Seven Stories - and other Northern inspirations

1...of rain and racing

A downpour pocks on the gravelly concrete slabs of Elvington Airfield. Arias from the Ferraris and Lamborghinis belt out over the generators and thrumming marquees. I smell the testosterone over the chargrills. Did a Brylcreem Boy in the old control tower watch the Hamster's crash or Stephen's jaunt in an Aston Martin?

2 Stone circle at Stoke Flatt

On Frogatt Edge, gritstone frowns over rumpled Derbyshire. Climbers' carabiners jangle and cottongrass bobs like rabbit scuts over the peatbrown bogs. In a wiry huddle of birch trees I find a small stone circle carpeted with green tussocks. Old bracken like bad thatch besieges it. I smell the campfire, the rocks for backrests. The branch-built stockade digs into Bronze Age ribs.One stone stands taller - the story teller's place.

3 Lastingham - ancient crypt and carvings

Four saintly brothers settled in some high and remote hills says The Venerable Bede.Sculptured stone and candles shimmer in this thin and holy place. Who was the Viking buried beneath the hogsback tomb? And what of the Curate, his Violin and The Blacksmith's Arms?

4 Falling Foss

If you cannot find a story sung by the cascading waters, or whispered in the Hermitage hewn from a single rock; if there are none buried in the shale-backed cave, then clamber up and sit in the wishing chairs.Or try Midge Hall. Tea and cake should do it.


5 Azaleas and Knights Templar

Temple Newsam with my dear old dad. The scent of yellow azaleas pinches at my nose with nostalgia. Christopher's face when he saw the Steam Rally - eyes stretched wide to pull the spectacle in, too happy to smile.

We swirl sagging icecream dangling in swags from our cornets in the Stable Courtyard. I read servants lived in the 'Dark Rooms' above. What did they see, what did they hear from those small square windows?

6 Alnwick Castle

When would you light a lantern spikier than a verdigris dragon? What would you chain up to wyvern shaped rings? I wonder at the lion on the bridge with an antenna for a tail; and the rocklobbers -oversized statues ready to chuck boulders from the ramparts. They have cousins on York's City Walls. There are caged plants in the Poison Garden, little gates in little keeps for hobs and starsprinkled pavements. I come upon a boat of candles and books abandoned in a twilit wood.


7 A Piratical Pairing
A buccaneering bride and potent punch all by the sea at St. Abbs. Plastic parrots and skull-and-crossbones bunting beat limp roses anyday. Cute little corsairs rampage amongst the wenches and curly wigged captains - two policemen arrive astonished.
Beneath the waves dead men's fingers, fangtoothed wolf fish and brittle stars congregate. The night sky rains fireworks and lanterns. 
 
And I haven't even got to Seven Stories yet!
A former flourmill with a licence to moor ships of dreams. Children's drawings - a zombie scarecrow in a medieval frame, a five eyed purple flying space-elephant creature ( with a timid alien tucked inside) - demand the tale to be told. The roaring shark beast and the bubble blowing mermaid peek at me through portholes and future authors' work is trapped in Perspex boxes.

A breath of Northern air and my notebook bulges with bits - please help yourself.