Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
Sitting down in front of a screen to write a book can be quite daunting. It’s not that I don’t want to write, it’s my favourite occupation, but a whole book seems to take me on a challenging journey.
My first three books have all been a type of memoir. Not a complete insight into my life, but snatches I hope make interesting reading. They’re illustrations of the ups and downs of life with horses and farming in the Cotswolds. We started our farming life with the gift of a Black Welsh Mountain ram who terrorised the village. It was a neighbour’s suggestion that we find him some ewes to keep him off the streets that really offered the start to our farming journey. From then on, following our adventures around Europe, all instigated by sheep, we advanced to a more commercial type of sheep, having found a loving home for our initial flock of black sheep and then pedigree Texel sheep.
I think that’s the thing about a memoir, the boring everyday stuff can be left out. You don’t even have to start at the beginning of your life, you can simply pick a time when something you did just might interest others, and often it will. I recently read a book about someone who worked behind the scenes on film sets. Not anyone well known, but their book was a well-written revelation of background activity and covered topics that were completely new to me. Something like this opens up new worlds you’ve never had reason to touch on before. I hope just one of my readers has felt the same about my books.
When writing my latest book, Sheep for a Reason (which illustrates how sheep helped finance England, particularly the Cotswolds, through the Middle Ages), the historical research added a further dimension. Based in south Cotswolds, the history is on my doorstep. Being able to admire the churches and manor houses found throughout the area and study the financial records of churches and monasteries were the best ways to ascertain the truth in some of the historical records. Inscriptions on tombstones and monuments showing statues of men and women with their feet resting on a sheep or a wool sack helped illustrate where people’s wealth came from.
Not only is the wealth gained from wool noted in churchyards, but in the lives of lesser mortals connected with sheep. In our own St Andrews Church in Miserden, there’s the tomb of Samuel Horrell, a shepherd who died in 1807, which can be found to the right of the path just before the yew arch. The inscription, although well worn, can still be read…
“From youth through life the sheep was all his care
And harmless as the Flock his manners were
On earth he held the faith to Christians given
In hope to join the fold of Christ in heaven.”
We’ve been granted the wonderful legacy of mills and wool markets, manor houses, and weavers’ cottages from the times when wool was the main source of income for the country. Some of these are in areas famous for sheep such as Bibury, Northleach, and Chipping Campden, but there are still some very stately manor houses built on the wealth of wool in less well-known places such as Painswick and Bisley. In fact, all around the Stroud area, cloth production was at the forefront. Lodgemore Mill is now the only mill remaining in Stroud and makes cloth for professional billiard tables and Wimbledon tennis balls. Sadly, though, it no longer uses British wool.
Information for any book you don’t have sufficient knowledge of can sometimes prove difficult to research. At the front of my latest book, I quote one of my history teachers, because what he said became so apparent to me when doing my own research.
He told us: “I will be teaching you history from acknowledged books written about the period we will cover. None of these books were written by people who witnessed medieval battles, the beheading of queens, or riots during the Industrial Revolution, but all have written with authority on these subjects. Never stop questioning their authenticity!”
This may not be word for word, it was a long time ago, but I soon came to realise the truth in the statement. Often, written declarations found, read, and absorbed are then denied by other texts, or questioned by later historians and found not to be feasible.
There’s so much information available these days that it became very easy to bury myself in research, however some amusing questions were posed. How did sheep save Richard the Lionheart when he was captured on his return from the Crusades? Had Richard III won the Battle of Bosworth, would we now be ruled by a descendent of a fleece merchant? How were sheep responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people in the Middle Ages?
Sheep for a Reason combines the answers to these ‘Horrible History’ questions and much more, along with the ongoing general chaos of life on a Cotswold family farm… The highs and lows of lambing, ‘cowboys’ capturing runaway pigs, and even finding a sheep in a tree. The incessant stress of the weather, and how mental health can be both damaged and repaired in a farming environment. What it really means to be a farmer and a farmer’s wife.
I hope those who choose to read my latest book find some of the historical subjects as fascinating as I did and enjoy catching up with farming life.
Are you feeling creative? We are proud to have a hugely talented community on Rest Less, which is why we’re so excited to open up a section of the site dedicated to showcasing the wonderful and diverse writing of our members. If you have a piece of creative writing that you’d like to share with the Rest Less community – you can do so here.