brianwtaylor: 2020

Wednesday, 16 December 2020

Glastonbury Thorn

It’s been pouring heavens hard here ever since I got up this morning. Not the weather for working out in the garden unless you absolutely have to. Just right for settling down in front of a roaring log fire though, and telling the story of the Glastonbury Thorn once again.

Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea came to England shortly after the crucifixion to spread the word of Christ. Finding the people of Glastonbury unreceptive to what he had to tell them, Joseph asked God for a sign that the people might find more convincing. God’s response was to cause Joseph’s staff to burst into flower and leaf even though it was Christmas Day.

The staff took root and grew into a tree which continued to flower every Christmas Day for centuries, attracting great crowds, who came from far and near to see the miracle. In 1752, however, the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, one of the outcomes of which was that though the date of Christmas Day remained the same, the actual day on which it had previously fallen had been shunted along into January.

The Gentleman’s Magazine reported in1753 that “a vast concourse of people attended the noted thorn on Christmas Eve, new style” but to no avail. “There was no appearance of it flowering: which made them watch it narrowly the 5^th of January (or old Christmas) when it flowered as usual”.

And there I suppose I ought to leave the story, with the legend still intact, but this is a gardening column, so I won’t. Crataegusmonogyna ‘Biflora’, the Glastonbury Thorn, is, as its name suggests, a tree which, given the mild winters of southern England, will flower twice. Once in early January and again, more abundantly, in May.

Luckily for the monks of Glastonbury Abbey, who almost certainly planted the original tree, and milked the legend surrounding it by getting folk who came to wonder at the tree to hand over their worldly belongings to them in return for a better place in Heaven, people couldn’t just go out to a nursery and get a similar tree for their own garden in those days, though you can now. If you do, however, it probably won’t bear any winter flowers in this part of the country.

Wednesday, 29 January 2020

Dana Prison in Shrewsbury

HM Prison Shrewsbury was a Category B/C men's prison in Shrewsbury Shropshire, England. It closed in March 2013.

The prison is mentioned in "On Moonlit Heath and Lonesome Bank" which is part of the poem, "A Shropshire Lad by A E Housman. The proximity of the prison to Shrewsbury railway station and junction is highlighted in the verse:

They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:

The whistles blow forlorn,

And trains all night groan on the rail

To men that die at morn.

The former prison site, on Howard Street is near the site of the Dana Gaol, a medieval prison. The name The Dana is still often used for the prison, as well as being the name of the road to one side of the prison and the pedestrian route that runs from near the front of the prison into the town centre via a footbridge over the station. The now disused platform 8 at the station, masked from the opposite platform by a high wall, was used for transporting prisoners between 1868 and the First World War.

A bust of prison reformer John Howard is above the main entrance to the prison. The street leading up to the prison from the main road is also named after him.

Currently the Dana Prison, Shrewsbury is open as a tourist attraction. Jailhouse Tours runs guided tours, theme events and experiences, educational days, history days, seasonal events, horror tours and School tours. Jailhouse Tours will continue to manage the site until development work begins on the building.

There has been a prison on the site since 1793, the original building being constructed by Thomas Telford to plans by Shrewsbury architect John Hiram Haycock the present prison building was constructed in 1877. The prison took female convicts until 1922.

For 20 years, Samuel Webster Allen was the Roman Catholic chaplain at the prison before being made the Bishop of Shrewsbury in 1897. Former Wales Rugby Union international player John Strand-Jones was the part-time Church of England chaplain from 1930 to 1934.

Between 1902 and 1961 the following seven people were executed by within the walls of HMP Shrewsbury for the crime of murder:-

· Richard Wigley, aged 34 years, on Tuesday, 18 March 1902, for the murder of his girlfriend Mary Ellen Bowen.

· William Griffiths, aged 57 years, on Tuesday, 24 July 1923, for the murder of his mother Catherine Hughes.

· Frank Griffin, aged 40 years, on Thursday, 4 January 1951, for the murder of Jane Edge.

· Harry Huxley, aged 43 years, on Tuesday, 8 July 1952, for the murder of his girlfriend Ada Royce.

· Donald Neil Simon, aged 32 years, on Thursday, 23 October 1952, for the murders of his estranged wife Eunice Simon and her lover Victor Brades.

· Desmond Donald Hooper, aged 27 years, on Tuesday, 26 January 1954, for the murder of Betty Smith.

· George Riley aged 21 years on Thursday, 9 February 1961, for the murder of his neighbour Adeline Mary Smith.

The names of their victims and their relationships with them appear also. In almost every case the murder victim was female. Executions took place at 8.00 am. All executed prisoners were buried in unmarked graves inside the prison, as was customary. The four executions which took place during the 1950s were all conducted by Albert Pierrepoint and his assistant. The last execution in 1961 was conducted by Harry Allen and his assistant. In February 2014 the Ministry of Justice stated that the remains of ten executed prisoners were exhumed from the prison in 1972, with nine cremated at a local crematorium and the ashes scattered there. The remaining body was handed over to relatives.

In September 2004, Member of Parliament George Stevenson called for an enquiry into the number of suicides which had occurred at Shrewsbury Prison. This came after 3 inmates had hanged themselves at the jail in 2 weeks.

A report in 2005 named Shrewsbury prison as the most overcrowded in England and Wales. In August 2008 a further report stated that the prison had 178 places in use but held 326 inmates - an overcrowding rate of 183%. A report in June 2012 by the Prison Reform Trust awarded Shrewsbury second place in England and Wales for overcrowding, holding 326 prisoners in space designed for 170 men, a figure exceeded only by Kennet in Liverpool at the time. In 1934, the prison had contained the larger number of 204 cells.

Before closure, Shrewsbury was a Category B/C prison accepting adult males from the local courts in its catchment area. Accommodation at the prison consisted of double occupancy cells in mostly Victorian buildings. The prison offered education and workshops to inmates. A Listener Scheme was also available to prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm.

In January 2013, it was announced that the prison was scheduled for closure. The last inmates were transferred from Shrewsbury to other prisons on 27 February 2013, ahead of its closure in March.

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Serotine Bats in Surrey

Many years ago I worked at chiswick house grounds where we had to fell a large tree which had succumbed to old age and as a result were left with a number of pipistrelle bats to take care of, one of which I took home to nurse but it succumbed in the night. Move on several years and I was living in Clungunford when someone attempted to rehouse a number of pipistrelle bats as a result of the barns where they lived being redeveloped. Without success as it turned out. Nevertheless pipistrelle bats were quite a feature of the village and I once had to catch and release a pipistrelle bat into the wild which had attached itself to a curtain in my study. Move on several more years and one august bank holiday weekend I came out of my bedroom in the early hours intending to use the toilet and met a large bat with pointed wings flying at speed around my cottage. The sight was unexpected but I put on the costume I wore when tending my bees for extra protection and eventually managed to get the bat, to go out of the house on its own accord. Further investigation revealed the bat to be a noctule, Britain’s largest bat, known for its high speed flight on long pointed wings. I never saw it again, but some years later, having been up in my loft to return the Christmas decorations we’d been enjoying, I was aware of a large something moving on the periphery of my vision and took it to be a bat because of my past experience. Eventually it settled itself down to sleep again and I never saw it again despite living in the cottage for twenty years or so all told. I have moved home how and am living in an apartment so wasn’t expecting it to be true when my partner came into the room where I was at dusk telling me that she thought a bat had just joined us. It was a revelation I must admit I had doubts about, but she was right, because she was sharing the room with a bat which had perched on our new windows and remained there until I opened a window closer to it and it went out of there like a shot. It seems most likely from its brief appearance that it was a serotine bat which is found solely in the south of England occurring mainly along a line from the wash to south wales. Serotine bats are amongst the largest British bats with dark brown fur paler on the underside of their faces and with very dark ears. They make extensive use of buildings to live in and are thought to roost in them all year round, making them vulnerable to disturbance during building work They generally live in woodland habitats and with their long broad wings are able to manoeuvre skilfully amongst the trees and dive quickly to catch flying insects. They favour living in houses with high gables and cavity rooves, which is just what the apartment we have moved into is. Are we ever likely to see a bat again however? Past experience, unfortunately, says no.

Too Many Crooks

Being used to a diet of organised crime, drug manufacturing, smuggling, and dealing in all its many forms, and attacks on them by assassins working for the Russian, and the Chinese, governments, all as a result of their association with Chief Inspector Macdonald, Sinead Grogan and Christopher Caine had been afraid they might find life boring when they gave up working for Macdonald and became private detectives, instead but they were wrong. Fresh from their first success as private eyes Grogan and Caine found themselves surrounded by crooks aplenty when employed by the owner of a hotel in the Welsh Marches, which was up for sale, to investigate her staff, her guests, and her sister. Some of the crooks were believed to have stolen phials of drugs from Porton Down and were being pursued by MI6, some, lurking in the vicinity of the hotel, had been driven out of their usual haunts by other criminals and were being pursued by the long arm of the law, but an arm with its fingers crossed and open to bribery. Some of the crooks were stealers of trifles to fund their way of life. None were involved in the crime Private Eyes Grogan and Caine had been employed to investigate, however, as they found out when they went under-cover again, passing themselves off at a potential purchaser of the hotel in Sinead’s case, to see if that role brought about illegal approaches from anyone seeking to bypass their employer in the purchase of the hotel, and taking over the role of a fitness instructor to a group of teenage girls who were part of a youth camp in the grounds of the hotel in the case of Christopher Caine. Amongst this disparate group of guests and staff, however, were the crooks the private eyes did eventually bring to justice, but not for the crimes they’d been employed to investigate.

Root of all Evil

Being used to a diet of organised crime, drug manufacturing, smuggling, and dealing in all its many forms, and attacks on them by assassins working for the Russian, and the Chinese, governments, all as a result of their association with Chief Inspector Macdonald, Sinead Grogan and Christopher Caine had been afraid they might find life boring when they gave up working for Macdonald and became private detectives, instead but they were wrong. Working undercover at Greenvale Manor, a private school for girls, situated in the Welsh Marches, passing themselves off as a teacher of Welsh Studies and a Music teacher respectively, when asked to investigate unspecified criminal activities being carried on at the school, the two found forgery on a grand scale going on in the art room, a Saxon hoard, which had been dug up in the gardens being stolen to be sold to the black market, and the wife of an unpopular former minister for Wales being kidnapped whilst on a Heart of Wales line train held up between stations in an act the Authorities put down to actions by Welsh nationalists, or urban terrorist organisations, all of which turned out to be connected with the need to raise a million pounds very quickly, in order to save the school from closure. And that was just for starters!

Fire Ice Wars

Setura the Sorceress believed herself to be the most powerful magician in the land in which she lived. In consequence she treated everyone else she encountered with an arrogant disregard for their feelings, seeing them as no more than canon fodder as they died for her cause in the many wars she fought to subjugate her neighbours. Successful wars from her point of view it had to be said. This was despite the warning she’d seen on the surface of the fire ice stone polished for the purpose, she consulted from time to time, which some called the Sorcerer’s Stone, others the Stone of Destiny. It showed her castle and in ruins and the bodies of her and hers being devoured by crows. A voice-over behind this scene suggested that a magician greater than her had been responsible for that destruction. As a consequence of that warning she had executed all the other magicians she knew of, starting with her closest family, none of whom survived her purges. Now only Llwyd Hebog remained. Rightly or wrongly, because of that vision she’d seen, Setura believed that Llwyd Hebog, a magician she’d come up against in the past, and who had so far survived her attempts to deal with him by magical means, to be the greatest threat to her continued supremacy in all things magical in Madragura, so tried to eliminate him before that threat was realised. Rightly or wrongly, knowing that Setura meant to do him harm, Llwyd Hebog decided to travel back through time to eliminate Setura, by taking out an ancestor of hers before she could do him the harm she threatened, with the result that Setura would never be born. To help him in this, he chose his partner from his earlier adventures, Rhion, now living in peaceful retirement with the mother of the golden child they’d rescued, to cover his back for him, should that ever be needed. And that most certainly was needed before the struggle between the two magicians for supremacy finally ended, and a victor declared, but which of them, if either, was that ultimate winner going to be?

The Return to Madragura

Far away in another dimension, in the days before time, at the heart of of Madragora, which later became known as Wales, lay a Land of Demons, ruled by a queen whose name was Setura, Queen of Darkness, a sorceress of great power, who had taken the realm for herself by magical means. Deep in the depths of the Ice Mountains, in a castle built on pillars of fire, she lived protected by the Hogesi, fierce little warrior women with teeth especially sharpened for biting up at male enemies from below, and the Death Warriors, cloaked skeletons with blazing eyes, who rode black horses and were capable of making themselves invisible at will, so that only their smouldering eyes could still be seen like fire flies on a summer's night. Setura, though she styled herself Queen, had no right at all to the lands she had seized in the heart of the Ice Mountains, being drawn there solely by the lure of the vast quantities of Fire Ice jewels hidden in their depths. At first Setura set the people of her new land to mine the stones, but as their numbers gradually dwindled, due to the terrible working conditions they had to endure, she was forced to cast further and further afield for slaves to work in her mines. Eventually making use of a gang of gypsies able to crash through the barriers of time with people they'd kidnapped with the intention of selling them to Setura when they reached their destination. It had been going on for more than five hundred years to all intents and purposes, since they kidnapped people indifferent ages, so as not to exhaust the available work force in any particular time, when Aurora Bradley started to investigate the strange occurrences whilst staying at her aunt's cottage in the welsh marches. From the girl kidnapped on the way to her wedding during the 1500s and never seen again, to the boy and girl recently gone missing, who police couldn't find any connection between.And there had been spates of similar disappearances down through the centuries.Most of the people who disappeared being reported at the time as either being accompanied by, or followed by, a white cat. Aurora Bradley, known as Rory to her friends, was a twenty-first century girl looking for a twenty-first century explanation to what was happening. How was it then,that she found herself travelling through time and space to another dimension,far beyond the range of her mobile phone, having managed to get herself kidnapped by folk able to crash through the barriers of time, the other people they'd kidnapped on the way with the intention of selling them when they reached their destination, and a talking cat? And how, if ever, was she going to find her way back to the relative sanity of the world she had known before her unintended adventure began?

Doing It In The Park

A man digging up the flowerbeds in search of the golden cockerel he believed had been buried in them by a writer trying to promote his latest book; a boy passing himself off as a girl, knowing that the obligatory staff medical he would have to go through soon if he wanted to keep his job, would lay bare his secret to a sniggering world; a woman who had found love late in life and now wondered if she should be doing the things her new lover was asking her to do in the park during her lunchtimes; police officers in the park pursuing a flasher the local press had made into a rapist in order to sell more copies of their newspaper; a reorganised parks department in which newly appointed staff, many of them promoted beyond their comfort zone, were jockeying for position; a local councillor forced to endure a commemoration of his twenty-five years of service he didn’t want. A tree planting ceremony held in the park one summer’s day in 1983, to mark that twenty five years of service, wasn’t supposed to end with one of the people involved losing their job, and another losing their life, but as events turned out, they did. Available as both an e-book and a paperback from Amazon Kindle.

The Unintentional Time Travellers Guide To Other Worlds and Other Dimensions

A secret way into another world in another dimension. A world where elves, sprites and fairies live alongside mortals. And where a war between two sorcerers battling for control of the fire ice jewels mined in the depths of the mountains there, jewels which can control the minds of anyone who comes into contact with them, and which has been simmering for centuries, has flared up again. It was hard enough for Aurora Bradley, known as Rory to her friends, to escape from that world the first time she stumbled into it accidently through the time portal at the end of her great aunt’s garden in Shropshire. But now she’s stumbled into it again. As unintentionally as the first time. And this time the war between sorcerers, which was only simmering before, is in full spate. The reluctant time traveller refused to believe she was surrounded by fairies, elves, sorcerers, and a sorcerer’s apprentice who’d turned himself into a talking cat as a result of a spell which went wrong, the first time she stumbled through the time portal into a world she now has no memory of ever having been to before. So why do people she’s sure she’s never met before seem to know her name, and believe she’s there to honour a promise to one of them she doesn’t remember ever making? And how, if ever, is she going to find her way back to her own world a second time? Available as both an e-book and a paperback from Amazon Kindle.

Murder By Default

“Like I say,” the hooded man reminded Macdonald, “I’ve been inducted into ‘Enough is Enough’, which I think is one rich man’s baby. I’m going to be trying to find out who that rich man is. You’ll hear from me again when I do.” “And like I say,” the Chief Inspector reminded him in his turn, “I think you’re wasting your time with him and his group. Past experience tells me the Chinese Government are involved.” “You sound very sure of that Chief.” “I am very sure of that. Trust me. It’s the Chinese Government you have to look out for. You’ll find out you didna have to fear anything from the locals, I promise you.” Macdonald assured him. “Whatever you say, Chief. You’re the boss.” “I like to think so sometimes, I really do. I’ll look out for your eventual return, however long it takes.” “I’ll be back.” The hooded man promised. Over optimistically as it turned out. Available from Amazon Kindle, both as an e-book and a paperback.

The Reluctant Time Travellers Guide to Other Worlds and Other Dimensions

Wales, in the days before time and before it was ever known by that name, to which you’ve just been taken from the twenty first century by a gang of gypsies able to crash through the barriers of time to kidnap folk from all centuries and take them as booty to sell to the Sorceress Setura as slaves to work in her mines, digging for Fire Ice Stones, which when made into jewels, are able to bend the mind of anyone who comes into contact with them to Setura’s will. No good looking for a twenty first century means of escaping from their clutches, one which includes mobile phones, computers and Facebook, because there isn’t one. If you’re not going to go the way of all the other young people kidnapped down through the centuries and never be seen again, though, you’re going to have to do something to escape, aren’t you? Available from Amazon Kindle as both an e-book and a paperback book.

The Disenchanted Garden

An eighteenth century landscape garden, with lake, woodlands, statuary and buildings designed by Humphry Repton, Middleton Hall, as envisaged by its owners, and set out by its designer, was meant to be an enchanted garden in every sense of the word, but even before it was swallowed up by urban sprawl during the twentieth century, something had gone seriously wrong with that initial idea. The Disenchanted Garden. Life and love in a suburban park during the 1980s. Available as an e-book or a paperback from Amazon Kindle.

Murder Through Mischance

A man dancing at a village fiesta in Majorca, who everyone thought was dead. Another man pushed to his death from a cliff top path, just as he’s sending Chief Inspector Macdonald a photo he’d taken with his mobile phone of the first man dancing. A photo so damaged in the sending, it leaves the person in it unrecognisable. The body of a third man. Dead from a drug overdose. Found in the outhouse of a cottage in Shropshire. A death linked in some way to that of the first. But how? It’s said that there might be another body. That Chief Inspector Macdonald has finally been taken out of the game. Or is he still there where he always was? In the background, pulling the strings. Available as an e-book or a paper back from Amazon Kindle.

Sacred Plants Of The World From Neanderthal Times Until The Present Day

Tracing a path from the Neanderthal burial in the Shanidar cave in north-east Iraq 60,000 years ago, to modern Europe by way of India, the Middle East, America and Australia, Sacred plants of the world, from Neanderthal times until the present day, investigates and compares the role of specific plants in religious ritual and plant lore throughout the world. The information it contains is extensive, the answers to many questions lying within its text. How drugs made from plants have been used throughout history and utilized to gain the gods help with prophecy, or to wage war. How ceremonies such as the Captive Girl Sacrifice of the Pawnee link with present day harvest rituals. Why some plants have reputations for bringing good or bad fortune which vary in different parts of the world. How the strewing of flowers at funerals in modern times is linked to the plant lore of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Sacred plants of the world, from Neanderthal times until the present day is a book about a time, not long ended, when work, worship and the natural world were linked together in ways which seem outside the understanding of the modern world. Available as an e-book from Amazon Kindle.

The Body in the Woods - A Chief Inspector Macdonald Story

The body of a man slumped beside the ruins of a house in the woods, whispering dying words about a ‘Destroying Angel’. The body of another man laying in the cottage the first man had lived in; clutching a package to his chest he’d stolen from someone who had just killed him in an unsuccessful attempt to get it back. No good retiring to Shropshire if it’s a quiet life you’re looking for. Not as long as Chief Inspector Macdonald is still there pulling the strings. The Body in The Woods by Brian W Taylor, available from Amazon as an e-book and a paperback.

Distant Echoes of Forgotten Lives

Investigating a violent death, which happened a long time ago, and which everyone has forgotten about, may not be the best thing for a newly employed young gardener with too much time on his hands to become involved in to pass some of that time. Especially when his investigations bring to light evidence of a miscarriage of justice which happened at the time, and which resulted in someone being executed for a crime they didn’t commit. And even more especially when it turns out that the true perpetrator of the crime is still around to ensure that nobody else gets to see the new evidence the young man has uncovered.

A Baugh Family History

The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times. An invaluable aid for anyone researching the Baugh Family's history, packed with information about the family you might not find anywhere else. If your name is Baugh, Bough, or any of the other variations of the spelling you should read this book, because there is almost certainly something in it for you. Available as an e-book from Amazon Kindle priced $3.99. in the USA or £2.55 in the UK.

Murder In The Marches

Murder In The Marches, available as an e-book from Amazon Kindle, priced £2.41 including VAT, and as a paperback book priced $10.50 from Create Space.. The wreckage of a millionaire’s plane found crashed onto the side of a Welsh mountain. A burned out holiday cottage deep in the Welsh Marches, with the remains of a body still smouldering amongst the ashes. A mysterious package missing, first from the plane, and then from the cottage, that everyone is looking for, but no one can find. Too busy looking over their shoulders trying to see what the next guy is doing, no one is watching Chief Inspector Macdonald, but he’s the one pulling the strings.

Let Sleeping Evils Lie

No one was sure whether or not the ruins beside the church at Ashley were haunted until a group of students with family connections camped out in them one night in an attempt to prove that the ghosts said to haunt the place didn’t exist. What happened as a result of that ill conceived interference with the occult left those involved certain enough the ruins were haunted, for them to have the spirits they had encountered there exorcised. That should have been the end of things, but as it turned out it was just the beginning. For some far greater evil than anyone involved there had ever encountered before, was set free as a result.Let Sleeping Evils Lie. A ghost story available as an e-book and a paperback from Amazon Kindle.

Why Weeps the Willow

Why Weeps the Willow is set on the north Norfolk coast in the autumn of 1917. It is the story of a teenager trying to find her way through the pitfalls of her first love affair, a ruthless woman determined to hold on to her family's estates at any cost, and a girl who may be a German spy, may be a ghost searching for the means of experiencing physical love again, or may only exist in the mind of a soldier invalided home from the battlefields of France, who is the link between them. Incest, espionage and murder all play their part before the answer to the question posed on a suicide's grave is revealed, Why Weeps the Willow? Available on Amazon Kindle for £2.41p. And from Create Space as a paperback priced £7.68p.

Wednesday, 16 December 2020

Glastonbury Thorn

Wednesday, 29 January 2020

Dana Prison in Shrewsbury

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