Writelink Arena

Just to maintain a sense of reality over the coming festivities, and give you something to do when you’re bored with repeats of Wallace & Gromit in The Sound of Music, here is the first chapter of a new project.

The story centres on a man caught in a terrorist atrocity, and this chapter gives us background. He loses his hearing, but then he begins to hear voices in his head, and despite the assurance of audiologists, these voices begin to deliver some sinister information.

Psycho-horror/sci-fi, target completion of the first draft is spring/summer 2009.

Any and all feedback is appreciated.

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An idea of an article, which has been accepted by 'The Great War' magazine, although there is no payment. I am pleased to have somewhere to send it to, and to practice the article to send somewhere else. I have tried 'Norfolk Life', who have covered Edith Cavell, also tried 'The Lady.' Has anyone got any suggestions where this may be suitable? Thanks. Susan.

ANGEL OF EAST ANGLIA

Edith Cavell was born on the 4th December 1865. She was an energetic child born to the Vicar and his wife of Swardeston, Norfolk. She loved to spend time with her younger siblings, Lillian, Florence and Jack. They played in the orchard at the vicarage and picked fruit from the hedgerows round the lanes of Swardeston. Edith was good at lawn tennis, and had fun skating on the local lake when it froze over in the winter. This English country upbringing, playing, studying flowers, drawing, spending time with her family helped in the grounding of Edith Cavell.

She was educated primarily by her father at home. It was from her mother and father that she learned the morals, and honesty which stayed with her all her life. When the time came to send her to boarding school, her father choose to send her to Kensington in London. Following that, Bristol, and finally she went to a boarding school in Peterborough.

Her first job was as a governess for the family at the vicarage in Steeple Bumpstead a nearby village. She took the children on holiday to Clacton on Sea, and taught them to draw and paint. She grew extremely fond of the children, and was devastated when it came time to leave.

Edith’s sister Florence became a matron of Withernsea convalescent home near Hull.

Edith said to Eddie Cavell her cousin.

“Some day I am going to do something useful. It must be something for people. They are most of them so helpless, so hurt, and so unhappy.”

In 1888, Edith visited Austria and Bovaria. They called her ‘The English Angel.’

During her career, Edith looked after children, and then she turned to nursing. In 1890 Margaret Gibson of Laurel Court gave Edith a recommendation. She had an opportunity to go to Brussels as governess to four children of a well known Brussels advocate. M. Francois 154 Avenue Louise. She took the name Louise, which was her mothers and her own middle name to be a good omen. The François family didn’t speak English, and Edith didn’t speak French, so there must have been a language barrier.

After five years in Brussels her dad became ill, and she returned to Swardeston to nurse him. It was during this time that she went round all her family. As if she knew she might not return.
Edith was strict, and a stickler for telling the truth. When she was captured by the Germans, she was told that if you don’t tell the truth about helping soldiers to escape, your friends will be killed. She believed this would happen, and confessed.

Her morality of always telling the truth was in the end her downfall. She died a martyr; she was shot on 12th October 1915. She was only 49 years old. Over a thousand soldiers escaped thanks to Edith Cavell. Her last words were.

“I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”

Reference book. Edith Cavell by Rowland Ryder.

In 1901 Edith was asked by Dr. Antoine Depage who was one of the leading surgeons in Europe, to go to Brussels and become Matron of Belgium’s first training school for nurses. This came from the reference after working for the Francois family.

Edith had worked very hard to get to the position of Matron at the nursing training school. People who knew her spoke about her ‘stern gaze’, also her penchant for winking. She had a typical East Anglican sense of humour. She was a woman of few words, but everyone knew what she meant. She was also protective of her nurses, and everyone who trained through her.

Edith’s work started when two fugitive British soldiers arrived unexpectedly at the nursing school. They were in danger of being shot. Sent along by Marie Depage or Dr. Van Hassel.

Edith was questioned on August 8th. During which time Philippe Baucq and Mlle Thuliez were brought into the room. The German police told Edith that they had all the information they needed about the organization already, and she must confess, or else her friends would be shot.

Truthful by nature, and overwhelmingly alone with no legal representation of any kind, she adhered to what she knew best. The truth. She fell into the trap, and confessed. She was told that a full confession was the only way to save her friends.

During her imprisonment in St. Giles prison Edith made a mat which is now in the Imperial War Museum. It must have been a relief for Edith to have a rest. No lies to tell. No soldiers to nurse, or feed. Just time for herself to reflect on her wonderful childhood at the vicarage in Norfolk, to remember all the wonderful children she looked after, and to know she’d done her best.

Her life’s work in Brussels was finished; she knew that. She had been called there to start a school for nurses, and create a nursing profession in Brussels. She had achieved that. A Belgian woman would carry on the nursing school now. She was a self contained woman. Prison didn’t defer her.

She was interrogated again on August 18th, and made to sign a second statement. This was in French. Four days later, she was interrogated for the third time, and was made to give all the information she knew. This gave her some privileges to send and receive letters from her friends at the clinique.

Some messages that she sent to the domestic staff are now in the Imperial war museum.

The late Mme Burnons (nee Whitlock) tells of a visit to Edith whilst she was in St. Gilles prison, where she found her to be looking frail.

Two chapters of her prayer book were heavily marked, and dated St. Gilles Oct 1915. Book 11 Chapter xx1x. How we ought to call upon God and bless him when tribulation is upon us. Chapter xxx in the same book.'Of craving the divine aid, and confidence of recovering grace.'
Edith was the first to be tried in court. She was proud and calm, and spoke in French with an English accent. To be continued....

I thought I'd try this in here as its not had any reviews on the other arena. It's the first part of the first chapter (or may become the prologue) of a novel I'm working on. I've not quite got the hang of this blogging lark so can only hope it goes somewhere! And not sure how to create the read more link!

I was 35 when I grew wings. A slightly overweight, slightly wrinkled around the edges kind of Tinkerbell. I’m less uptight about it than I used to be, but still, it isn’t all laughter and fairy dust. I don’t know if there are anymore like me; there aren’t any websites for those of the winged persuasion. Strangers think I’m a little cracked, that I never outgrew the dress-up stage and a lot of the time, it’s easier to let them go on thinking that, than trying to first explain and then convince them.
My family are divided. They always were, I guess, but this was the final calamity that cleaved us in two. If tearing off my clothes and spreading my wings to their full span could not convince my mother that I am not a liar, there is nothing else that will. Even as she got down on her knees to sweep up the broken china that my wing tips had brushed off the mantelpiece, she scolded me for ‘always seeking attention’. I didn’t say goodbye. I have nothing more to say to her.
My brother is my constant. He used to be my identical twin but he does not possess wings, not yet. Matthew has always been my protector, the buffer between our mother and me. He says my wings are a sign, but of what he is undecided. I worry that he is setting too much by my pinions and I don’t want to disappoint him; he is far too sensitive.
There is something else: I have a secret. It is irony incarnate. I could never have hidden these damn wings the way someone might wear a glove to conceal a withered hand. To most people I’m just the oddball who likes to wear wings; the few who believe in me are aware of my secret without being conscious of it. Think of word association and think of wings. Maybe the word won’t come to you because it is already there. It’s a bit like breathing; you do it, but you don’t think about it. Well my secret is sort of like that. You see, I can fly. The irony is that those who believe are the same ones who, at a sub-conscious level, assume that flight comes with the wing package and yet would not accept it if I were to tell them. I have asked them for an enormous chunk of faith and they can’t spare anymore.
I think it will be easier if I were to go back to the beginning. Since I haven’t encountered anyone else with my condition outside of the bible or fairy tales, I can’t expect everyone to say, ‘oh, alright then, so she has wings.’ If it makes it any easier to believe, I would like to point out that I think of my wings as a medical phenomena. I don’t want to mislead anyone and I must stress that I am incapable of performing miracles. Please do not send me your prayer requests or pictures of sick children because there is nothing I can do for them. I am not an angel. I have tried to put my deformity to good use, but trust me; I am no closer to God than any of you.