, perhaps like I’d seen in some school books. At home we didn’t have any books, except the bible of course.’

How old was he, do you think?

‘He was definitely older at first.’

At first?

‘That’s right, I would have been about seven or eight. We left the farm when I was fourteen, and I think by then I was older than him.’

So he never grew up, like you did?

‘No, he was always the same, dressed the same, spoke the same, he was well spoken, like I imagined a young gent would speak, perhaps like I’d heard some gents talking when we went to Shaftesbury on market day.’ 

Did he accompany you, say to market?

‘Oh no. He was only ever in the old laundry.’

And you didn’t talk to your mother about him?

‘Not after she told me off, I didn’t mention him after that but I think she thought I was up to something because of some of the things I’d come out with, words and such.’

What do you mean?

‘Well, he spoke so well and I’d pick up things. This is daft but I can remember using the word ‘peculiar’, instead of ‘funny’ and my mom thinking that was unusual and not liking it, silly in it? I had to tell her I learned it from school. There was a fear in those days that too much learning for a child could make them disrespectful of their parents, and respect for your parents was one of the teachings of the Lord, so my dad kept telling us.

Imaginary friends, Rachael was telling me, are usually a sign of a child’s developing imagination. To invent a companion is seen as no different to the characters invented in storybooks that parents, or teachers, might read to a child, with the added advantage they can be there whenever the child wants. The child also has the thrill of taking for themselves some control which in their early lives is a new experience. A continuation of an imaginary friend into the teens can indicate other things.

I asked Rachael how long it was usual for an imaginary friend to be around?

This she didn’t know, but from the age of seven or eight to fourteen, was unusual. The implication was that if Jean’s social life was unrewarding, or non-existent, then an imaginary friend was a compensation.

I pointed out that as they left the farm when Jean was fourteen then it might have gone on longer. Which then raised a question as to whether Jean had a different imaginary friend afterwards, or whether the same one had accompanied them?

I asked Jean about this and she said that once they left the farm, that was it. She had no other imaginary friends. 

‘If ever I needed one it was then, after we left,’ she added and I asked what she meant. She said that after losing her little brother, a sibling she had never mentioned before, and leaving the farm, she was very lonely. She got married when she was just sixteen more out of loneliness than love which she regretted. 

‘I think I might have made a better match if all that hadn’t happened.’

I asked Jean what she meant, and she said that her brother’s death was the real reason they left the farm. 

‘There was quite a lot of debt and some years was hard, but bank managers then was more understanding. It was after Pauly died, father lost interest. Pauly was our name, and father hoped he would follow him at Ridge Farm.’

What did Pauly think of you having an imaginary friend?

‘Ooh, they didn’t get on.’

Pauly didn’t like you having a friend?

‘No, it was Edward. He was quite nasty to little Pauly. Edward wanted me all to himself. He said he didn’t have anybody else, and wasn’t gonna share.’ 

I found this confusing so when I saw Rachael at the Drum I reported what Jean had told me. Rachael too was confused. We didn’t think that an imaginary friend could be shared. Others might accept its existence, but they can’t ‘see it’ as if it’s their’s too. Perhaps Jean was imagining that her brother could see her ‘Edward’. That reminded us of stories about children’s shocked expression on the bus when someone sits on their imaginary friend, or a parent is asked to move up on the sofa to make room.

In the meantime Rachael, as is her want, looked into the history of Ridge farm. The property, after Jean’s family left was bought and then leased to an adjoining farm for a decade or more but the buildings, those once part of the Delamere estate, were never inhabited. Eventually a plot including the buildings were sold to a Mr. Jennings, who then sold it to a developer. If the discovery of human bones in an outhouse wasn’t alarming enough when the cause of death is suspicious, it raised all sorts of awkward questions. 

If Jean was fourteen when they left the farm, we could guess when Pauly had died. Parish registers were notoriously unreliable even so when Rachael found nothing entered we couldn’t help but fear that the bones were ‘Pauly’s’ and his death had remained secret. 

We considered the nature of Jean’s imaginary friend. Had this ‘Edward’ told her what to do to her brother, in the same way that some perpetrators of hideous crimes blame their ‘voices’? Do imaginary friends have the same power to control? The prompt leaving of the farm for a new life elsewhere cast suspicion on the whole family. 

We needed more information, but I was reluctant to ask, there are some things better left to the past. Chatting with Jean at the Drum, there was always the temptation to ask about her brother’s death.

One evening I almost did, but then she told me that she’d just been to Delamere churchyard to pay her respects.

‘Mum and Dad?’ I suggested.

‘No they’re in Shaftesbury, little Pauly, bless him.’

‘Your brother, but . . .’

‘I told you he’d died . . ‘

‘Yes, but . . . 

‘Well, see, there was this pile of wooden crates in the old laundry, he’d climb on top and then tease Edward, ‘I’m the king of the castle, get down your dirty rascal’. That didn’t half make him mad. I warned him he shouldn’t go in there alone, but he did. Mum found him, all she said was he must have fallen and banged his head. I never went in there again, never wanted to see Edward anymore, and soon we left the farm.’

‘You blame your imaginary friend?’

Jean nodded.

Rachael downloaded a painting, similar in style to Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’, of Edward, the twelve year old son of the sixth Earl of Delamere and heir to the estate. There was precious little information about him, and none after the age of twelve. 

Shown to Jean all she could say was,

‘That’s him, that’s Edward, not dressed like that, but that’s him alright.’

So Edward, Jean’s imaginary friend, wasn’t imaginary at all, and as far as little Pauly was concerned, he certainly wasn’t a friend. 

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.