Back to the Myddle: Day Six of an Ancestral Adventure


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Day 6? There is a Day 6, but I’m spending most of it back in my usual haunt in Suffolk, propped up on my bed (with a beautiful view from my window),  recovering from yesterday’s eight-hour trip back from the Myddle; and, courtesy of my laptop, incommunicado with the love of my life  – Ancestry.com!

I do love Ancestry.com, and the website manager isn’t even paying me to make this daring declaration to the world. (But a link for free access would be much appreciated!) And, so I am back to work, pursuing my dead ancestors, and sincerely hoping that Great-something-Uncle Kynaston, didn’t unwittingly kill any of his cousins to be. His father, Sir Roger Kynaston, did, after all kill my cousin, James Touchet, a Baron of Audley, at the Battle of Blore Heath, without even thinking twice about it. It stands to reason, therefore, that there would have been further assaults upon my genetic material.  But, no, such uncalled for slaughter isn’t to be found – what I find is even worse.

Unable to believe it, I spend the rest of the day, and the afternoon, still in my pyjamas, slopping out with Ancestry.com, depressed. Depressed and defeated. Ancestry.com, the love of my life. Surely it wouldn’t deceive me so horribly. I look for flawed links, for dodgy connections, for forged birth certificates. But what is done can’t be undone. It is bad. It is really bad. Really, really bad.

What I have found is  – unimaginable.

TO BE CONTINUED – WATCH THIS SPACE!

Disclaimer: Please refer to the ‘Who is Jay Cool?’ post for details.

 

Back to the Myddle: Day Five and a Half of an Ancestral Adventure

 

 

Back to the Myddle: Day Five and a Half of an Ancestral Adventure

Roots. Take root or take a risk and brave the traffic for the inevitable four-hour route back to Suffolk? As I leave Myddle, I realise that my roots are elasticated, and they won’t give enough to allow me to hurtle away unhindered.

Old Beezlebub gallops ahead of me down the Shrewsbury Road, and his ghostly rider, on deciding that I have nothing of value in my Renault (sorry kids!), beckons me on for an adventure beyond. Beyond the Myddle, but not so far, that I am allowed to cross the borders into Staffordshire. My Renault stops short of Wolverhampton. Single Lane, Shifnal. My birthplace. Now my Uncle’s home.

My children scramble out of the car, relieved that we don’t have to complete the whole four-hour journey. Not yet. Excited to hear the familiar crunch of Single Lane gravel, and with my camera at the ready, I peer across the lane to pinpoint the exact spot of my birth. Identically ugly box-like new-builds glare back at me, all gutsy. I’m gutted. A long wooden building, Cosford RAF Hospital, was once, quite rightfully rooted in that very location. Now it’s roots are entangled only in the synapses of my brain, synapses which shift and sort through the silt, deciding what to keep and what to throw away. Keep it.

Niceties are exchanged with Uncle and, in turn, I am rewarded with some caffeine. The children are rounded up again and we nip up the lane. Boscobel House. Boscobel House,  best known to some as the hiding place of the future Charles II. But I’m not here for Charles – I’m here for my ancestor William Careless – Charles’ best buddy and officer. So loyal was old Will, that he risked his all and climbed up into the oak tree to be with Charles in his hour of need.

Thoughts of an hour of need lead me to recall the last time I stood in the cold and rain under the leafy protection of an oak tree. And the memory isn’t pleasant. I was twelve years old, in the park, at Immingham, and the rain still poured down upon me. Only it wasn’t rain. It was urine. It wasn’t even royal urine, just the urine of a couple of teenage twits, who thought it was hilarious to relieve themselves upon the head of a ‘ginger’. I push the memory trace of the foul and acidic smell back into my synapses. It can be disposed of. Permanently.

Back to William. Did he have a good book with him or did he get distracted senseless by the beating heart of a would-be-royal psyched up on adrenalin? I can’t get up the oak tree, which is protected from a new and increasingly dangerous breed of genealogist obsessives by an impressive fence, so I peer up into the branches and try out some visualisation techniques, curtesy of a self-help book from The Works. It doesn’t work. It’s cold, windy and wet and my children whine: “Can we go back to the coffee shop now? Can we have some lemonade? A cake? Some crisps? A scone?”

“Anything else?” Do children ever get lost playing hide and seek? Refreshed, but not revived, I plan my next step – an opportune visit to one of Charles’ old hidey holes!

We enter Boscobel House and, floorplan in hand, I nudge (push) my children ahead and up a stairway to The Squire’s Room. Forget the four-poster bed – it looks like a mustard pot – and it’s only just about big enough for a Barbie doll. The Penderel brothers, once inhabitants here, must have been tiny! We go straight for the hidey hole, hidden beneath the floor of a small chamber, to the left of the fireplace.
It’s not much of a well-kept secret. With the help of a floorplan that would put Abbot’s Estate Agency to shame, we are there! I read that the hidey hole once gave access to a secret staircase, an escape route to the garden – a staircase which either no-longer exists, or one that has been subsumed into the moving, changing and munching structures of Boscobel House. My son’s face lights up. He loves small spaces. He’s in there! Mission accomplished. The hinges of the trap door call out to me. We need to be exercised! We need to be used! We’ve been stuck in this position for ages!

But my son looks so cute, with his little face and big-brown eyes, peering up at me. I am unable to resist the idea that he is Charles I and I am William Careless.  I get down into the hidey hole with him. My daughter hesitates. But I can hear the hinges calling to her and her hand hovers. She steps back and looks down at us. She can’t do it.

And it is indeed very cosy down here, very cosy and very cramped –  a great place for reading a book – alone! But I’m not alone, and this is only the second of the hide-outs, so we move up, out and on. And further up, to the attic. At the top of the stairs, my daughter locates our third and final destination, a hidey-hole beneath the floorboards. She looks disappointed. It’s inaccessible, only visible through a glass cover. She’d wanted to be the first to try this one out. It looks tiny. It would have been a good fit.

But we’re a family and my cousin William Careless had his mate Charles. So we leave the pair behind, and take ourselves off back to Single Lane. My Uncle makes a good mug of coffee and I need my cousin, a long-distant truck driver, to set up my Sat Nav. “You don’t need it, he say. It’s easy. Anyone can get from here to Suffolk. You just ….. ”

The Sat Nav? Please just sort out the Sat Nav for me. I need it. Please! How does he remember all those routes? What happened during the formation of his synaptic channels that didn’t happen during mine? I’ve been short changed.

He checks out the hotspots for traffic congestion on his mobile APP. “Even I wouldn’t go that route today. It’ll take you hours. Not four hours – six hours! No, no, no. I really wouldn’t.” But I see the twinkle in his eye. He’s exaggerating, of course. The old family humour! Just give me the Sat Nav. It can’t be that bad.

Eight hours, and two stops at McDonalds, later … and we’re back. Back from the Myddle.

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, May 2017

Disclaimer: Please refer to the ‘Who is Jay Cool?’ post for details.

 

Back to the Myddle: Day Five of an Ancestral

AdventureBack to Myddle: Day Five of an Ancestral Adventure

Sadness reigns. We’ve just spent our last night at the Red Lion Lodge and, with a loaded car and deflated children, it’s almost time to leave. All is not lost, a delivery lorry, blocks our exit from the Red Lion car park. Abandon ship, children. We can’t leave yet. Out of the car. Still time for one last goodbye.

Back to Saint Peter’s. In super-quick time, we manage to locate my Great Grandfather’s gravestone – even though it’s evaded discovery for the last four days! Someone has adorned it with daffodils. Someone out there still cares. Perhaps there are more living relatives in Myddle, than at first apparent – where have they been hiding?

Back to the alpacas – a third photo shoot. And up the path between the church and the alpacas to Myddle Farmhouse. I knock on the door. No-one in. I venture further, on into the farmyard and past some outbuildings. No-one. But, I see what I’ve come looking for – Myddle Castle – the home of my Great Uncle Humphrey Kynaston, before he fell from grace and went to live in the cave at Nesscliffe, and also the home of my 15th Great Grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Grey – Humphrey’s loving mum!
“Mum, Mum, Mum! Come back! It’s private property!” My son is as law-abiding as my Grandad was – just as well, as he keeps a middle-aged eccentric in check! And, the farmer arrives in his tractor – just in time to save the day! I smile and wave at him, and he’s more-than-happy to let us take photographs of the castle. The remains of the castle.

Uncle Humphrey, you see, was not like my son, or like my Grandad, and he was certainly not law-abiding. Heavily in debt, he let the castle fall into disrepair, abandoning his wife and mother, to go on the run – after absconding from a court appearance on charge of murder! At this point you will be questioning the validity of my ancestral claims but, Uncle Humphrey, is related to me via my paternal Grandmother, rather than my paternal Grandfather, and I’m guessing that, without access to the internet, my Nanna knew nothing about her dark and distant ancestral past – either that or, on marriage to my Granddad, she wisely chose to keep schtum about it!

My daughter and I pose and preen ourselves, propping ourselves up next to the castle ruins for selfies – we both decide that the castle speaks for itself – the best pics are notable by our absence! And, reluctantly (another lie, because it’s none too warm!), we return to the farmyard entrance to collect my son, who thought it wise to stay out of sight of the farmer’s dog. But, he’s engrossed in a conversation with the alpacas about Pokémon, and we struggle to extricate him from the occasion. But, on we must – and back.

Goodbye Uncle Humphrey Kynaston. Goodbye adopted ‘cousin’ William Preece. Goodbye Great-something-Granny Agnes de Lacy. Goodbye all of my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.
My genes emerged from a cave in the middle of the country, and they travelled all around the coast, leaving a little of themselves in every location, but a few of us gathered ourselves up.
And, we came back again. (Shame, but I never did get to try out any Shropshire scrumpy! Still, there’s always next time!)

(If you enjoyed this blog, look out for the author’s forthcoming book, currently a work-in-progress, ‘From the Myddle, to Everywhere and Back Again!’  copyright (2017) owned by Jay Cool)

Back to the Myddle: Day Four of an Ancestral Adventure

Back to Myddle: Day Four of an Ancestral Adventure

Following up on a tip from some locals at the Red Lion last night (yes, I did manage to tempt my children back out of the Lodge, with the promise of treats from the dessert menu!), I meet up with my Uncle, and pay a visit to a long-lost Myddle cousin, a first cousin once-removed, and – very likely the only person remaining in the village today, with whom I share any proven genetic connections!

Fortunately, a kindly lady offers to escort us to our destination, which is just as well, because the last time I met this relative was when I was about five years old, and I know she won’t recognise the middle-aged eccentric I have been transformed into. But, after a few confused moments, she identifies my Uncle and lots of smiles and hugs are had all round. This meeting leads to the exciting identification of an old tumble-down house, once lived in by my Grandad and his numerous siblings, and to the location of his second abode, his sister’s house in the Gullet, at the foot of Myddle Rock, now with a new-build in its place.

I’m on a high now, because I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a Kirsty, my favourite TV presenter on ‘Location, Location, Location’, and I’m all for buying up the old tumble-down and fixing it up. But, alas, I haven’t yet had my Lottery win, so that will have to wait. Sorry, Kirsty! So, we all say our farewells, and move on to my next, just slightly-more ambitious location – Ludlow Castle!
Why drive for an hour to Ludlow, when there are so many great locations still to hunt down in Myddle? Well, I’m fond of caves and tumble-down cottages, but I’m a great believer in aiming for the top – for a hand-me-down from my 28th Great Uncle, Walter de Lacy!

Ludlow windswept meI stand, swaying in strong winds, hemming myself into a corner of the ramparts in the heights of one of my many ancestral homes. I try to imagine Uncle Walter, escorting my 27th Great Grandmother, his daughter, Agnes de Lacy across these same ramparts, perhaps to meet her suitor, Geoffrey Talbot. But it’s difficult to conjure up an image of a pristine and well-groomed medieval lady, when my hair is threatening to break free from my scalp and my son is shouting, “Come away from there, Mum! Come away from that wall, and don’t look down! Come on – you’re scaring me!” I suppose it does, at least, show that he cares. Did old Walter care for his daughter, Agnes? Was Geoffrey Talbot a looker? Or was it just a marriage of convenience, an arrangement, to set Walter up with a suitably non-threatening son-in-law – to avoid any alternative usurpers?

A further gust of wind reminds me that Walter fell to his death in 1085, during a foolhardy investigation of some building work. Time to listen to my son, and move on! I’ve been told that Ludlow boasts some find coffee shops, so I gather up my issue to investigate.

“Costa Coffee, Mum! Look, Costa Coffee! Let’s go to Costa Coffee!”

I’m easily persuaded. Although, seemingly, an expensive coffee shop back home, Costa is easily the cheapest location for a drink in Ludlow. Besides which, the children’s Cappuccino drinks are only 50p and they come with marshmallows. Sold.

Marshmallows. Ludlow. Lady of Ludlow. Bookshop. Bus. Park and Ride. Myddle. Back. Again.
Disclaimer: Please refer to the ‘Who is Jay Cool?’ post for details.

Back to the Myddle: Day Three of an Ancestral Journey

 

 

Back to Myddle: Day Three of an Ancestral Journey
 

No more slow shuffling today – I have a four and a half mile brisk walk planned! I’m kitted out with a pack of ‘Gough’s Walks’, purchased from Saint Peter’s church (only £3, so go and buy your own!), and I’m set for the wider world out yonder – a circular middling-length walk around Myddle.

It’s an achievement in itself, just getting my children out of the lodge for a second day so, pleased with that, I cast aside all momentary thoughts regarding sensibilities such as bottled water and snacks, and march on – with two reluctant foals in tow. “And just how far is this walk, Mum?” someone whinnies. “Oh, just a short one – about a mile!” I lie, without any guilty conscience whatsoever. And, we’re off!

Gough may or may not be an ancestor of mine, but through his account of the lives of Myddle villagers in 1700, I know that he frequented many off the same locations and, as such, must have rubbed shoulders with, or at least have been irritated by many of those who did have the good grace to pass on some of their finer genetic materials to me, so I’ll stick it out with Gough, just for now – until I catch up with Scoggan!

We go past the school, at which the my Grandad had dealings with the Headmaster’s cane, past the old well and drinking pump, past Saint Peter’s church, up the road and turn left. Farm territory. This is the real countryside. Will I make it. It’s a long track! “How much further? How much further?” The whinnying starts to get out of hand, but we are saved by the appearance of Hollin’s Farm, and I regale my children with stories of tenants past, including the bigamist, William Cleaton (surely not one of my ancestor’s, although the variant spelling of Clayton, does feature rather to often in the tree for my liking!). Regale is too strong a word, as they are not really very interested at all, but we take some photos anyway, and march onwards across the fields to Webscott Farm.

This might sound like fun, but it’s not so great when with a child who is phobic about most things, including wasps and … cows. The public right of way invites us through a field full of cows. There is no way we are going through there! Fortuitously, a pathway seems to open up to us to the left of the field. I am reminded of the Bible story, when to go forth seems impossible, until the waves part and a pathway miraculously appears through the Red Sea. Everything is possible, if you want it enough! In any case, the cows turn out to be friendly types, and I stop for a chat with one of them.

A very good time is being had by all. “Mum, I’m thirsty! Mum, I can’t survive much longer. I will die of dehydration!” Even more fortuitously (my new favourite word!) a friendly farmer’s face pops up from behind some cows (Where did he come from?) and he is able to offer us some reassurances. “Yes, you are going in the right direction. Scoggan’s Hole is just a bit further up. Go on past my house, Webscott Farm on the right, and you’re almost there!” Great, let’s go, kids!

“I’ve never seen the cave, though, so I hope you find it!” Oh, so much for the reassurances; I’m on a quest to find a cave, once lived in by a man called William Preece, otherwise known as Scoggan, that the farmer who apparently lives right next to it, hasn’t even seen. The children’s groaning and grumbling continues. “You’d better not have dragged us all the way out here for nothing, Mum!” But, all is not lost, the map specifically states that the ‘Goblin Hole’ is just immediately opposite the stile onto the Lower Road. And we’re here …

More sand-stone rock faces. Lots of sand-stone rock faces. No cave. Where is it? This time, I’m the one doing the groaning and grumbling and the children are right onto it. Animated. It’s like a game of Hide and Seek and they’re loving it. Far better to be looking for the Holy Grail, than to be actually sitting inside it. The children disappear. I feel momentary concern, before spotting what looks like the remains of a four-walled room with an entrance – but no ceiling – hardly a cave! But this must be it, as it’s exactly where the map indicates. But where is the grand stairway that is supposed to lead up to it? Just a big tangle of shrubbery and someone’s garden fence! How can it be that someone has been allowed to subsume my ‘cousin’, William Preece’s abode into their garden?

I don’t really have a clue whether Scoggan is one of my ancestors (I’ve yet to make a connection with him on my family tree!), but it matters not, as I feel affiliated to him, just by virtue of circumstance.  The notes that accompany the walk, detail how Scoggan went to war for Charles I, sporting a crooked leg, a disability acquired as the result of a fall from a pear tree; my Great Uncle, the one who injured his leg and still fought in the Great War, was surely his reincarnation!

“That’s not a cave, Mum!” A case of sour grapes, I conclude – they are just miffed that I was the first on the scene! With the help of a sheet of tarpaulin, the roof could soon be repaired and it could all be made very cosy. “Are we done now?”

Okay, back. We turn the corner of Lower Road, and there it is, just yards away – The Red Lion Inn and Lodge! A four and a half-mile walk, when we could have walked along Myddle Road in the opposite direction, turned the corner, found the Goblin Hole and been done with, all within the time-scale of about fifteen minutes. Still, the photographs are lovely (ruined by previously-undetected jammy finger-prints on the camera lens!), the children are knackered and my knees are done for.
A lodge. A fridge. A toaster. Laptops. Let’s burrow on in!

By Jay Cool

 

Disclaimer: Please refer to the ‘Who is Jay Cool?’ post for details.

 

Back to the Myddle: Day Two of an Ancestral Journey

Back to Myddle: Day Two of an Ancestral Journey

The plan today, is to take a trot along my Great (lots of Greats!) Uncle Humphrey Kynaston’s old haunts, up at Nesscliffe, but, first, my children need some fresh air to wake them up and warm them to the idea. Getting out of the lodge door is tricky enough – our abode is luxurious enough to keep us contained for four days, without a single hoof going for a wander. But out we must. And my Uncle is joining us for the adventure.

Back to Saint Peter’s for further investigation, hopefully with the help of the Rector, who was kind enough to say he’d show us around. We don’t get far, though, before our progress is arrested by the sight of some alarmingly beautiful alpacas. The children come to a standstill, totally mesmerised. Photographs are taken and I try to move everyone along, preferably minus the alpacas – a difficult feat, but one made possible by the promise of a longer pause and further modelling opportunities on the way back.

The Rector is true to his word and, this time, we get to see the old wooden pump that my Grandad once used to operate the organ bellows. The wooden casing is testimony to the ghosts of choir boys and organ-bellowers, with numerous initials scratched into the surface. I try to find my late Grandad’s initials, but am disappointed – clearly, he was, after all,  the law-abiding type. Back to the roll of honour on the church walls, and my Uncle becomes animated at seeing the name of his Uncle engraved into the plaque, and tells us all a story about how this ancestor injured his leg in a horse-riding accident, but still went on to serve his country for three years during the Great War. A lesson in resilience, perhaps, that would put some of our young people to shame. We say goodbye to St Peter’s, thank the Rector and stop by for the promised photographic shoot, before piling into the car (I didn’t manage to secure any horses) and galloping forth to visit Humphrey.

We are not disappointed. Standing at the top of stand-stone cliffs, peering down at the Shrewsbury road, we can picture the notorious highwayman, Humphrey Kynaston, emerging from his cave-home, leaping down from great heights, on the back of his now mythical horse, Beezlebub, and robbing some poor unsuspecting passer-by of all their worldly goods – before doing a trade-off for a tankard of ale at the Three Pigeon’s pub. The image has been partly induced by a spot of dizziness (none of us are keen on heights!), so I decide that we all need some liquid refreshments. First, though, there’s the small issue of our descent! We go for the let’s-all-shuffle-down-the-steep-slopes-on-our-bottoms mode of travel. Done.

Scuffed and shattered, we invade The Three Pigeon’s. I order Cola, lemonade, J2O and – no, I still can’t sample the Shropshire scrumpy (why didn’t we all come on horseback?) – more Beck’s Blue! The barman points out Humphrey’s old seat, carved into the stone chimney place, and I wonder how my old Great Uncle managed to park himself there for so long, without getting a scorched bum! So we settle for the modern option of table and cushioned chairs, sit back and recover!
Back to Myddle. And, tomorrow, a walk with Scoggan!

(Please note, that the author’s ancestral claims are courtesy of personal research via Ancestry.com, and are, therefore, unproven, and subject to the not-insignificant possibility of human error!)

Copyright owned by Jay Cool

Disclaimer: Please refer to the ‘Who is Jay Cool?’ post for details.

 

Back to the Myddle: Day One of an Ancestral Journey

Back to Myddle: Day One

Back. Back to Myddle, the home of my ancestors. Having spent much of my life with the squawking of seagulls and the swishing of the sea, I’m not sure what to expect. Will I feel at home in a tiny village in the middle of Shropshire?

I pull in at the village pub, The Red Lion Inn. After a four-hour journey, with two screeching and cantankerous children, I’m more than pleased with the prospect of a cooling pint of Shropshire scrumpy cider. But, no, this is not to be my reward for my sufferance; my children insist on collecting the keys to the Red Lyon Lodge, where we are to spend four nights, and I am forbidden from ordering any scrumpy – our accommodation awaits!

Equipped with two TVs and numerous power sockets, the Lodge is an immediate hit. Never mind the luxury beds and a kitchenette with all the mod cons, never mind the feature wall with the sensational sandstone blocks, and never mind Myddle – there are laptops to be set up and Pokémon games to be continued. I think longingly of cider and try to imagine my Great Aunt, at one time the proprietor of The Red Lyon Inn, entering the lodge, which must then have been a store-room, to restock her bar supplies with a fresh barrel of cider. Where are you now Auntie?

Hunger. Always a winner. I tempt my children to accompany me ona walk around Myddle, with the promise of a meal at the Inn on our return. We locate the only shop, ‘In the Myddle’, and my son wants to find out whether sherbet lemons taste the same in Shropshire as they do in our usual holiday destination of Great Yarmouth. I give in – the shop’s proprietor is very friendly and I feel I ought to buy something! My son informs me that the sweets taste the same! Mission accomplished. Back to the Inn?

Not likely, I walked out to explore Myddle, and explore I will. Onwards, to St Peter’s church. And the graveyard is full of treats, the names of a number of my Great Uncles and a cousin (several times removed!) adorn the Great War memorial; and I’m pleased to see that they haven’t been forgotten – they are surrounded by poppies! My pleasure at seeing the names is dampened with sadness at the thought of the horrors these young men must have witnessed. I have already, in my middle age, lived more than double their years. With thoughts of Trump on my mind, I pray that my son won’t be a witness to a World War Three.

I banish such thoughts and proceed up some steps to the church door. It’s unlocked and my children are keen to take sanctuary from the ghostly graveyard (and, more to the point, to escape from the wasps!) Inside, is a longer list of names, complete with all the men of Myddle who were part of the war effort, survivors included! It’s a relief to see more familiar family names – and to find that the number of survivors exceeded the fatalities. I take some photographs, being particularly interested in the organ – my Grandad used to pump the bellows – and find more familiar names engraved on various memorial plaques. But …

Thump, thump, thump. A steady beat can be heard from somewhere within St Peter’s and my children are convinced that these are footsteps. Ghostly footsteps. Grandad returns. My children’s patience with my explorations depletes. They’re off and out. My son has progressed 200 yards along the pavement and is almost back at the Inn. I have no choice but to follow.

Sausage and chips for the children. Halloumi and falafel burger for me. Scrumpy? What about the Shropshire scrumpy? It can wait. Right at this moment, I’m more in the mood for a bottle of Beck’s Blue. And, yes, I know I could have bought a bottle of Beck’s from anywhere.  But, somehow, unlike the sherbet lemons, a bottle of Beck’s does seem to taste better when drunk in the presence of my Great Auntie’s ghost at a bar in Myddle.

So why live life on the edge? It’s only Day One of my Four-Day trip. So, just for the moment, with a bottle of Beck’s in hand, and with the children fed and watered, I’m staying put! And the scrumpy can wait ….

Copyright owned by Jay Cool

Disclaimer: Please refer to the ‘Who is Jay Cool?’ post for details.

 

Prologue – In the almost-very beginning …

In the almost-very beginning, some seeds were sown in a cave in the Myddle of a county called Shropshire. The consequences of such a tiny and inconsequential act were not at first very obvious. But I am sorry to have to say that, in time, the cave walls suffered from the effects of natural erosion. And the thing that was within …

 

About the Author

 

The author, Jay Cool, is a crazy cave dweller, currently in hibernation, due to the effects of a mid-life muddle.

Like the skunk, she periodically scampers out of her den – not, as one might expect, to collect food supplies – but, rather, to make the occasional deposit of a sample chapter of her forthcoming book, ‘From the Myddle, to Everywhere and Back Again’, into the nearest available willing-or-not receptacle.

It is hoped that, in time, the book will be in a complete state and, as such, be worthy of publication. If this event does indeed occur, it is possible that we may even catch a glimpse of …

There are, however, some rumour-mongers who suggest that such a sighting might be inexpedient!


Disclaimer

Although based loosely on family tree research, courtesy of Ancestry.com, Jay Cool would like readers to be very wary if choosing to use information contained within any of her blogs for ‘serious’ family tree research.

Jay is not a professional genealogist; she is a very-shy cave dweller with an over-active imagination. The reader would be correct in making assumptions, based on the quality of Jay’s sleeping accommodation, that her funds do not stretch to taking on the challenge of exhaustive archival research.

It should also be pointed out that the surname ‘Cool’, and any associated Christian names, might not be good starting points for any keen family tree head hunters, unless they too, like Jay, live in their own reality.

The copyright for this disclaimer belongs to Chooky, Jay Cool’s nemesis, August 2017

It should also be noted that, although the author cannot vouch for the validity of her ancestral claims – she is (or was) a ginger! William the Conqueror was a ‘ginger’, as was Henry VIII and several of his wives, and as was Edward I, and as was Joan of Acre, and as was Lady Elizabeth Grey of Myddle Castle, and …. as was the first cat the Cool family had the pleasure of being acquainted with – Bobby!

 Oh, and, before I forget, as is the author’s brother, Lord Something-or-Other (or was, before he went bald), and is the author – Lady Jay Cool (or was, before she went a sort of silvery-brown colour), and as is …. Sorry, folks, that’s just about it! (Unless, … Ed Sheeran? Rupert Grint? Nicole Kidman? Cousins?)

Photograph of Jay Cool is the author’s own, and the photograph of Edward II is in the public domain.

 

Epilogue

And, on its return, it brought with it something that the children of Myddle had never before encountered.

On its return, it brought with it …

Please continue to Jay Cool’s ‘Back to the Myddle’ blog to find out all about the monstrosity that descended upon the quiet-unassuming village of Myddle.