I’D always wanted to write about my experiences in a rural village at the time of the Second World War; free to roam the open countryside without a care whilst all around me the adults prepared for invasion. Problem was I couldn’t think of any way into it. Until I remembered Jimmy the Saint. In days gone by, so we were told, he’d stand by his gate regaling passers-by with his tales. The name stuck in my mind. But how had he come by it and what were these tales?

Then, visiting Wickham one Sunday, I caught the peal of bells from St Nicholas’. In earshot of Jimmy’s cottage I realized, and suddenly it came to me. What if Jimmy was a bell-ringer? And supposing each of the bells had a different name: Sidesman, Curate, Parson, Bishop, Cardinal and Saint, let’s say. In an instance I had not only the setting but the characters for my book:

Sidesman was rung by Danny Earl, local handyman a wizard with all things electric and a ham radio buff; Curate was the responsibility of Thomas Carter, local fishmonger who sang baritone in the church choir. Alfred Thomas hauled on Parson’s rope when not pulling pints for the regulars down at the Jugged Hare; Joe Wickbourne – farrier par excellence – took charge of Cardinal, which left Bishop and Saint in the hands of Jimmy and the Squire respectively.

As for Jimmy’s stories, so popular with the children, how about those I myself had been told as a child, some of which are included in earlier articles?

Fine, but setting, a series of stock characters and a collection of tales do not make a book. How could I weave all this into a plot? Come to think of it, there was no bell-ringing during the war, so just what were Jimmy and his mates doing each week, up there in the belfry? And some of the local folk tales I’d put Jimmy’s mouth were pretty grim: about the grampus and devil-screecher, for instance; monsters that dwelt in the nearby wood. From the next village came tales of the cockatrice, a fearsome creature, half cockrill, half dragon, that turned one to stone at a glance. Could Jimmy have had a motive in keeping the children away from that part of the village? Was this somehow connected with the campanologists’ activities? So let’s have one of the youngsters, Peter, return to the village as an adult determined to discover the truth. Encountering more than he’d bargained for. The plot was taking on a life of its own. One – according to the publishers’ blurb – full of “unexpected twists and darkly sinister undertones”.

Now I was beginning to get the hang of it. The woodlands which Jimmy was anxious the children should not explore were modelled on the Forest of Bere, far more extensive and accessible in the 1940s than they are today and providing the name for the village itself, not Wickham, but Beredene (pronounced Bher-a-den). Bell-ringers Danny, Tom, Alf, Joe and the Squire are all fictitious characters, but the local vicar, whose high-pitched chanting of “the peace of God” sounded more like “a piece of cod” – hence “Codpiece”, the nick-name we gave him - was imported from the boarding school I attended. The voluptuous, red-headed character from Peter’s past around which much of the plot revolves is, in fact, an interpreter I met, just the once, in Finland. The lovable old school teacher none other than my mother. For the villain of the piece I delighted in taking revenge on the corporal who made our lives a misery during National Service.

The book was almost completed when the final piece fell into place. Many of the stories that accompanied my wartime childhood concerned the Jutes, who swarmed across the seas along with the Angles and Saxons before settling in south Hampshire. Stories of these people also featured in Jimmy’s repertoire, told at a time when bridges were being destroyed, signposts removed and tank traps prepared in readiness for another - very real - 20th century invasion. A theme was emerging which ran throughout the book, linking past with present and supplying the title, Chorus Endings. Not a strong choice; it hardly describes the content. But it did lead me to the discovery of a superb tag, a quote from Kierkegaard – the Danish philosopher – which appeared on the cover - You live your life forwards; understand it backwards – summing up precisely what the book is all about.

Writing about what you know proved merely the beginning; taking this a stage further, into the realms of “What is?”, “How come?”, “Why not?”, “Where now?” the important part. And one way of writing a novel.

  • For details of David Warwick’s novel Chorus Endings contact dww019@gmail.com