The Guest Who Stayed

Chapter 3 - Winter 1919

Winter began early in 1919. There were extensive snow falls in mid November and the Norfolk country side was buried beneath an icy white blanket. Work in the fields ceased and animals were brought back into the barns to protect them from the plummeting winter temperatures.

In Frampton people hurried about their tasks with shawls pulled across their faces to protect them from the biting wind that drifted in from the North Sea. No one stopped to chat or pass the time of day. Many carried logs or kindling wood, desperate to keep their fires well stocked against the penetrating cold.

The bad weather brought plenty of work for Dan and Jed. Pipes were bursting and roofs collapsing under the weight of snow. Together they worked from dawn to dusk, wrapped in layers of old clothing with thick hoods pulled over their heads. They spent much of their time up ladders exposed to the full fury of the wintry weather. In the evenings they would sit by a wood fire in Dan's back room, cooking a meal on the hot embers. Jed enjoyed these quiet evening together. It gave him a chance for the first time in his life to discuss things that were on his mind.

"I been thinking, Dan."

"Thinking what?"

"The future. I'm thinking about my future. Is it good thing to have ambition, you know, to want things?" Dan raised his gaze slowly from the fire where he had been quietly contemplating the dancing embers.

"Well, that's a big question. What makes you ask that?"

"Perhaps I could make something of myself, you know, earn some real money - become successful. And I was just wondering, what's it down to? Is it luck or is it down to me? I mean - does what I do make any difference?"

"You mean can you control your destiny? It's a big question - one that wiser men than me have considered."

Dan drew heavily on the clay pipe, emitting a plume of acrid grey smoke. He had no formal education but he made up for this with a life spent travelling and observing many different cultures. Brought up in a farming community on the east coast, he tired of working on the land and at the age of nineteen he signed up with the British army and was shipped out to the Transvaal where he saw action in the Anglo Zulu war of 1875. He travelled widely across Africa as an infantryman and took part in many bloodbaths as the boundaries of the Empire were extended across the continent.

When he came home in 1880, he suffered a breakdown and lived an isolated life in the woods and forests of eastern England, eking out a meagre living by making simple pieces of furniture from fallen wood. In fact, so good did he become at crafting wood, that his services were sought by increasing numbers of people, leading him eventually to this simple work shop in the centre of Frampton, which also served as his home.

"Let me tell you about a wise man I met in North Africa," he said eventually, tapping the remnants of tobacco from his pipe onto the stone hearth. "Sort of priest he was. He'd travelled right across Africa and knew about lots of things. I was in charge of him. He was my prisoner. We got on well together, talking through the hot nights about this and that. I asked him that same question, 'Do we all have a destiny and if so, how do we reach it?'"

"What did he say?"

"He told me that there's two sorts of people in this world, those that follows their dream and those that follows their star."

"What does that mean?" enquired Jed, not quite seeing the point.

"It means this. Those that follows their dream has an idea of what they want and where they want to get to - call it ambition if you like. They shut their eyes to everything else because they're busy chasin' that dream. If they achieve that dream, then they're happy and contented. Trouble is most people don't realise their dream and end up miserable. And they also miss a lot of chances on the way 'cos they've had their eyes shut."