A Character a day: (12) David, Martha’s only husband

Tom Rhys Harries might play David rather well......

David is almost too good to be true. As Martha’s first love and only husband, he figures prominently in the first two volumes of the saga, and then he is gone — murdered in cold blood during a Cnapan game on Traeth Mawr, Newport. But before his death he fathers Martha’s first four children and he is a devoted parent and a passionate husband — and Martha loves him dearly.

But he is a man who is deeply traumatised by the fire that killed his parents and three of his siblings right at the beginning of the story — so we don’t know what he might have been like, were it not for that fateful event. Even worse, be blames himself for the fire, and will not be budged from that conviction no matter how hard Martha tries to reason with him. Of course, it was not his fault at all, but neither Martha nor David, nor the reader, knows that……….

Martha is stronger than him, in spite of her wild swings of mood, and he knows it.  The young couple have a number of squabbles, but he knows when to stand his ground and when to back off.  He’s well educated (Eton and Oxford), but is by no means as erudite as his grandparents, and he adapts very quickly when he suddenly becomes the master of the Plas Ingli estate. He takes his duties — and his responsibilities to his servants and tenant farmers — very seriously indeed, and makes a range of important decisions under the guidance of Grandpa Isaac.  he starts to rebuild both the house and the estate.    He is also committed to looking after Moses Lloyd and making a man of him — but after a number of episodes in which his patience is tested to the limit, he dismisses Moses and makes an implacable enemy of him. He had enough enemies already, with the Watkins, Rice and Howell families plotting endlessly for the downfall of the Plas Ingli estate. Although he is young, he stands up to the three villainous and overbearing squires, and wins Martha’s admiration in the process. And there is no doubting his reckless courage — he is a famous and skilful player of Cnapan, and when the French Black Legion invades the Fishguard district in 1797 he is the first to leap to the defence of his country, showing great courage in hand-to-hand fighting and rescuing Lord Cawdor from ignominy. That creates a debt which has a great bearing on the later developments in the story.

 

Guardian Angel audiobook cover

 

Bolinda has released the cover for the next audiobook in the series -- in advance of publication on 1st April.  It sticks to the same theme as the previous five audiobooks, and pays homage to the story line, in which Martha (under an assumed name) goes off to Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil to do good works among the poor.  Since she is just as incorrigible as ever, she makes enemies of assorted poor people and some extremely rich ones as well, but somehow gets out more or less unscathed.......

I tried to convince the cover designer that the background image did not look much like the old ironworks at Dowlais or Cyfartha, but once a designer has an image in mind, there is no shifting him or her.........  anyway, it is suitably "industrial" and makes a change from wilderness!

After this one, only two to go!  Janine and Malk (the narrators) have been working very hard.

Rebecca audio clip

 

This is one of the resources released by Bolinda Audio to accompany the publication of the audiobook version of "Rebecca".  It's a brief picture, painted with words, of a cold and frosty winters day -- in a story that actually contains more than its fair share of fires, connected with the destruction of the tollgates.

Where did Joseph come from?

Stories never stand still.  There are over a million words in the Angel Mountain saga, but still, within it, there are a multitude of untold stories. Partly this is because the narrative is all in the first person -- which means that Martha talks about what she has experienced, or heard about from others -- but all the other key characters are under-represented and possibly misunderstood.........

For the purposes of transforming the saga into a TV series, here is a little hint to just one of the backstories: 

EXT.            A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.           DAY
Unkempt, but buttercups, red campion, bluebells, daisies, foxgloves, and sorrel. A white pony is tethered at the gate. JOSEPH HARRIES (45) stands all alone in front of a simple gravestone. He’s holding a large wide-brimmed black hat in his hands. He’s a good-looking man with sharp eyes, uncontrollable hair and an intelligent face. He has ferocious sideburns and a smooth chin. But he is wildly eccentric. His drab clothes have been worn to destruction, apart from a bright yellow waistcoat with an extravagant floral pattern on it. Tears in his eyes. We see the headstone; it says “Here lie the remains of Mari Jane Harries, aged 23, and Gwen Harries, aged two days, both departed this world 6th May 1774.” 

Some who have read the tales might think of Joseph as a man who is as cold as ice, with a great intellect, huge powers of analysis and deduction,  and superb self-control.  A bit like Sherlock Holmes, with added wizardry.  Well, yes and no............

As for Joseph's hat, none of that daft wizard stuff, please, in which the great man has a tall conical hat with stars on it.  A good old-fashioned fedora, black, with a very wide brim.  That'll do nicely.........    

This way or that way?

 

This lovely photo from my friend Marc Mordey summarises the essence of storytelling.  In every story there has to be at least one "This way / That way" moment,  and preferably more.  This is true in stories for both adults and children.......

I remember listening, fascinated, once upon a time, to an Irish master storyteller in full flow, and almost every story contained  these moments of crucial decision-making:  "When he got there, he should have gone left, but he went right, and look what happened to him then!"  Or  "When he got there, he should have went home -- but he did not, and went on, and ended up in a terrible pickle....."  Monsters, fateful females, natural catastrophes, and no end of appalling things befall him who makes the wrong choice.

It's one of the cardinal rules of screenplay writing that you should have these crucial choice situations at intervals in the script.  Suspense and decision-making go hand in hand.  At the 25%, 50% and 75% points in the drama, you need turning points, linked to changes of plans, points of no return, or major setbacks -- preferably linked to decisions made by the hero or heroine.  To make matters more complex and more interesting, some crucial decisions can be made by other key characters as well.  Some famous actors are reputed to choose their film appearances on the basis of what the scripts offer in terms of crucial decision-making.  It is reputed that Dustin Hoffman refuses to do any film unless he personally has at least a dozen key decisions to make.  This way or that way?  That is the question..........

The Ceffyl Pren

 

This an illustration I have not seen before -- somebody published it on Facebook.  "Ceffyl Pren" means "wooden horse" -- but I had always assumed that the wooden horse was a mobile one, most often a stepladder or something similar, maybe with a wooden horse's head on the front, which would be used for parading the offending person through the streets.  He or she would be strapped to the contraption, often facing backwards, and subjected to abuse and ridicule by the offended townspeople.

But here, in a very old illustration that looks rather like something from the early 1700's or even late 1600's, we see a fixed installation (looks very precarious!) on top of which the offenders (in this case an adulterous couple, probably) were stranded and subjected to ridicule.  The man even has weights tied to his feet to stop him from clambering down........  The structure looks a bit similar to the "vaulting horse" we used to use in the school gym, except for the horse's head projecting out at the front.  Where was this?  More research needed........

There is now quite a big literature on "shaming rituals" going back not the early 1700's.  here is one extract:

The "skimmington ritual"  Hardy describes in his tale from the West Country is a tradition that goes back a long way in rural society. Punctuated by loud, raucous noise, villagers would parade objects identifying those whose behavior was found to be offensive, in a procession designed to humiliate them.

While Lucetta’s shame was due to having an intimate relationship with a married man, many cases showed the skimmington employed to police “domestic” relations; particularly spousal beatings.

The ritual was also called “skimmity riding.” Skimmity is thought to come from the term describing a cheesemaking ladle employed (apart from skimming cheese) by a wife to beat her husband. A husband’s weakness was frowned upon, whether he was being scolded or cuckholded. So, too, was frequent wife-beating, and those riding would beat one another with ladles and spoons in the most “ludicrous processions,” stopping at the offender’s house to make their point.

In Wales the procedure(!) was called the Ceffyl Pren, or wooden horse. The miscreant was paraded around, tied to a wooden frame. Scottish accounts name it “riding the stang,” a plainly uncomfortable means of conveyance for the shamed, particularly when that person was a man.

"Flying with Angels" audiobook

UK Bestselling author
Award winning author
UK Author

Enter the enchanting world of Martha Morgan, a very imperfect heroine. Flying with Angels is a tender, violent and compassionate story about the joys and agonies of growing old, from prize-winning author, Brian John.


It is 1845, and Martha Morgan, Mistress of Plas Ingli, is feeling her age. She receives warnings that she should 'take care'. Her beloved estate collapses, and she has to call upon her deepest reserves of strength in order to survive. But her misery is lessened when she meets a travelling evangelist on the summit of Angel Mountain. It turns out that the fate of Amos Jones Minor Prophet is inextricably bound up with her own. A single indiscretion in Tycanol Wood splits the community and tests the loyalty of friends and family to the limit, and starts a drift towards the final tragic episodes of Martha’s life. While Martha is dealing with these personal crises, she is also drawn to help the peasants caught up in the Irish Potato Famine. A shipwreck on the coast near Newport gives her the opportunity to do something practical, but in the process she offends the secret Society of Sea Serjeants. Her family tries to protect her from evil men who are driven by ancient family animosities. But her fighting spirit is stronger than her body, and she takes them on. It becomes clear that Martha will not die in her bed; nor does she, but in the final act of her exciting life there are breathless twists and turns which confound her enemies and leave her undefeated.

'It has a page-turning plot, packed with adventure, treason, murder and passion, where the horrors in the drama are balanced by gentle scenes full of the warmth and love of the family at Plas Ingli.

Welsh Books Council