Читать книгу A Surprising Legacy - Ernest Swain - Страница 8

Prologue

A Surprising Legacy is a work of fiction, and the town of Halsmere is fictitious also. However, the story is mainly set in and around the village of Flash in the Staffordshire Moorlands and incorporates legends and myths that are folk-lore in that area. The characters are all fictional and not based upon any person living. If there is a resemblance to any person it is purely accidental and unintentional.

Flash, at the end of the 1700’s was a wild and barren place. The whole area was an area of heath, stone walls and black commons with scarcely a tree to be seen (Wm Beresford 1864). An early volume of ‘Companion for Travellers’ reported that Stage Coach robbers working along the Leek to Buxton turnpike escaped through Flash into the hills. It became a popular place for cock-fighting, dog-fighting and bare-knuckle fighting or prize-fighting, as it was easy to walk over the boundary into another county should there be any intervention by the law.

Sir George Harpur-Crewe, Lord of the Manor of Quarnford, of which Flash village is part, inherited the estate in 1819 and wrote in his diary;

“Quarnford….appeared…. the very end of the civilised world….the village of Flash was dirty, and bore marks specifically of poverty, sloth and ignorance. The clergy were little better than the peasants. One was found living with his half-naked children in a miserable cot by the mountain side. Another was a constant occupier of the ale-house bench, and of rough and uncouth manners, while the third was a clever man, but of whose moral character there was no good report. The only doctor was a vulgar sot who subsequently committed suicide.”

Counterfeiting of copper and silver coins was a lucrative business in this area and was achieved by the adaptation of the button presses that were a feature of many homes. It was estimated at one time that of the coin in circulation throughout the country a large percentage was counterfeit. Meg Lane End farm is believed to be one of many places where counterfeit coin was produced and recently button presses were recovered from a well at the farm. The coins were generally produced through the winter months and were then distributed during the summer by itinerant pedlars who hid the coin in the hollowed out axles of their carts. They were variously described as “hillside terrorists”, “higglers”, and “twanners”. Many of these miscreants, became known throughout the areas in which they travelled, variously as “Flash Harry” or “Flash Jim”, or whatever their name might be.

G. P. Dyer, Librarian & Curator at the Royal Mint wrote; ‘Counterfeiting of copper coins was undoubtedly a serious problem in the eighteenth century, and in our view the larger of the two Meg Lane presses certainly looks capable of striking halfpennies and farthings’. It seems that “Flash” money, including forged notes, was distributed by a gang based at the ‘Bottom House’ public house on the Leek to Ashbourne turnpike and some of the gang were executed at Stafford.

A glimpse of life in the area in 1786 is seen in a decree of The Manorial Court, presumably that held at Manor Farm, Quarnford, which stated;

“Whereas itt has heretofore been found Inconvenient and of ill Consequence to entertain and suffer Strang women with child to come into and bee Delivered of their Bastard Children within the jurisdiction of this Court And also of Entertaining Orphiant Children not of age and ability to provide for themselves, whereby the same may become chargeable to our parish… Therefore to prevent the like practisse for the future and for the Establishing and car….?…..an Agreement to the Effect Aforsd in writing….?….Quarnford the 14^th day of this instant May Wee hereby lay a pane that if any person or Householder within the Jurisdiction of this Court as aforsd shall entertain any Such Woman with Child or any Orphion or Child not of Age or Ability to provide for themselves as aforsd for the Space of one Week shall forfeit to the Lord of the Manor the Sums of 30/- And so proportionate for any Shorter or Longer term”. (Sic).

Travellers or itinerants were certainly a part of the make up of the Quarnford community, and then, as now, there was distinction between them and the true Romanies. The ‘Romani’ or ‘Roma’ dialogue used in this story is true to the Romany culture.