I'm quite confident that, if I start this blog with "remember the scythe?", most people reading it are going to immediately know where I'm pointing you to! That's right: Poldark. Now, I know that the series with Aidan Turner and his famous scythe was actually a remake of an earlier programme, but let's just focus on this more recent iteration of Winston Graham's novels about the eponymous Cornish hero. One of the things which is so wonderful about Poldark as a series - not only onscreen but even more so in the novels - is that it covers such a vast period of time. Because of the time in which it is set, there are huge local and global changes taking place around the characters and, when you have been invested in them for so long, you can really experience the upheaval alongside them. This is something I attempted with (what I hope) was a reasonable degree of success in my Early Story of the Rite trilogy. If it ever actually appears on bookshelves, it won...
Written by Michael Wray Illustrations by Anne Marshall Edited by Chris Firth ☆☆☆ I was born in Orkney, but I grew up in Lincolnshire. I went to primary school there and only moved back to Scotland after I had started at John Leggott College. As a result, I feel a certain connection with the place. Growing up in a village on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, I was very aware of the ghost stories around where I lived. My mum grew up in Epworth, so I was well accustomed to the tale of Old Jeffery that is featured in this book. Our house, itself, was very old and I'm pretty sure it was haunted. It talked - creepy floorboards when no-one was there, doors closing when I couldn't feel a draught - that sort of thing. Close to our house there used to be a wood where apparently someone hanged themselves. We were also down the road from Thornton Abbey with its headless ghost who sometimes runs across the road. (The story, as I heard it, was that someone was fishi...