It’s been a slow but steady falling-in-love: the best kind
as each tryst reveals a little more—a happy debriding revealing the smoothest
of fleshy detail, an elegant striptease.
This new love started years ago. Things that were dear to you when you were
young lose their appeal when new horizons open up. Then you come full circle
and you seek out the familiar and it shows itself to you with a hint here and a
detail there.
This love sees inside my soul and exposes me—reveals my inner mechanisms and
sets forth a chain reaction with a hint and a nudge to make me fully alive.
Love is a chemical
reaction, it’s true. It’s biological, physical, sensual. The dark, damp scent
of the basement takes me back to my grandparents’ house and the thrill of
exploring the cellar and feeling the cool stone against my bare summer arms.
Forget
the grand central staircase, it’s ascending the back stairs, the polished
wood smell and the precariousness of the steep steps that transport me to
schooldays in another grand house not so far from here.
You know what it’s like when you are in love: any little gesture, remark or
observation magnifies and metamorphoses of its own accord into some grand symbol.
On my first day back there was talk in the lift of a book of guidance for
mankind, here, in this place, a world within a world, thousands of miles and
hundreds of years from its origin. There can be no greater sign than this.
Explore further and there’s a whole other world beyond the house. This one goes
on forever. Its magic is revealed in the quiet of a frosty morning or just the
long, grey hush of winter. Many of its inhabitants are rare and retiring but so
fired up on pheromones and hormones the place makes you, you feel them looking
out for you alone from the branches of the trees, protective, and calling from
miles away a welcome or a warning of trouble.
It’s
on the cusp now of bursting into full springtime glory. The days may still be
chilly, but the light is more generous, and green shoots are showing through,
there are red, black and green buds on the delicate branches, and a sense of hope
as the life cycle returns to the beginning. There’s no joy greater than
anticipating joy.
Yes, it is a new beginning, and this love is liniment for a bruised soul. It’s
a gentle, powerful love, protective and restorative, engrained with the stories
of those who have loved before me and ready for a thousand more…
There’s not just one tale in the winter edition of Vintage Script, but many—read all about
them here…
Bankside
Morning
Bernie Deehan
Bernie’s a magician when it comes to telling tales: he conjures up exquisite
images of Thames-side London and its intriguing occupants in days gone by. ‘The
quay was bustling with men. Crates and sacks were being lifted, link chains of
iron hauled towards barges. Hoarse shouts filled the air like herons: black
curses about the weights being moved, zealous young watermen advertising for
trade.’ Bernie transports you so skilfully to his world that you can actually feel
the chill of the mist rising from the Thames, your ears tingle with the coarse
shouts of the men and the ripples of the water leave you mesmerised.
Activity on the Thames
An
Emperor in Exile: Haile Selassie in Bath
Clare Reddaway
Clare’s article reads like a work of fiction: an emperor from a far-off land finds
refuge in quintessentially English Bath. Here he sets up home in a Victorian
villa, complete with entourage and dog Lulu, and takes daily constitutionals in
the grounds or the town. ‘He was small at five foot four,’ says Clare, ‘but
dignified, proud and sombre, always wearing dark suits, with a knee-length cape
and a bowler or homburg hat’. He becomes a local celebrity, eventually
returning to his homeland Ethiopia and was later declared the Messiah by Rastafarians.
The best thing about this tall tale, apart from it being expertly written by
Clare, is that it really is a true story!
The
Voyage
Marie Gethins
A sad tale’s best for winter, they say, and Marie captures the plight of those
affected by the sinking of the RMS Lusitania beautifully. She tells her story
through a child’s eyes, and you can’t help but be moved by the details that
make the story so real: the boy narrator’s hatred of peas and their soft
middles, his comparison of the sinking ship with his tipped-up checkers board,
and his depositing of Mother’s glove in his pocket for safekeeping.
Lace
Jennifer Falkner
Jennifer’s story couldn’t be better named: delicate, intricate and beautifully
detailed. In her story, Padre Piaggio takes inspiration from the frame his
mother would use to dry lace in his own elaborate task of transcribing rolls of
ancient papyri. Like all the best tales, this one is full of mystery: what do
the letters mean, where do they come from and what will they tell us about an
ancient civilization destroyed by a force of nature?
The
Big Red Hotel
Edward Clark
This tale, where Edward recounts the history of the Carlton Hotel (originally
the Hotel Victoria) in Newmarket, Suffolk, is a treat for nostalgia fans.
Edward adds a very personal touch when he says that during his army days, ‘…particularly
in the fierce heat of Libya and Cyprus, I would sometimes recall the hotel’s
unique ambience, the way it felt and looked just before morning opening: a
clean coolness in the marble-floored foyer freighted with the smells of fresh
beer and wax polish from the bars and the Winter Garden’s airy brightness
contrasting with the deep shadows and filtered light of the wood-panelled
billiard room, the snooker balls set resplendent on the brushed green cloth of
the two tables’.
Sweet
Tooth
Esther Cleverly
In this quirky love story barley-sugars and pink sugar mice conspire with the narrator
to win the heart of an old-fashioned beauty. The relationship is strictly
professional, but as addictive as the sweet stuff: ‘You know that back right
molar, which has been giving me so much trouble? You remember everything you
told me not to do? I did it all, and it was worth the pain, the extra fillings,
the noxious sweetness of the gas, to gaze at your beautiful face from six
inches’ distance as your warm fingers probed my gums, stroked my tongue’. Inventive
newcomer Esther is certainly a one to watch!
Reading
It Right
Gordon Phillips
A letter from railway pioneer George Stephenson detailing snippets from
everyday life inspired Gordon’s song lyric The
Tale of Betty Stephenson. Gordon explains the journey from letter to lyric
and reproduces the words—in Geordie—here, along with the Stephenson letter. It’s
a wonderful tale, revealing Gordon’s artistic journey and the fascinating
background of one of the north-east’s most famous and influential historical figures.
Night
Before Last
Eamonn Griffin
Eamonn sets the scene for the last night of Robert Hubert, the man who
confessed to—and was hung for—starting the 1666 Great Fire. It’s Thomas and
John who are on duty that night, watching him, and the double-act is as amusing
as the story is intriguing (Hubert’s confession was puzzlingly false). Eamonn’s
skill is hard to achieve: he leaves you with a satisfying ending, but still asking
a thousand questions and wanting to come back for more!
God’s
Vengeance
Sandy Norris
Sandy—who was inspired by the story behind the Mary Rose—transports us to sixteenth century Hampshire and takes us
on the journey of a young lad as he steps into a new life aboard the ship.
Sandy’s dazzling and detailed description (‘King Henry’s ships crowd the
harbour and on land hundreds of soldiers’ tents are pitched outside the town’s
ramparts. Foot soldiers queue to enter the gates and the sun glints on their
pikes’) transports you in time and place, and chill you to the bone as battle
commences…
From
The Amazon to Bourneville: The History of Chocolate
Stephen Davis
Vintage Script would never get edited
without copious amounts of chocolate, so it’s hard to think of a more apposite
article! Stephen talks us through—with great mastery and reverence—the history
of this life-enhancing substance, revealing many intriguing facts along the
way. I was shocked to learn, for instance, that during the Spanish Armada, English
sailors discarded cocoa found on captured Spanish ships, not realising its
potential. There’s a happy ending, though, as Stephen tells us about the
establishment of the Cadbury empire in humble Bourneville, a far cry from
chocolate’s roots in the exotic Amazon.
Stepping
Out
David Williams
Another happy ending in David’s story Stepping
Out, as loyal but downtrodden Ella blossoms, becoming both transformed and
the transformer of other people’s lives. Her pleasure is the reader’s: ‘She
likes the feel of his hands, the right resting with the exact degree of
tenderness in the small of her back, the left drawing hers slightly towards
him, hinting at a desire to kiss her fingers’. David’s writing is always subtle
and understated, with a deep understanding of character and motivation—a joy to
read.
Voyage
to India
Elinor Lobban
Another love story, with hints of the exotic, and just the right amount of
suspense and romanticism: ‘The breeze blew a lock of hair across her cheek. He
wanted to brush it away. He longed to kiss her but cared too much to compromise
her’. Elinor leads the reader on a winding path with some ups and downs and
will-they-won’t-theys and delights with an uplifting twist at the end.
The winter edition of Vintage Script
is on sale now.
