The People's Friend - Ploughing On

 

Gorgeous illustration by Ged Fay for my Plough Monday inspired rural coming of age/romance mystery story. It's still available in the weekly The People's Friend magazine!

The Mermaid's Gift - Fishy Tales, A Magical Sea Stone and Romance

 

Gorgeous artwork is by Sailesh Thakrar

In The Mermaid’s Gift, an old family story about a mermaid encounter brings romance and drama.

♡

“My grandfather, Josiah Young…” he began, coughing as he always did. I once heard Grandmother say to Mum that she always knew the old boy was lying when he coughed, but I didn’t believe that. “…once saw a mermaid.”

Short Story - On St Mark's Eve - The People's Friend Special

In this month's issue of The People's Friend Special is my short story On St Mark's Eve - a folklore romance with rivalry, ghosts and smuggling! Illustration is by Sailesh Thakrar :)

Sweet As You Like - Victorian Sweet Shop Romance - The People's Friend Special

 

Illustration by Mandy Dixon

Out this month in The People's Friend Special is my latest short story. This one is set in Norwich and is actually a prequel to a past story, Carried By The Wind, but you don't need to have read that one to enjoy Sweet As You Like! :)

A Light On The Horizon - Writing Process

With the release of another of my short stories in The People’s Friend magazine, A Light On The Horizon, I’ve decided this blog post will be about my writing process for historical fiction 😊 It’s an adventure romance set on the Norfolk coast with lighthouses, smugglers and a great big storm! Currently available in issue 236 of The People's Friend Special.

 (Some pictures may need to be clicked on to better see the text)

Gorgeous illustration by Mandy Dixon

Growing up, I loved reading fiction which wove lots of historical detail into the narrative. When I come up with ideas for my own stories, I like to focus on one interesting fact, such as local folklore or how ice-cream was made in the 19^th century, and shape the plot and characters around this. As most of my stories are set along Norfolk’s coast, countryside or in Norwich city, I also include a regional meal or location.

Beyond The Masquerade & A Mile In Your Shoes - The People's Friend

A Mile in Your Shoes is in this month's The People's Friend Christmas Special, about cider making and Christmas traditions, while my Regency serial set in Norwich, Beyond The Masquerade, is still running in the weekly edition of The People's Friend magazine. Both illustrations are by Helen Welsh and the magazines can be found in most UK supermarkets :)

Carried On The Wind - The People's Friend Special 230

 

Illustration by David Young

My latest short story is the opener for this month's The People's Friend Special - No. 230 :)! It's a smuggling story set on the Norfolk coast.

The Wherryman's Daughter - Part One

 

The Wherryman’s Daughter

Part One

 

Charity spied her father from where she knelt amongst the reeds and rushes. Owen stood at the tiller of their wherry, the Marsh Lady.

The moon was a smooth pebble throbbing with light but, like waves slowly dragging across, night mists covered it. The painted white snout on the wherry, used to help other boats spot her in the gloom, had been covered with ropes.

Wavering, Charity dug her feet into the riverbank. Mud smeared over her skirt and legs, yet a bit of dirt was better than tipping into that dark, grasping water.

Her father could not sail the wherry alone. She should be there with him, helping guide the boat through the river bends.

He had not dared to ask for her help, though. Her father knew she would have disapproved of his reason, and demanded he give the goods back to whomever had got him into this wicked business.

At the stem of the wherry, there was the hunched figure of another man. She could not tell who he was, as his face was concealed by his downturned hat. He was too big and hulking to be her cousin Alf. Could he be the smuggler or just another one of his lackeys?

Oh, Father, she thought, gritting her teeth, why do you do this? Couldn’t he see he was the one taking all the risk, while some unknown person reaped the profits?

Charity was tempted to stand and call for him to take the wherry home. However, she knew he was too stubborn. If only her mother were still here, then she would have been able to get him to listen.

She crept further along. Rain still glistened on the grass. Damp reeds stuck to her cheek, tugging like a child desperate for attention. Annoyed, she scraped them away, shivering as the cold crept past her shawl.

A misstep, and the squelching splash of mud seemed to echo. Her lips snapped together as she held her breath, waiting for her father to cry her name.

The brim of the stranger’s hat twisted in her direction. Her pale blue eyes seemed to stand out even more as they widened. Breath spluttered out of her as her heart writhed, wanting her to run.

Do not call out, Charity prayed desperately in her head. I am nothing but a shadow, a trick of the mind.

Then a barley bird shot out from a bush nearby. The stranger and her father chuckled, though it was empty of humour.

Her father turned back to the tiller. They were just as nervous. The sound of the boat cleaving through the water and the groan of the oak body pierced the silence.

A bright leaf green flag at the very top of the mast fluttered and danced at the slightest of breezes. It curled around the little tin Marsh Lady vane: a woman with a hat of feathers and a long river weed dress.

The wind blew Charity’s way and her nose wrinkled. No matter how long she worked on the wherry, she would never be fond of the whiff of tar and herring oil that the sail had been dipped in.

The Marsh Lady slowed. This was it. She had an idea of what her father planned. Although they were far from the fields, there would be one man sowing the crops, as men down the Copper Rose Inn said as they laughed into their tankards.

Heaving and grunting, straining his already weak back, Owen lifted up a cask of something. Brandy, most likely. There was a rope attached and she knew a stone was tied at the end.

Last week, she had curiously watched him pick stones from the path back home from church. He even had such plans on a Sunday!

The cask was pushed overboard, and it made a deafening splashing sound. He stiffened, anxiously turning his head side to side. Was he checking that the customs and excise men weren’t about to leap out of the water?

After a while, he started up again. Charity quietly counted under her breath as each cask struck the water. One, two . . . thirteen!

None rose. They were weighted down and hidden until someone came to dredge up the booty and carry it down to Norwich.

The Marsh Lady continued on. Charity hurried home, scowling.

She had seen all she needed to prove her suspicions. Now, all she had to do was figure out how to get her father safely away from the smugglers.

 

****

 

“Have you seen anything strange these past few nights, Charity?” was the first thing she heard that morning, upon opening the front door.

Her fingers tightly clenched the door handle to try and contain the tremor in her hand.

Josiah Thiske, the local customs man, stood there with his hat in his hand. He was only five years older than her, twenty-nine, yet he had a sunken, craggy face. Sharp winds had whittled his skin from when he had hunted for smugglers along the coast.

He was smiling at her, revealing the crooked, chipped front tooth that looked like a fang. Apparently, it was caused by a Dutch smuggler who had struck him with his cosh. It gave him a hungry, wolfish look.

A shiver was scraping up Charity’s back. Was she the prey? Had she been watched and followed as well, as she had done to her father?

The Dream and the Weaver - Darkness Blooms - The Dread Machine

I'm really excited to announce that one of my short stories will be in the science-fiction anthology Darkness Blooms. Here's a little preview of what the collection is about, and soon I'll do another blog post about what The Dream and the Weaver is about and my inspiration :)

The Wherryman's Daughter: A Collection of Historical Short Stories

To celebrate the release of my latest book, the collection is at the discount price of £3.99 for the first week before going up to £5.99 -- so get it before the offer runs out if interested! ;)

Amazon Kindle Link 

In The Wherryman’s Daughter, Charity knows her father is risking his life and their wherry the Marsh Lady by smuggling gin and tobacco. Can she foil the smugglers or will she too disappear on the Broads?

Twenty seasonal stories of drama, romance and adventure set in Victorian and Regency Norfolk, with smugglers, ghosts and the all too treacherous Broads. Locations include Cromer, Winterton-on-Sea, Great Yarmouth and St. Benet's Abbey. Perfect for a holiday read or while staring out of a stormy window, wishing you were somewhere else. Features evocative descriptions of coast and country interwoven with historical details about local folklore alongside bathing machines, the Norwich yards, Victorian spiritualism, the history of ice-cream and omnibuses.

Previously these stories were published in The People’s Friend magazine and can now be read in an easy to dip into format. Included are photographs of Norfolk scenes and wildlife taken by the author.

Bitter Herbs and Sweet Pills

When a new pharmacy is opened in the village, herbalist Heather worries the old ways will be replaced by lethal concoctions and quack cures.

The Sea Stone

Hetty once believed in her grandfather’s stories about mermaids, but will a special stone passed down by her family really lead to her intended?

The Green Mists

Matthew ignores his mother’s warnings about the fey-like, mysterious Willow. Will an old folktale doom the courting couple?

Tell it to the Bees

After a devastating fire, Dorothy goes searching for her last remaining family. All she encounters is a sullen grandfather and his garden of bees.

Rivoli’s Gelato

Retired governess Agatha has returned to her childhood home to run an ice-cream cafe, only something doesn’t want her to succeed...

The Lucky Net

Seb has always been superstitious, but his marriage is under threat when he clings too much to his good luck charms.

The Runaway Bathing Machine

Maid Lizzie knows she shouldn’t be seeing her sweetheart while accompanying Lady Ashworth, but sneaks off anyway. Little does she know her employer has a similar plan in mind.

The Harvest Maiden

The making of the corn dolly has fallen to Merry this year. Can she make a suitable vessel in time?

The Silver Darlings

Gellie comes from Scotland to Great Yarmouth each year in search of her father, only to discover a young woman who looks exactly like her.

The Matchmaker

Spinster Hazel is forced to risk her reputation when her step-sister elopes to Gretna Green.

The Reluctant Passenger

A Norfolk born country girl finds herself inadvertently kidnapped by a London omnibus – all for the price of a fare!

The Fen-Nightingale

Bird enthusiast Horace stalks the Norfolk Broads in search of this elusive bird – will he instead find the family he left behind?

The Lantern Man

When Laura’s husband is left for dead on the riverbank, she must confront a childhood fear to discover the truth.

Ghostly Footsteps

Tessa has always done what her aunt demands, even played a ghost for her fake seances. Will she have a change of heart when otherworldly footsteps start following her?

The Marshland Monk

After a storm tears apart her father’s church, Mary discovers treasure and an unfriendly spirit...

The Seashell Necklace

The Dutch fair has returned to the beaches of Great Yarmouth and Eli plans on proposing to childhood sweetheart Morag. When a necklace goes missing and Morag ends up taken to the Custom House, he must find the true thief.

The Rushlight

Ruth’s little sister is terrified of tales about the ghost dog Black Shuck. When she goes out to pick rushes, a dark figure lures her through the snowstorm.

Including Carried by the Wind, Love Written on the Petals and The Cocoa Tree.

The Ghost in the Graveyard - The People's Friend Special

My latest short story is in this month's The People's Friend Special magazine. Ghosts, the Norfolk coast and the 1841 census, just in time for Halloween! :)

 

Surprise at the Seaside - The People's Friend Summer Special - Runaway Bathing Machines

Illustration by Tracy Fennell

The horse bolted across the shoreline, dragging the bathing machine and Chastity. They thundered through the holiday-goers.

Brightly coloured beach huts are a common sight along the British seafront, but they weren’t always so static. Back in the 18^th century, as can be seen throughout classic books, the latest health craze was ‘taking the waters’ – going to the spas in Bath – or a ‘change of air’. With poor sanitation and smog in crowded cities, a fresh sea breeze was often what doctors prescribed. Seaside holidays were gaining appeal.

The only problem was the need for propriety jarred with enjoying the beach. Men and women were banned from mixing and specific areas were cordoned off. Swimming costumes for men only became a rule in the 1860s. Women’s swimming costume weren’t very comfortable. These dresses were made of heavy flannel and would even have small weights attached to the skirt to stop the waves from lifting it up and exposing the lady’s – shock and horror! – covered legs.

Bathing machines were a way of allowing women and men the privacy of sea bathing without causing a scandal. Even Queen Victoria owned one.

These machines were huts on wheels, some a basic changing room while others were quite fancy with decorations and a looking glass. Horses would pull them to the shoreline. When the holidaymaker was ready, they opened the door and went down the little steps – more getting their feet wet than actually swimming. Dippers were also employed to plunge the swimmer in and out of the water for something more bracing.

I rather like the thought of a bathing machine to relax in, able to wheel myself wherever I fancied, but there could be some peril involved. I was surprised to discover deaths connected with bathing machines. In the Illustrated Police News dated 1871, a young woman died in Great Yarmouth after leaving her bathing machine. There was also something similar in Dieppe. Although it was after almost drowning in the sea rather than the actual machine, but that did not stop the newspaper titling the article – Death in a Bathing Machine!

By 1901, separate swimming areas were no longer imposed. There was no need for modesty and so the bathing machines lost their appeal. Rather than being broken up and forgotten, most had their wheels removed and were turned into the beach huts we know today.

What are your memories of the beach and their huts? Would you have preferred the privacy of a bathing machine?

In my latest short story, Surprise at the Seaside, in The People’s Friend Summer Special, Lady Ashworth finds herself in peril when a clandestine meeting leads to her struggling with a runaway bathing machine.

Some research links from when I was writing the story :)

http://www.victoriana.com/library/Beach/FashionableBathingSuits.htm

https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2019/08/20/death-in-a-bathing-machine-other-bathing-machine-headlines/

http://www.regrom.com/2019/03/22/regency-reader-questions-spas-and-bathing/

http://www.ourgreatyarmouth.org.uk/page_id__162.aspx?path=0p5p99p

https://www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/inspire/history-of-norfolk-seaside-holidays.aspx

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/audio-stories-victorian-seaside/zfxjkmn

 

Tell It To The Bees - The People's Friend Special 209

The lives of bees and humans have been entwined as far back as the Egyptians. Bees were linked with royalty, appeared in hieroglyphs, and jars of honey were even included in a marriage contract. The Vikings viewed honey as a precious commodity when trading, especially as it was used for their much-loved mead, while the Greeks and Romans viewed bees as messengers from the Gods and Goddesses.

Wherever a hive is, humans are sure to benefit. Throughout the centuries honey has been used for art, medicine, food preserve, make-up, religious ceremonies, and we haven't even touched on it as a sweetener!

My short story, Tell It To The Bees, in issue 209 of The People’s Friend Special focuses on a mix of early and late Victorian beekeeping alongside the timelessness of bee folklore.

Illustration by Tracy Fennell

Various superstitions surround bees and their keepers. The most well-known is having to keep the hive abreast of family events. Be it a death, marriage or someone moving out, if you didn’t let the bees know it would be taken as an insult, causing them to fly off and never return. Certainly, something like an elopement would put them in a snit.

Covering the hive in mourning colours was the best way to tell them of a death, but there are also regional based rhymes which the new master could say. Newly married couples would also have to meet the bees and leave them a slice of wedding cake.

The origins of why the bees need such gossip is unknown, but it could be because our ancestors believed they had ties with the afterlife.

Other superstitions include:

•  Good luck will touch a household if a bee flies inside, but they must fly back out of their own accord for the luck to remain.
•  Bees are unable to harm a maiden. Also, a potential lover could be introduced to the hive, and if they get away without any stings they’ll remain faithful.
•  A bee landing on your hand means money is heading your way.
•  But if a swarm settled on a dying tree on someone’s property, death is coming instead.

To go alongside my story, I’m going to focus on Victorian beekeeping. Throughout housekeeping journals, honey is mentioned either as a sweetener or in recipes for delicious honey cakes. The wax was used for regular and religious candles, polish and moustache wax.

A beekeeping association was formed in 1874 (The British Beekeepers Association). The rise in popularity led to apiaries on estates, a yard of hives so the household could have their own homemade honey.

Protective equipment included a wide brimmed hat with a mesh veil and a blouse style top with ties, although there was a wicker mask outfit back in the 1500s which frankly looks terrifying.

At the time, skeps were still used by keepers to house bees. They were made of straw and looked like upside down baskets. When the honeycomb was ready to be harvested, rather than finding a new hive to drum the queen and her bees into, the skeps were pulled apart and the bees destroyed.

By the mid-19th century, Reverend Langstroth, had designed a box style wooden beehive similar to what we are familiar with now, making it easier and safer to collect honey from.

In the past, beekeeping methods have destroyed bees. Now keepers understand how precious bees are, not only as a provider of wax and honey but as a vital part of the natural environment.

However, bees are still under threat. Harmful chemicals in pesticides and the destruction of local green spaces have led to a reduction in the bee population.

There are many ways people can help, including signing petitions or writing to local politicians to champion environmental issues. But the most important thing is to plant bee friendly flowers, such as lavender, fox gloves, honeysuckle and primrose as well as putting up bee houses to give bees safe spaces while gathering pollen.

Three Data Units - The Dread Machine

 

My futuristic fairy tale, about love, division and mecha, has been reprinted on The Dread Machine website :)

The Dread Machine - Where nightmares are manufactured.

A Piece of the Sea - The People's Friend Special No. 202

A little bit—all right very, very late, but the issue is still out 😉 In The People’s Friend Special No. 202 is my seasonal story set on the coast, A Piece of the Sea.

Christmas is coming and the Dutch fair has returned to the shores of Great Yarmouth. Our character, a young basket weaver called Eli, intends on proposing to his Scots gutter girl sweetheart, only for trouble to find them when a stallholder accuses Morag of stealing a very expensive necklace…

With it being only about 113 miles across the sea from Amsterdam to Great Yarmouth, it’s no surprise that Dutch traders came to ply their wares. The fishing industry in this part of Norfolk boomed thanks to the Dutch sharing their fish preserving methods.

Great Yarmouth’s herring fair became known as the Dutch fair when the Dutch would beach their boats during hightide just before Christmas to sell toys, gifts and sweets to local people as well as the Scottish fishermen and gutter girls who arrived during the herring season. Some of the sweet treats included gingerbread and domino tile (dominosteine), which were several layers of Lebkuchen, jelly and marzipan with a dark chocolate icing.

One such fair was immortalised by George Vincent in his painting ‘Dutch Fair on Yarmouth Beach, Norfolk’ (1821) and is now part of the Great Yarmouth Museums Collection. Daniel Defoe also described visiting one of these fairs during his Norfolk travels in 1727.  

There have been historical records of a herring fair at Yarmouth beach since the 12^th century, and the last one was held during the 1830s.

Throughout Norfolk our coastal neighbour’s influence can still be seen, such as in the local architecture around Great Yarmouth and even the name of Norwich’s football team. Flemish weavers escaping religious persecution in the 16^th century made their home in the city, bringing with them their bright yellow canaries and weaving techniques.

I couldn’t help but throw in a few folklore references in the story as well. While browsing the market stalls, the couple find a strange wooden carving of a gnomish creature—a Korrigan (small-dwarf) from Breton folktales. They are fairy-like beings who like to dance around fountains.

However, Korrigans can also refer to female spirits who haunt fountains and wells. They are beautiful during the day, but when night comes their hair turns white and their eyes red. If a man becomes entranced by their singing, he will be lured to a watery grave. Korrigans are mentioned in Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera.

Although A Piece of the Sea’s thief is something a little more earthly, one little girl believes it to be a Witte Wievan playing tricks—the spirit of a wise woman. The Dutch legend originates some time in the 7^th century. Wise women who had died would remain on this earth, either assisting or complicating matters for those in trouble. They were depicted as wearing white, roaming gravesites and emerging from the mists.

 

Once A Rogue - The People's Friend Special No. 201

 

Once A Rogue is another one of my Regency stories, released in The People’s Friend Special No. 201 this month. It was written alongside Trading Places only this time a young woman must stop her step-sister from destroying her good name…

Whenever an elopement takes place in a Regency story, it is often said they went to Gretna Green. It's mentioned several times in Jane Austen’s novels. I never realised why this place was so popular until now.

Back in 1754, England passed a Marriage Act that couples could not marry outside a church or without parental permission if one of them was under 21, most likely to stop scandal and fortune hunters. However, Scotland did not have this stipulation and handfasting still took place.

An English couple wanting to defy disapproving family members could elope to Scotland, perhaps even with the extra drama of a furious father or love rival giving chase. Gretna Green was considered the best place as it was closest to the Scottish/English border.

What I really liked was the idea of anvil priests. Handfasting could be witnessed by anyone, not just a priest. Often these breathless, desperate couples would go to the blacksmith who would, for drink and coin, witness the marriage. He would strike his anvil when the deed was done.

In 1940, handfasting was no longer viewed as a valid way of getting married. However, even with the need for anvil priests gone, Gretna Green is still a hugely popular destination for marriages with its romantic backstory and views.

At the end of Once A Rogue, while the church bells ring, the wedding garter is thrown. Just like the bride’s bouquet, catching the garter toss promised marriage, though for a lucky bachelor rather than a maid. 

This bit of folklore is believed to have originated from the Dark Ages, where wedding guests chased the bride and groom to their bedroom, trying to pull the garter from the bride’s leg. Not exactly something I would fancy! Nowadays, the bride will pull the garter off herself and fling it into the crowd—how much leg she shows is up to her.

 

Trading Places - The People's Friend

My historical short story in this week's The People's Friend, Trading Places, is a slight deviation from my usual Victorian tales, though only by a few years. This one is set during the Regency era and has been inspired by the country dances that used to take place in the ballrooms. The idea came about when watching the 2020 version of Emma, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

Fiona and Anna decide to switch places during harvest celebrations to see how different their lives are. While Fiona gets to grip with the rough tumble of a barn dance, with laughter, fiddle music and plenty of cider, Anna must make sure not to offend someone by breaking one of the many rules which constricted the Regency ballroom.

These high society parties helped form social connections and allowed unattached women to go on the hunt for a suitable match. Etiquette was highly important. Good manners are of course understandable: no leaving a dance halfway through  and swords weren't allowed in the ballroom (imagine having to avoid getting whacked by that while dancing!) Though some strange rules also involved: No snapping your fingers to the music, as that was seen as too common, not even clapping. Ladies could not dance together, but it did happen whenever the men were called away to fight, yet dancing with a man multiple times marked a woman as too familiar and tainted her reputation. Invitations would soon dry up...

A caller announced each dance. No dance could be called twice (so those who only had a dance or two perfected would be in trouble). The aim was to be graceful while closely following the bars of the music. Couples formed rows and performed complicated, well-timed figures with other pairs, known as long dances. Depending on how many pairs, these dances could take over half an hour!

Keeping up with the tempo of the music was the main objective. As there were multiple dancers, going too fast or slow could rudely wrongfoot others and lead to people dawdling about until it was their turn. Becoming too engrossed with your partner might end up ruining a carefully crafted dance.

One of the more popular dances was the Quadrille, which followed a square formation. The dance I'm partial to is the one called Kitty's Cottage. 

More about these dances can be found at: https://www.regencydances.org/

Meanwhile, at the barn dance, one person would be taking pride of place at the table: the corn dolly or corn mother. These dolls go back hundreds of years and have a pagan origin. 

It was believed a spirit lived in the wheat fields. When the wheat was cut, this spirit would lose its home just as the harvest mouse did. Forced to wander, the spirit would most likely never return and the field would become barren. To prevent this, with the final cut sheaf, a doll was made to house the spirit and be paraded around the village. Upon springtime, it would be ploughed into the field to release the spirit back into the soil. 

This style of straw craft was also used as gifts for sweethearts and called a countryman's favour. Other variations include Suffolk horseshoes, Norfolk lanterns and Cambridgeshire bells. I go into more depth about the dollies in my other short story, In Fields of Corn (The People's Friend October 8, 2016), when a young woman must make a perfect corn dolly just as all the women in her family have done each harvest. 

Even with the rise of Christianity, farming communities continued to create these vessels. The craft is still practised today and a how-to can be found at: https://www.edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/how-to-make-a-corn-dolly

The Fen Nightingale

 Author reading of my Victorian romance short story, The Fen Nightingale, set on the Norfolk Broads. Alongside are some of my black and white wildlife ink illustrations. Originally appeared in The People's Friend magazine in April 29, 2017.

A closer look at the illustrations :)

Lights On The Marsh - The People's Friend

 My short story, Lights On The Marsh, is appearing in this week’s issue of The People’s Friend magazine. In the story, Laura is warned never to whistle while walking across marshland in case it summons a ghost – the Lantern Man. This blogpost will examine the folk legend, the lives of marshmen and wherrymen as well as the story’s location, St Benet’s Abbey in Norfolk.

The People’s Friend can be found in most newsagents or you can subscribe at: https://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/

 

Illustration by Sailesh Thakrar

At night, when the mists are thick and the moon cloaked, strange lights can be seen floating over the marshes. Most called these orbs will o’ the wisps, hinkypunks or corpse candles. Another name for this curiosity was the Lantern Man. This ghost wandered along with his light, luring travellers not towards the path home but to a watery grave. His most popular haunt was around Wicken Fen.

During the 1800s, more and more stories about travellers encountering this malignant spirit were told. Not all of them ended in escape. One such story is the tale of Joseph Bexfield, whose grave can be found at Thurlton. He was a wherryman whose drowning in 1809 was blamed on the Lantern Man.

Having your own light did not dissuade this ghost, instead drawing him nearer, but what always caught his attention was the sound of someone whistling. As well as drowning his victims, he could steal a man’s breath if he walked past.

Most advice was to drop your light and run. If the Lantern Man still chased, then throwing yourself down and holding your breath might work. Holding your breath appears multiple times in ghost lore across the world, such as while walking through a graveyard in case you breathed in a spirit (which is something I myself believed in when I was younger!) or to avoid being detected by the hopping vampire jiangshi in China. 

In popular media, folklore inspired video games have featured the mechanic of holding your breath in the presence of supernatural entities, for example in Red Candle Games’ Detention (set in Taiwan and also featuring a Lantern Man type spirit) and Wales Interactive’s newly released Maid of Sker.

Some called the Lantern Man Jack O’ Lantern, though this apparently infuriated him. When the marshes were aglow with many lights, it was said multiple Lantern Men were roaming.

Who were these men and women who believed in the ghost stories, though? In Lights On The Marsh, Laura’s father is a marshman who vanished when she was a child. This was blamed on the Lantern Man, although gossips in the village believed differently…

Marshmen were slightly better off than other labourers living along the Broads, but they certainly had to work hard for their wage. No matter the weather, which was often cold, damp and muddy, their tasks involved tending to cattle, clearing obstructions from dykes, cutting reeds to supply thatch for cottage roofs, and checking on drainage mills. Often their designated area stretched for miles of isolated marshland. An example of how marshmen lived can be found at Toad Cottage, How Hill. 

Wherrymen were another iconic image of the Broads. They would carry ice and wood along the rivers in their wherries, which were slim, clinker-built vessels with a tar slickened sail and a Jenny Morgan weathervane spinning on top. One of the last remaining wherries is the Albion. 

Smugglers often enlisted these men to help them transport their contraband further inland. Being caught by customs could be fatal for a wherryman’s livelihood, the price being the destruction of their ship. One method of avoiding being caught with the goods was by weighting barrels down in rivers and using a small feather lure to mark the anchor point. This was known as ‘sowing the crops’.

During the height of smuggling, local legends and ghost stories became popular down the pub. In a smoky room before the calming flicker-warmth of the fire, where night and the will o’ the wisps seemed distant, villagers told stories of Lantern Men and Old Shuck.

It frightened sensible folk into hurrying to bed when the moon winked and the roke clung like cotton to the trees. Any peculiar lights or noises could be blamed on spirits, rather than a clumsy smuggler dropping his lantern and setting his trousers on fire.

 

St Benet’s Abbey was originally a Benedictine monastery founded around 1020AD. It is on a small island, which was once called Cowholm, on the marshland near the River Bure. Artistic reconstructions suggest a thriving community with swathes of land to tend to following the patronage of King Cnut. Now it is a mere ruin, with only a few stone walls and indentations in the land to suggest what might have once been there.

It survived Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, but as people turned towards Protestantism the abbey fell to ruins from neglect, its stones stolen away to form other buildings. However, the area remains consecrated ground and the Bishop of Norwich holds a service there every year.

Although it doesn’t feature in Lights On The Marsh, there is another ghost who is known to wander the abbey grounds.

A monk was bribed by William the Conqueror to sneak him inside so he could kill the other monks and take control of the monastery. The monk’s reward for this treachery was the Normans turning around and stringing him up over St Benet’s gate. Each year in May, his screams can be heard. A second ghost, or possibly even the same one, is a monk riding in a boat with his dog.

The most recognisable landmark at the abbey is the mill, which is housed in the ruins of the gatehouse. St Benet’s mill was built in the 1700s and it is one of the oldest in Norfolk. It was converted into a drainage mill in the 1800s. The cap and sails were blown off by a storm in 1863.

Several artists, from John Sell Cotman to Thomas Lound, have sketched and painted the mill. My biggest inspiration for Lights On The Marsh’s setting was Henry Bright’s landscape painting of the drainage mill during a storm in 1847. It must have been a striking sight while sailing past in a wherry, perhaps even foreboding if it was late at night and the skipper thought he had seen something writhing by the gate.

 

Of course, nowadays any floating orbs are blamed on the random but natural ignition of marsh gasses rather than the Lantern Man. But I much prefer the thought of spirits slithering through the green flecked waters of the Broads. It paints an evocative picture of a person walking along the Broads at night, alone with only their light. They don’t want to believe in the stories, yet still shiver at something shifting amongst the reeds. Whistling might steady their nerves, until they see the Lantern Man’s light bobbing towards them...

 

 

Through The Shop Window & Living Ghosts - The People's Friend

Two of my historical stories are in this week's The People's Friend magazine and The People's Friend Special. Get a slice of cake handy while reading Through The Shop Window!

https://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/