Back to the city

Well, I've told you about going to the bushveldt. I was brought up in Glasgow but in the eddge of the suburbs where it was a child's walk to play at the Molindiner and I've always been happier in the country but it was too good to last - in two years we were back to Johannesburg and with our friends from our first posting. We rented a house at first with nice neighbours but unfortunately at the head of a T-junction and woke at night when it sounded as if someone was going to miss the turning and land up in our bedroom. We made friends with the neighbours and, of course, were back at the sailing club. After a few months we started to build our own house, a lovely bungalow at the head of  cul-de-sac, where we felt secure. I became involved in one or two clubs and enjoyed the social life but we were in the mining industry so ....

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Tin is where you find it

Yes, until SD was given the chance of running a tin mine. They say tin is where you find it, well, this was as fasr into the veldt as the copper mine had been, only it was in the bushveldt, all lush and green, with honey birds that hovered at the blossom. The company built pools for senior staff but water was scarce in the bush and we were given a barbeque instead, or maybe it was new carpets. We had a lovely time and met some really interesting people, The man next door was collecting the lead cover on wine bottles for a keel for a keelboat he intended to build so the social life was full of interest. We made friends and played tennis. There was a hotel on the property so I didn't have to do much catering and could just relax and join in the fun. SD insists on having a picture of me. For this, which us concerned with us nomading around, it should be one where we're busy packing or unpacking but he likes this one.

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New friends

As well as our friends, Johannesburg had good shops but with one thing and another we had to move again, out to the coal mines where Winston Churchill jumped on a train at Witbank - a strange name for a coal mining area full of burning dumps and underground fires in old mines sending sulphur fumes into the air. We lived in town for a while but then moved to a lovely house in the mine village. There were no old friends, so we just mucked in and made some new ones. I did a bit of catering while SD ran his mine and in no time we became part of the scene, until...

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Dad knows best

We stayed three years in Johannesburg but in that time we had two houses. The children changed school and our son was placed in the practical stream. I think I was more upset than SD, who, despite getting a degree had started in woodwork rather than Latin. He said woodwork taught him to finish things; until you had glued the pieces together a box was just a few scraps of timber. We went to see the headmaster and he told us his three boys were deliberately in the practical stream. The professionals he knew worked long hours and were never home; the fathers who drove their children to school in Mercedes cars were electricians and plumbers.  He got his boys together now and then and asked each one what he wanted to be. If the first said he thought maybe he'd like to be a lawyer, the headmaster  told him - You've been talking to Hymie again, what are you going to be? - A plumber Dad - And you? - A plumber Dad - And you? - A plumber Dad.
I found a picture that is the real mining South Africa not the Garden Route and thought I'd show it.

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Pack our bags and go.

After a couple of years in the South African wilderness, with the children in boarding school, we moved north to Rustenburg, green and fertile. The children adapted well to school and we had just settled in and I was enjoying a bit of golf when the price of platinum fell and all those who had trekked in on the boom, trekked out again. The mining business is always uncertain but that place was like traffic lights. Some had made those moves several times and the most far sighted businessman was an old employee who bought a removal van. We moved to Johannesburg, beds, books and cats. There was a bit of a silver lining because my manager's wife friend was also in Johannesburg and we had Christmas with them and their family, grannies, grandads, uncles and aunts under the trees at the side of the pool.

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Settling in semi desert

We left Kimberley in fairly good spirits but as we travelled along the dirt roads the trees disappeared, rather quickly, and the bushes became smaller and smaller and further apart. Inside the car it was hot and the windows were down for a bit but the dust, or at least it's smell got in .As we went along the children grew quiet and SD and I spoke less and less. We eventually got to the mine and SD dashed into the offices . He came out after a while and said we were to follow the manager who would put us up for the night. 'We're not living here the rest of us said. 'Let's get to his house and sleep on it,' he said. I couldn't believe the change when we walked into the manager's bungalow. His wife looked cool despite dealing with a baby. The furniture was pale blue and I could relax a bit. It didn't look so bad in the morning but, nevertheless, I was not amused. How did it turn out? We've been friends with the manager's family for more than forty years.

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These notes were supposed to explain why SD came to write Welcome to Oakhaven, the story how Elaine Jackson settled into the village. Well, we've got as far on the Dalton's travels and settling in to when we left for South Africa. Everyone thinks - Oh you go to South Africa as if it was going to Edinburgh or Cambridge or somewhere. It's not like that, the mines are dotted all over the place. The gold mines are fairly central around Johannesburg but even the diamond mines are out in the sticks at Kimberley. Kimberley would make a decent sized market town when we were there and the nearest thing north is Johannesburg more than four hours drive away. There's nothing west. There nothing south or east until you get to the coast and that takes at least eight hours. We finished up in the semi- desert three hours on dirt roads south west of Kimberley worrying about how our furniture and the cats would get there in one piece.

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Deep Freeze in Glasgow

After three enjoyable years in Aberdeen's suburbs the work SD had been contracted to do came to and end and we were once more on the move. This time back to Glasgow where I opened a deep freeze shop and SD tried to sell insurance. A more unlikely job, selling insurance against a rainy day, for someone who had grown up in the mining industry where they took risks every day was never likely to be a success. While the deep freeze shop did well and I gave talks to several groups about how to save money with a freezer, SD mooned around, writing magazine articles which, in some casses, would only be paid for in eighteen months. While we had made good friends, I began to realise he needed to get back to the rough and tumble of mining and talked him into looking around. With both mothers alive, Australia was too far, SD said the Canadian mines were too remote and he looked at Africa again. This time I was determined to take my bits and pieces with me, including those cats.

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More Murder at the seaside

Carrying on from Lorna being worried about being called as a witness i the Aberdeen murder case - Lorna and her husband had invited another couple for dinner. During the meal, Linda's husband George mentioned they had been invited to a party at a farm if they wanted to go. Since only Linda and George knew the way to the farm, and, in those days the men drove the ladies, they split up with Linda and her male guest in one car, George driving his lady guest in the other. Lorna got there first and was ushered into the house by the farmer. 'Can I take your things,' the farmer asked. Linda said no not yet, she was still a bit cold and followed into the big farm lounge. As she looked round, she realised everyone was naked. This may have been the swinging sixties for a few but most of  us still remembered our mother's warnings about free sex and unwanted pregnancies and those dreadful diseases and Lorna found herself talking twenty to the dozen and trying not to look at the drooping busts, stretch marks and sagging tummies on display. When George arrived, she pushed him out of the door and into the car. What worried her when she heard about the farmer being  murdered and the trial was that she might be called as a witness of some kind and it would all come out about her being at the nude party. They didn't need her but she lost a few pounds worrying about it.  I'm telling this to show how SD and I met interesting people and led to Welcome to Oakhaven being written.

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Murder at the Seaside

I'm going to start this from the beginning. SD had started sailing in Zambia and when we got to Aberdeen made straight for the yacht club at Stonehaven. I'd met a friend I'd known from youth club and tennis days and we used to make sandwiches and boiled eggs and go down to the harbour until our husbands came from work to join us. We noticed a small aeroplane dodging back and forward and thought it was odd but that was all. Then one day Linda came to our house all of a tizz asking oif I'd heard about the murder. It turned out the plane had been a farmer spying on his wife having an affair and the lovers had murdered the farmer. They put his body through the machine they used for chopping up turnips for the pigs - so the story went. What was worrying Linda was that she had been to a party at the farmers and might be called as some kind of character witness. It's too long a story for this blog but I'll tell you why next time.

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Aberdeen granite

I'd been told the Aberdeen people were like the granite - a bit hard to chip but we moved into a reanted house while we looked round for somewhere to buy, we had lovely neighbours and we settled in quickly. We found a lovely house in a suburb called Cults and the children started at the school up the hill. I said to SD, short for Sullatober Dalton as Sullatober was shortened to Sulla and he hated that. In Cults the houses were quite large and separated by walls so I didn't get to know any of the neighbours quickly and I said to SD that I would just talk to the girls picking up the children at the school. I was a little nervous of just forcing myself in but one of the girls, called Linda, came and asked if I was new and that was that. Linda introduced me to the others and I soon had a circle of friends. They did a stall at the church fete and I made door stops and draught stoppers in the shape of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout and that sort of thing. I must tell you about Linda and the murder next time.

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I started this to show how we had moved about but Welcome to Oakhaven is really about Elaine Jackson and I want to tell our story in Elice's words, so here goes - We came back from Zambia and, of course, SD had no job and started to panic a bit, not like him but this was his first taste of being unemployed. We were going to Canada, British Columbia, not that awful place in Ontario where the smelter fumes killed all the vegetation, and he thought of teaching until we'd sorted things out. He'd been earning £212 a month in Zambia but they only offered £600 a year to teach. Isn't it pathetic what they pay teachers and nurses when they are so important to our families! Then, just as I'd had enough of staying like a lodger with one or other of our mothers, he was offered a job in Aberdeen and we were off again,

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Auctions leaving Zambia

When we returned from leave, we noticed a change. People were nervous and friends were leaving. There was a riot in Kitwe and Elice felt it wasn't right to raise the children in that kind of atmosphere.
We left our bits and pieces to be sold at auction by a man called Jo Jackson. There were frequent auctions at the time and one day Jo was selling a cruet set. Remember this was in the mid sixties  and prices were rather different. The bidding went up from two shillings and sixpence to five shillings to a pound. When it got to two pounds ten shillings, Jo stopped the bidding. 'Are you all mad?' he asked. 'You can buy these down town for fifteen shillings, who will offer me five?' Someone put their hand up and Jo shouted 'I'll take it. I'm not going through that again.'
Leaving turned us back into nomads and we returned from the sunny bushveld of Zambia to Glasgow, planning to go to Canada, where I had spent six months between third and final year university.

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David Banda

This was intended to show how we moved around but I just want to tell one last thing about David Banda. I took leave to join the family in UK and arranged for a pal to feed the dog. David, having second sight called round - just in case and found the dog hadn't been fed or watered. The floors were concrete so he opened the garden hose and put water through the gap under the back door to give the dog a drink, then found my old university friend. Between them forced the back door and fed the dog. Now the house was open, David brought his bedding and slept there until we came back.

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Bachelor life

With Elice overseas David Banda took over as housekeeper. Some said he was a Sangoma and thatr's why people came to consult. I don't know but it didn't matter when I came in from work, whether I came straight home, whether I dropped in to visit a friend or had a beer in the club on the way home, the potatoes were just boiled and David was taking a meal from the oven. I was so intrigued that once or twice I delayed deliberately but the meal was just coming out of the oven no matter what I did. I had an Irish granny who read tea leaves in the bottom of cups for people but that was a joke, David Banda was a professional.
While Elice is away, I thought it would be good to show what it was like in a big copper mine compared to crawling in thirty six inches in a Scottish coal mine.

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Tripoli landing

Oakhaven, Zambia, Tripoli, Ndola, There was a family emergency at home and Elice managed to get seats for herself and the children. The flight was supposed to get off in the morning from Ndola but on the way out it had been loaded with aircraft spares for the RAF, who were in Zambia after UDI in Rhodesia. To get the spares on the seats had been pushed to the back and had to be put back after the spares were off-loaded. I waited with them but there was word that the were boarding and I went off. The word was a rumour and it was late evening by the time they took off. The charter landed at Nairobi, then made for Tripoli. By the time they got there, the toilets were full and the passengers rushed off into the humid heat to relieve themselves to find the tripoli toilets dirty, smelly and blocked and they all decided to wait until they were back on the plane. Thirty minutes after they took off again, the toilets were full until they got to London in a snow storm. Luckily Elice had taken warm clothes. Some others had thin blouses and skirts and Elice gave out some of what she had. The snow had affected flights and the charter bookings were delayed. Elice, always one for action, booked a sleeper and left the airport.

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Zambia was still rather colonial at that time, one put on a suit and tie, if not a dinner jacket, and the ladies wore long elegant dresses to the cinema. All the Scots had kilts and wore them on every possible occasion. There was gossip, lots of gossip and the first thing anyone was asked was their address, which told where their husband fitted into the mine hierarchy. One chap was given a half promotion and didn't qualify for the next grade of house but the mine felt his promotion needed to be recognised and put in a serving hatch between the kitchen and dining room. They held a celebratory dinner for the hatch but now the hostess had to get up and take the plates from her side of the hatch instead of sitting chatting with her guests while the cook served. It didn't catch on!

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We joined the sailing club at the mine dam, a real expanse of water formed by the mud from the plant to let it settle and allow the water to evaporate, or be reclaimed. It was an open air activity for us all. I bought a half share in a dinghy and started racing. I had to get a crew as Elice refused to get into such an unstable boat. Which was just as well because we capsized so much that it became referred to as a Scottish jibe. It was a good place to go as the children could run around with other children and get cool drinks and the women could have a good chat. It was also a good way to get to know people in what was, for us, a strange community and more experience for writing about the people in Oakhaven. 

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Eve's pudding in Zambia

David Banda had started and proved his worth but Elice was unsure about letting him cook for us - he was a man after all!!  We had to go shopping in Kitwe, a good hour's drive away. I was on afternoon shift and needed to eat before I went out, so she decided to let him do a roast, which she prepared and put in the oven, telling him when to turn on the oven. She worried all the time we were away but when we got back David was taking the roast, surrounded by roast potatoes, with vegetables just cooking and and putting an Eve's pudding in the oven. We were rather embarrassed at our lack of faith but enjoyed a really good meal. Another lesson on going to new places.

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Oakhaven - Choosing servants in Zambia

With the heat in the early forties it became obvious we needed someone to get the housework done in the cool of the morning. My wife, Elice, had plenty of colonial advice - don't get one who speaks good English, they're con men and will steal you blind - don't get one who is well dressed, especailly if they have a briefcase, they will be crooks - don't get one who is scruffy, they won't wash and clean properly. I came home from work one day to find her worried. 'A chap came who spoke good English and was smartly dressed and had a letter case with his references in it and I've asked him to start work tomorrow. I hope I haven't made a mistake,' she told me. His name was David Banda and he was from Malawi and we couldn't have had a better helper and friend. People would drop by to talk to him and, in the end, we discovered he wrote letters and gave consultations on marriage and other issues. He had been working for the Chief Constable before he came to us and, like many of the Zambians I worked with, was as straight and honest as the day was long. Another experience of settling in, like Mrs Jackson in Oakhaven.

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Mufulira and now Zambia, and the first priority was a car. A colleague took me to the garage and I saw an Opal that would fit our bill but what about down payment? Jimmy, the salesman asked me what my mine number was and when I told him, he said I could drive the car off for £5 deposit. When I looked incredulous, he explained that if I resigned, the mine would let him know and the cops would pick me up at the border. No problem. We bought furniture on the same basis and went to the club for a swim in the pool and a drink. I was at work when a man stopped my wife and asked if she was Mrs Dalton. It turned out we had been at university together and he was married with a daughter the same age as ours. We had been going to the dances in the club but found it got a bit rough later when the drink got a good grip and were relieved to find there was another side to colonial life. We moved to a more permanent home and our neighbours were Afrikaans. We couldn't have found better because the wife explained how to cook squash and what to do with avocado pears, which grew on trees there. It was a devilish hot time of year and we decided we needed a servant to get the housework done in the cooler morning hours and were given all kinds of advice on servants.
The picture shows the shops where my wife met my friend. I only wish it was n colour as it was baking hot near midday

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Nomads - After the letter came with the job offer in the Zambian copper belt, the first thing we had to do was decide which of our treasures we would take. Should we take our cats, for instance? My friend insisted we should take NOTHING!! With much trepidation, the whole household went into store; beds, bookcases and cats. We flew in one of the first VC10 flights landed at Entebbe at mid-day in sweltering heat, before going on to Ndola and being picked up by a rather bored personnel chap. Maybe we asked too many stupid questions, like 'Do you see many lions?' After an hour or so, we arrived in Mufulira and he dropped us at our temporary home, pointed and told us the shops were just over there. We met several other new arrivals and managed to sort things out after a fashion and arrange to buy a car - so that I could go to work and leave my wife and the two young children to cope with this new environment. That was our first arrival in a small community and the first episode that would lead to the book, Welcome to Oakhaven.

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My friend's return from Africa caused a bit of a stir and while I waited to see if my application for an interview would be successful, I discovered several others had been infected by the same bug and we had a bit of a get together with one or two. My wife acted as hostess for the evening and naturally there was food. I don't have any pictures of those meals but I do have a picture of a much later one in the course of preparation; that Cordon Bleu course at the Glasgow College really paid dividends in the quality of food I was treated to. To get pictures of what happened next I will have to raid the old portmanteau and scan a few snaps. This exercise is changing from an off-the-cuff reminisce into a bit of a project. Still, one does one's best.

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My old colleague and his wife came for dinner and, of course, my wife laid on one of her Cordon Bleu meals, one suitable for colonials on leave from Africa's Copper Belt. My friend was full of his experience and I was enjoying his company but his gas light was put on a peep and he and I were silenced when my wife started to ask questions about the price of bread and butter and eggs and milk and were toilet paper and things women needed once a month available. I had thought it would be just a pleasant evening but realised there was a second agenda and started to ask about his job underground. You don't crawl around for a start, he told me, the ore bodies are massive and you can stand up everywhere. It sounded attractive, especially as work in Method Study, which should need imagination had become routine (I was to discover that all big organisations turn things that nee imagination into routine so that they can control the things that should be uncontrolled lateral thinking). We were late in bed and next day I was writing to the mining houses asking about employment in Northern Rhodesia, which would shortly become Zambia and we were off like gypsies.

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On the notice announcing the village's presence someone had scrawled Welcome to Dodge City in recognition of its raw and sometimes noisy character. Not all raw and noisy villages or towns were in mining areas but I discovered some part of every mining town is like that.Nevertheless we had good neighbours and pleasant surroundings and another baby. There were children of the same gae round the doors and I thought we were settled, well, settling, anyway, but then an old colleague came back from Northern Rhodesia on leave and it all changed.

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The reason we'd been given a three bedroom house was that the mines in the area were closing in 1958 and when we'd settled down and I had been a junior official in the mine for a year we had a good look at things. My wife agreed it was time we moved and I went to the Stirling area and another house in a village. This time the house was at the end of a block with the bedrooms upstairs. The stairway was papered in black wall paper and that had to be changed, followed by each room in turn. The neighbours were kind and helped and we soon made friends. I was allowed to go to play badminton one evening a week with my neighbour on condition that the ladies had a night out at the cinema themselves while we baby sat. The new spring blossom in the picture reminds me of my wife, bright without being garish, delicate without being brittle yet full of life.

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New experiences

Experience in New Communities - All of this Cordon Blue entertainment was new to me and the village but my wife took to it like gin to tonic. In some ways it meant we were different and added to the way many of the locals felt towards me with my university degree. It seems ludicrous that we were able to live comfortably on a salary- I was paid monthly - of £635 a year and dreamed of getting the £1000 a year when my training was over. That £1000 a year came just as our first child, a girl, was born in the cottage hospital and triggered a flood of visitors. Our friend over the back had a girl about the same time and baby sitters were needed when the mining officials (we were both working at the same mine) got together for a dinner dance about ten miles away. Not a hop, a proper dinner dance with long elegant dresses and black tie, waltzes, quicksteps, tangos and the odd eightsome reel. But this was the early sixties and the mines were closing.

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My wife's father died when she was sixteen and his place had been taken by an uncle. Her uncle had visited the village regularly on a bicycle when he was a lad and had visited at least once a year when he grew up and had a car, which was why my wife had visited in the first place. It meant we had a string of visitors, who expected to be fed as if they were staying at the Buchanan Arms hotel. It also meant we were supplied with roasts and joints and the odd bottle of whiskey in case we could not afford that level of luxury. It also meant my new wife had to cook according to the culinary standards she had been taught at her Cordon Blue course at Glasgow's Domestic Science College. We didn't realise it but, in our own way, each of us was being prepared for the nomadic life of senior management in the mining industry and the writing of the Oakhaven stories.

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When we moved into the house, the girls my wife had kept company with in her visits to the village during her school years had all gone, one was an air hostess, another a teacher somewhere else and others finding jobs where they could. A dying mining village like the fictional Cairndhu may have an idyllic setting but it has no work opportunities. Fortunately, an old friend from university had moved into a house across the back gardens and the girls became friends. Neither had been in the village over Hogmanay and when it came New Year's Eve, they were introduced to a different culture. We had a party until after the bells but the friends who had been with us until then slipped off to visit and first foot here and there and were replaced by people even I hardly knew but had seen the light on, met departing friends, and decided it would be nice to welcome the new bride with a dram. About three in the morning, exhaustion set in and we put out the light as the last visitor stumbled down the steep stairs

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I thought I must establish on what authority I can write about someone joining a new community. My wife was the real expert, people were forced to meet me at work. Before we were married, the small mines around the village I was brought up in were closing and there were empty houses. As she knew the village well, in fact, despite living in Glasgow, her family had enjoyed connections with it for three generations and she was happy to settle there. The house we were offered was one of four flats in a block, two upstairs, two at ground level, clad with steel and insulated with glass fibre. It had three bedrooms, a front lounge, a kitchen and bathroom. I think there was a clothes boiler of some sort in the kitchen but it was taken away before we moved in. Our family didn't employ workmen  so we tackled the redecorating ourselves. The only part we didn't redecorate was the high stair. In those days, even the painter used flour and water paste to wallpaper and to get it off, all one did was to splash plenty of water on it, wait ten minutes and scrape it off in big chunks.  The papering was inspected by cousins and uncles, to make sure it was straight and the patterns matched. They needn't have bothered, if it hadn't, my fiancee would have made me do it again but that was her introduction to the family.

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I've been suffering with the cold and couldn't raise the energy to do more than boil an egg and I'm going to divert for a moment to announce that Bees in my Bonnet has been published on Amazon as both paperback and ebook. The first story could have been set in Oakhaven so the diversion is not unjustified. The stories were in my files but it's been hard work to get them into shape for publishing and I now know what they mean when they say editing and proofing are the hard part of writing.

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All right, Elaine will lead the story and it will open with a discussion on a dinner party for the inspecting colonel. If there are too many names on the first few pages it will be confusing but I think I can get round that by having Elaine talk to the people who are on the buest list. I just have to be careful she doesn't repeat herself as she talks to each invitee about the reason for the dinner party. It could be a way to show different aspects of the need for the sergeant and his wife to become permanent housekeepers. I'd imagined a big party but in order to avoid too many names it will
l be better to limit the guest list but the doctor must be there and maybe pippa the craft girl.
It still amazes me that this wall hanging is made from nothing more than flour and water, painted and varnished, of course, but still flour and water.

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Oakhaven has a vague story line but it has no village character who will dominate. The story really is about the village and how it reacts to new houses and the rehabilitating soldier families. I had thought of having the sergeant and his wife, who will be in charge of the manor house as the main people but they are not the village. The one person who will be involved in everything in some way is Elaine, nee Jackson, now Colonel Cunninghame's wife. It is her cottage that the builders will use and build on, it is her old mansion that she and the colonel will renovate and it is her husband's manor house. In Ducks, Elaine took a bit of a back seat but she must now come out of her comfort zone and face certain challenges, including Mrs Boniface's interference. I like this better. It has a heroine.
The picture is how I imagine the back entrance to the manor house would have looked. It is now in disrepair and will need attention but could become flats

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Oakhaven entrance

I always like to have a clear picture of what I'm describing. Nothing is better than a picture and this is what I imagine the entrance to the Oakhaven manor house would be like. When Mrs Boniface was walking up the drive for a visit and had to jump in a rather unladylike manor to avoid being splashed by the man from conservation there were puddles on the drive but they have cleared up for the photograph.

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Flour and water

I mentioned I had seen some wall hangings that could fit in with pippa working in Oakhaven but didn't have the pictures. Luckily the lady who does them brought them to the market on Friday and I was able to get some images. They are made with flour paste but the paste mst be thick to make suck intricate models.

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Just as I'm thinking I must go with what I've got , something turns up. I was at the local Country Market with the two paperbacks when I noticed some small wall plaques and asked how they were made. It turns out the lady mixes flour and water into a paste. models it, puts the 'model' into the oven at about 100 degrees F and lets them dry. She then paints them and coats them with varnish, or the other way round but they looked great! Just the kind of thing for Pippa to teach the soldiers families, messy but fun. In this dull weather, I thought a nice sunny picture would be nice.

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The poetry readings are new and it is always a temptation to strive for another new experience for the inhabitants but there are things in past books that can be developed. The pony trekking might be one that could be expanded but how? We've had lost boys, a storm and finding a portable shepherd's hut. Unless there is a rodeo it is hard to see what is left. There are ducks and chickens that might be infected with bird flu'. Maybe there is mileage in restoring the old mill . It could be used as therapy for some of the families. I mustn't forget that young Godolphin is a passable artist. Could he paint Mrs Boniface's portrait? What will it look like? Modern art maybe?   

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Poetry readings

Oakhaven is a village with little nooks all over, which give it places to explore for newcomers like the children of the soldiers. It also provides places for budding poets to contemplate and be encouraged by Mrs Boniface. We can have a kind of poetry reading by locals and people from the soldiers families. Some of the poetry will be unintelligible, either due to the soldiers mental condition or just people trying to be literary. It could be held in the community hall and be catered by Spook's daughter and young Godolphin, who is becoming a decent chef.

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The first, trial batch of soldiers included a sniper but he was only partly recovered when the story ended and he will still be around. The new batch will be husbands and wives and some children. The families will be mostly young, up to ten or twelve and going to school and this will cause disruption among the locals. Maybe we can organise some kind of show or play to get them together. Naturally there will be a bully but one that sucks up to Mrs Boniface, which will add to the problem of sorting it out.

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We've had floods and unexploded bombs in Oakhaven but there must be something we can introduce to give focus and give Mrs Boniface something to champion. The new houses will take up some of her attention but they will take mabe a year to start to fill with people. Maybe one or more of the soldiers could come with an infection that starts an epidemic in the village. Nothing too serious, something the doctors is under pressure over but will cope with but which Mrs Boniface exaggerate out of proportion. It will need researching but so do most things that are worth while.

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Renovations designs

All right, the subjects, or at least some of them, for discussion at the dinner party have been set out in general terms. Further down the line the renovation of Bramble House will have to be addressed. It has a sloping garden behind it, which has been terraced and in which they found a rare orchid, which Mrs Boniface at first declared to be no more than some kind of crocus. Inside there was a roman mosaic and that could be moved, if it can be moved to the entrance hall and set in the wall as a feature. The stair has rotted long ago, as have the window frames and the roof trusses. First it will have to be made watertight as any of the Grand Designs programmes will tell you. Elaine's son-in-law is and architect and can be consulted but there are many others who want to dictate how the renovations should be done. not only the renovations but the garden as well. Mrs Boniface will be horrified if  Pippa is allowed to have more say than herself and particularly concerned in case an ugly and garish sign board is put up announcing the place to be a B&B and encourage the rougher sort of tourists with caravans to stop over.

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In order to get the conversation right, I need to think about what will come out of the dinner party. Bull Runn has a vested interest in more houses in Oakhaven but Mrs Boniface is concerned about the 'quality' of the newcomers, so while she is taken with Bull's Southern charm, his attitude to more people is disturbing. There is also the question of where he will put up this Garden centre and she will have strong ideas about it spoiling the village ambiance and its reputation as a place of great natural beauty
. The new colonel will ask some searching questions but in the end congratulate the sergeant and his wife and recommend they become permanent. The doctor will become more supportive and involved with the idea of the family rehab centre. There will be some discussion about the old ruin and Elaine's ideas about it's renovation. A full agenda as there is also the young ones working in the background with Spook's wife. Bull will find a friend in the poacher.

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Southern Charm

As they are organising the dinner party, Bull Runn arrives to talk about starting a garden centre with crafts and using the manor house gardens to grow seedlings for the garden centre. He comes because Miss Kirkwood at Cairndhu told him about the place and Pippa, her niece, doing crafts. Miss Boniface is put off Bull - his is American after all but then he uses his Southern Charm and wants to call her Miss ? She must have a first name after all and she must have met some Americans during the war. Is there a dark secret there maybe?

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Oakhaven sequel - At the dinner party, no, even before, Mrs Boniface will want to meet this new colonel. Discovering he served in Germany, she will naturally tell about visiting Herr Mann's schloss. It will have grown from her first report to her friends from nothing more than a house to a fairy tale castle. Mrs Boniface will become rather uncomfortable when it turns out that the new colonel knows Germany rather well, including the area where Herr Mann has his schloss. I like that.www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/welcome-oakhaven

On the guest list we need to have the people who will become involved in the main incidents in this story. Colonel Cunninghame, he owns the manor house, and of course Elaine Jackson, who will be hi hostess. Mrs Boniface, the visiting colonel will need a partner of sufficient social status and Mrs Boniface will insist on her place. The good doctor will be there and we might have Cassie to stir things up and annoy Mrs Boniface. The vicar will be the chaplain and must bring her husband. Who else do we need? The craft girl but does she need a partner? Her boyfriend was one of the original batch of soldiers who found the unexploded bomb but do we need him? Maybe not. There is the opera girl who was the corporal's girlfriend and was disruptive. Worth thinking about!
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For the dinner party, we can invite a colonel who will come to inspect the idea of using Oakhaven for rest and recuperation for troops. It doesn't have medical facilities or rehab. units but it might work for re-establishing family ties. That will put pressure on the sergeant and his wife. If they can show the idea would work, they might be left in charge. The ladies plan a high class dinner but Colonel Cunninghame intervenes and insist the food is what they would provide for the troops. What they will make is soup, steak pie and rice pudding. Mrs Boniface finds it abhorrent but Cunninghame is adamant.

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One of the main themes in this latest Oakhaven book will be the effect the new people who move in to the newly built houses will have on the community. I've heard it said, by newcomers, that it its they that create the community identity. They come with different outlooks and back grounds and that modifies the village psyche but they must also adapt to living in the village and having Mrs Boniface as one of their leaders encouraging them to intellectual interests. A village is, of course, a living organism, adapting and changing all the time. First, we need a guest list for this dinner party.
Sullatober Dalton
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Oakhaven characters

Oakhaven characters; The dinner party  will lay out the dramatic questions but maybe I can lead in by interviewing each of the main characters. Elaine is in love with Colonel Gordon Cunninghame but finds him annoying at times, especially over the details of their alterations to Bramble House. After all, she sold her cottage to allow the developer to build on the grounds, which saved the manor house from being taken over by the developer. In fact the colonel has no real opinions about the renovation and would rather she involved her son-in-law, Henry, who is, after all, an architect. He finds it tiring to listen to all the possible ways of doing things. All he is concerned about is that she is happy.
Mrs Boniface would very much like to know what Elaine plans as she has some excellent ideas about what could be achieved and is working up to confronting Elaine and reminding her that it is a community asset and she, as the intellectual leader of the community, should be consulted.

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