Foreword to the Unfinished Novel, Lord’s Hayward’s Rose Kevin Anslow 2003

Foreword

This is of course a work of fiction, though in truth, the English village of Avebury, where
this tale takes place, is one of those rare, magical places where reality strikes the visitor
as far stranger and more wonderful than anything to spring from the writer’s imagination,
mine included

Avebury stands in northern Wiltshire, not many miles from Stonehenge, is a

contemporary of the Giza pyramids at the venerable age of c4,500 years, and is one of the
largest stone circles in the world, easily dwarfing its smaller and more famous cousin.
The village is open to visitors year round, and unlike the enticing, but fenced off
splendour of Stonehenge, you can actually walk among the stones and touch them. The
village is probably best seen in the summer light, though is still delightful, if a touch
windier, in the colder months and quite something in the snow; bring a warm coat and
wellies!

In summer, you will most probably find yourself sharing the site with tourists equipped
with digital cameras, parents dragging less than inspired children in tow while absorbed
in their gameboys, and a number of sheep, who keep the grass tamed and add a certain
woolly charm to the scene. From time to time, you may also come across a gathering of
robed figures conducting pagan ceremonies around one of the stones. They consider
Avebury a living temple, bequeathed to them by their forebears and the local vicar has
even been known to drop in and chat with them.

I first visited Avebury at the tender age of 9 and was in awe at seeing a village built
among mysterious and colossal stones. How lucky are people to live here? I thought; it
was certainly an improvement on my semi detached home in Haywards Heath, a Sussex
commuter town! I had also been fortunate enough to explore Stonehenge earlier that day
(in the 70s you could still go right inside, so close you could read the disgusting graffiti
etched on the timeless monoliths) and at both sites, I was struck with a powerful curiosity
about the strange ambitions of our forebears.

This was at a time when I was just starting to become aware of history and the idea that
our ancestors had experience the world, thought and acted very differently from the
adults I knew, who went off to the office by day and settled down to TV programmes
such as Nationwide, The Good Life and Fawlty Towers in the evenings.

Of course, I wanted to know who had created such a wonder, why they had done it and
what they had used it for. I barraged my father, Patrick, with questions, but though he
bravely speculated about a feeling these people might have had for the earth, its qualities
and a certain power the stones might have had for them, he didn’t have any firm answers.

Then again, neither do any of the legions of university experts and more esoteric
speculators truly understand what lay in those ancient preliterate minds, or why they
would spend – assuming they did not have access to unknown technologies - an estimated
1.5 million man hours shaping and dragging stones of up to 60 tonnes to the site. Or

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Foreword to the Unfinished Novel, Lord’s Hayward’s Rose Kevin Anslow 2003

indeed, constructing around it what was originally a ditch 9m deep, rimmed by a rampart
7m high, and 1.3 kilometres in circumference. Like the myriad stalls and booths in the
Mind, Body and Spirit festival depicted in this book, theories about the unexplained
abound and everyone thinks their worldview has the answer; definite and sensible truths
are far harder to come by.

Like quite a few kids of my generation, I was also captivated by the excellent late 70s
HTV drama show Children of the Stones (available on DVD). This spun the yarn of a
scientist who visits the village to study the stones and finds himself dealing with sinister
goings on his callipers are little equipped to measure. Though my own novel is a
conventional romantic comedy, unlike that rather creepy, supernatural tale, I owe a
certain debt to the writers Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray and also the production team
and actors (including Gareth Thomas of Blakes Seven fame). They scared the life out of
me, true, but also thrilled and inspired me.

I should also thank the middle aged American lady, who I witnessed, standing with her
head bowed against the great Swindon stone at the northern end of the village, on a
stinking hot day in August 2003. I have no idea who she is, but the image of her standing
there in the heat - searching for something unseen in the massive monolith - wouldn’t
leave me alone in the weeks that followed: What was she looking for? What do the
locals residents think of people doing this sort of thing on their doorstep? What would
happen if these two very different sorts of people met and shared something in their
hearts while their attitudes to such mysteries remained quite unalike? Of simple
snapshots or impressions such as these, are far larger things born and writing is as much
about the unpredictable nature of the people you meet and the random things you
experience as anything your might pretend to control in your imagination.

For dramatic purposes, I have altered some parts of the Avebury landscape. Most notably
the real Avebury Manor is quite different from that you will find in these pages, and is in
no danger of falling down as far as I am aware, neither is the Church roof under threat.
You cannot stay at the New Manor hotel on a hill overlooking the village, unless you put
up a tent on some irate farmer’s land, though there are plenty of other hotels and B&Bs in
the area, whose proprietors, I’m sure, are always be happy to welcome visitors. There
hasn’t been a constable based in the village since the late 1950s and the Red Lion pub
does not have a beer garden, but like all pubs, has plenty of beer, and has guest rooms
itself. (It is also rumoured to have a ghost named Florrie, though she didn’t make it into
this story. I hope I don’t suffer any angry visitations as a result of this omission!).

Finally, Lord Algernon Hayward, grandfather of my heroine, Victoria Church-Hayward,

has also usurped the work of Scottish marmalade magnate, Alexander Keiller ‘The
Marmalade Man’. During the late 1930s, Keiller, who had purchased the henge in the
20s, used his personal fortune to resurrect the once buried stones to the positions they
occupy today.

Truthfully, Keiller and later the National Trust did destroy quite a few buildings that
would be listed and protected in our more enlightened times, and uprooted a number of

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Foreword to the Unfinished Novel, Lord’s Hayward’s Rose Kevin Anslow 2003

residents (something they fail to mention in their official guide to the site). Nevertheless,
the world owes both Keilor and the National Trust a great deal for giving us modern
types a taste of the achievements of those who came before us. And if they had not
righted the stones, Avebury would have been just a village with a rather odd ditch around
it, not so much visited probably, and I would never have seen that American lady with
her head bowed against the Swindon Stone and written this book.