‘Brook,’ Betty said.
‘Whatever.’ Robin unpacked the box. Mostly, it seemed to be photocopies, the top one evidently from some official list of historic buildings.
CHURCH OF ST MICHAEL, OLD HINDWELL.
Ruins of former parish church. Mainly C13 and C14, with later south porch and chancel. Embattled three-stage tower of late C14, rubble-construction with diagonal buttresses to north-west and south-west...
And so on. There were a couple more pages of this stuff, which Robin put aside for further study.
‘Like you said, looks like the Major built up a fairly comprehensive background file.’
He turned up some sale particulars similar to the one he and Betty had received. Same agent – and same wording, give or take.
‘A characterful, historic farmhouse with outbuildings and the picturesque ruins of a parish church, in a most unusual location...’
All true enough, as far as it went. Next, Robin found several pages ripped out of a spiral-bound notebook and bunched together with a bulldog clip. There was handwriting on them, not too intelligible, and a string of phone numbers.
‘What’s this?’
‘Don’t know. Couldn’t make it out. There’s all kinds of junk in there. Mrs Wilshire told me to take it anyway. I think she just wanted to get rid of as much as she could. Right, there you are... that’s the start of it.’
He lifted out a news cutting pasted to a piece of A4. The item was small and faded. ‘Rector Resigns due to Ill Health.’
It said little more than that the Reverend Terence Penney had given up the living of Old Hindwell and had left the area. A replacement was being sought.
‘When was this?’ A date had been scrawled across the newsprint but he couldn’t make it out.
‘Nineteen seventy-seven.’
‘That late? You mean the Old Hindwell church was still operational until seventy-seven?’
‘’seventy-eight, actually.’
‘Why did I have it in mind it must have been abandoned back in the thirties or forties?’
‘Because you were sold on the idea that it was due to motor vehicles and the brook. Read the letter underneath. It’s from the same woman who wrote the piece in the newspaper.’
It had been typewritten, on an old machine with an old ribbon.
Lower Lodge
Monkshall
Leominster
Herefordshire
18 May
Dear Major Wilshire,
Thank you for your letter. Yes, you are quite right, I did have the dubious honour of being appointed Radnor Valley correspondent of the Brecon and Radnor Express for a few years in the 1970s, receiving, if I recall correctly, something like one halfpenny a line for my jottings about local events of note!
My reports on the departure of the Reverend Penney were not, I must say, the ones of which I am most proud, amounting, as they did, to what I suppose would be termed these days a ‘cover up’. But my late husband and I were comparatively recent incomers to the area and I was ‘walking on eggshells’ and determined not to cause offence to anyone!
However, I suppose after all this time there is no reason to conceal anything any more, especially as there was considerable local gossip about it at the time.
Yes, the Reverend Penney was indeed rather a strange young man, although I am still inclined to discount the rumours that he ‘took drugs’. There were some hippy types living in the area at the time with whom he was quite friendly, so I suppose this is how the rumour originated.
In retrospect, I think Mr Penney was not the most appropriate person to be put in charge of St Michael’s. He was a young man and very enthusiastic, full of ideas, but the local people were somewhat set in their ways and resistant to any kind of change. The church itself was not in very good condition (even before Mr Penney’s arrival!), and the parish was having difficulty raising money for repairs – there were not the grants available in those days – and it was a big responsibility for such a young and inexperienced minister.
Yes, I am afraid that what you have been told is broadly correct, though I must say that I never found any signs of mental imbalance in Mr Penney, in his first year at least. He was always friendly, if a little remote.
My memories of THAT day remain confused. Perhaps we should have suspected something after the small fire, the slippage of tiles from the roof and the repeated acts of apparent vandalism (I realize no charges ever resulted from these continued occurrences, so I hope I can trust you, as a soldier, to treat this correspondence as strictly confidential), but no one could really have predicted the events of that particular October morning. It would not have seemed so bad had it not been raining so hard and the brook in such spate. Naturally, quite a crowd – for Hindwell – gathered and there was much weeping and wailing, although this was quickly suppressed and after that day I do not remember anyone speaking of it – quite extraordinary. It was as if the whole village somehow shared the shame.
No, as you note, the big newspapers never ‘got on’ to the story. Small communities have always been very good at smothering sensational events almost at birth. And what was I, the village correspondent, supposed to write? I was not a journalist, merely a recorder of names at funerals and prize-winners at the local show. Furthermore, later that day, I received a visit from Mr Gareth Prosser Snr, together with Mr Weal, his and our solicitor, who stressed to me that it would ‘not be in the best interests of the local people’ for this to be publicized in any way. Mr Prosser was the county councillor for the area and served on the police committee and was a personage of considerable gravitas. It was not for me, a newcomer, to cross him over an issue of such sensitivity!
The Church of England (the village is in Wales, but the parish is in the Diocese of Hereford) chose not to take any proceedings against Mr Penney. After his departure, another minister was appointed but did not stay long and thereafter the parish became part of a ‘cluster’ which is not so uncommon these days! I suppose one could say Old Hindwell ‘lost heart’ after the extraordinary behaviour of Mr Penney.
I do hope I have been able to help you, but I am rather ‘out of touch’ with events in Old Hindwell. Although I live no more than half an hour’s drive away.
I seem never once to have revisited the village since we moved house in 1983. Old Hindwell is one of those places which it is easy to forget exists, except as a rather surreal memory!
With very best regards,
Juliet Pottinger (Mrs)
‘The Local People,’ Robin said. ‘Whoooeee! Those local people sure like to wield power.’
‘No more than in any small community.’ Betty brought over cocoa for them both. She knew he’d go for the cover-up aspect first, rather than the significance of the event that had been covered up. She almost wished she could have censored the papers before letting him see them.
The idea of this panicked her. It was like the Wilshires in reverse. Until they came here, she’d never even thought of keeping secrets from Robin.