Tom Saucepan

 Clemens was born at the age of 100 and wanted to be a steamboat pilot. He trained as a pilot on a steamboat when he was 81 years old. He got his license 2 years later at the age of 79. He married Alveria and they had 4 old age children. After being a successful writer during his 60s, 50s and 40s in which he based many of his novels on his old ages as a steamboat pilot. His 30s and 20s saw him lauded as one of the country's most prominent writers of children's fiction for adult. Though he looked comical he actually took himself very seriously, writing serious comedy for very silly serious-minded people. He tragically died at the age of 0.

Sound story

 Like thunder clapping

Tap dancers tapping

Seagulls flapping

Above ocean waves

Love unwrapping

Milestones lapping

Thoughts and ghosts

Against graveyard graves

Like kettles rumbling

And Televisions grumbling

And old men humbling

Their lives away

I hear you slapping

The thighs of happening

Happy as larry

Larry who saves

All these wonderings

Pirates in swaddlings

Mothers in coddling

And lovers in lathes

Chiseling out existence

To a fine point

Like a dagger or a spear

And losing the thread

But gaining the yarn

Somewhere we guessed

It could do us no harm

Looking back

Hanging around on the pavement
The tarmac, the weeds in the road
Walking up the lane to meet my old friends
Playing games riding skateboards
Chasing about in the estate park
The boy Matthew Bennette telling tales about his bike
That it had special balance handle bars
So that when he tipped his bike
We could hear something rolling down the metal tube
But we all knew that he was a liar
And he had rolled up mud balls to put inside
So it sounded like he had some inbuilt technology
When all he had were his lies
It was funny anyway to hear him say it

There were hawthorn trees with black sloe berries
That grew in late summer and autumn
And elderberries that grew on Tom's farm
When you squashed them they looked like blood
And sometimes we fought the high stinging nettles like soldiers
Cutting them down with bamboo canes
And sometimes we climbed inside haybarns
And made dens inside the bales
Until they all tumbled down on Tom one day and a scaffold pole
Hit him on the head
And he ran out to his mum and dad with blood running down
And he never cried

Then in the fields around Meare out past Down house
We went walking for miles with Matthew wood
And we came back and watched western movies
And stayed over night in his outhouse
And he ate pork pies with so much ketchup
I could never believe or understand why
We played for hours on computer games, pinball wizards
Or Samurai
Cannon fodder and his brother Ben Wood
Was the best at many things
And he had a really good bike

And Stephen who lived on the levels
We used to get on in school
We laughed so hard about vampires
When we had to make a haunted house game
Then when I visited his house
It was full of Star Wars toys
I'd never seen so many in my entire life
And we played with them for hours
But really I never liked Star Wars
But the funniest thing about Stephen were his lies
We used to tell eachother stories
So many that we made up
Each more fantastic than the one before
So that when we told of what we saw
Neither could have believed their eyes
It ended one time with a story of what animals we had seen
Recently, maybe a deer he said
Maybe I had seen a hedgehog
He had seen a badger
And then suddenly he told me
He had seen a Gorilla in the ditch nearby his house
And possibly a vampire as well

Then there was Millbatch where nobody went
From Downs Orchard - the better class estate
Millbatch was the rough end
Where the older kids lived
And Matthew Lambert who was very tough
And his brother Roger who used to pull the legs
Off Daddy Long Legs in School
And now he is carer for Somerset County Council
Working with people with Learning Disabilities
Go figure

Then down on church road, where the water reservoir was
The plastic coated chicken wire mesh that you could reach inside
And that lane was were the bully kids played and made
Their dens there
And we watched out for them while making our own
But there were rumours and whispers around
That she blew somebody somewhere
That he beat someone else up
And little pieces of knowledge fill your brain
Like into a water cup
and it makes up your world as a child
It tells of the big towns out there
And of the boys and girls you thought were so wild
Who now all have grey in their hair

The magic stone

 The stone lay there on the burnt hillside

She was the only survivor of the fire tide

And this was a magic stone

That had been enchanted by a witch

Who laid it there after her lover died

And it gave all love to those who touched it

The magic passed on as it went

It was turned over and over again

Its painted runes and images

Left it up turned and faced

Picked up and dropped by passers by

Who inspected it and said the words to themselves

In a half sleepy, half enchanted manner

And then forgot what they were doing

And dropped the stone back

on the side of the path

And in that way the stone got all its words out

It was being picked up and passed on from hand to hand

palm to palm and left back in the grass for hours or days sometimes

Over night the snails crawled over it or birds landed on it

And pecked their beaks against it

But it remained a stone, a magic stone

Til one day the witch returned to reclaim it

She took it up in the middle of the night 

Under an oak tree and wept for her long lost lover whom she

knew not where he was but was off adventuring some place

And all the people who had touched the stone passed on

and talked to another

And somehow they passed this magical story on

As they spoke or shook hands with others

There was the look in the eye as if something passed between them

Something unknown and unspoken

Yet still there was a feeling and this sense

That they were searching out this unknown man

and his whereabouts - Have you seen him?

Their look seemed to ask

Though it was so quick that not much could be done

Yet even though it was quick it passed on to the next

and then the next, and then the next in succession

Until handshakes all around the world were shook

And greetings and meeting eyes exchanged their glances

Until at last one of the handshakes shook the hand of the missing man

The missing lover

He was a great northpole explorer who had given up his hiking shoes

To return to life in Cambodia

He was fishing now on the sea

And he shook hands with a traveller from America

It seemed

Who had frequented the bar where he dropped in

On the beach side

Called the Cambodia Inn

And he laughed to see him there

And he shook his long black hair

And the black cats stared at him

As black cats do, who know that

Witches wishes come true

And they are wise in their ways, 

and in their treading paths

And they say this Cambodian cat can see

with two eyes in to the Siamese sunrise

And the fisherman now who was really the long lost lover

Looked into the eyes of the man who said

Have you seen him?

Seen who he asked outright

Seen the witch's missing lover

The witch's missing lover it rang a bell

That once he had loved a woman

and had fallen under her spell

long, long ago, and he could tell

That this was perhaps the very same woman

Yes he said it is I, I did not realise she was a witch

I did not realise what I had lost when I did switch

Somehow I betrayed her love to leave for my own adventuring life

For I wished to reach the Northpole and to explore many regions of the

world unknown

I wished for fame and glory and yet it cost my soul

Well the witch wants you back

Said the American

The witch wants me back?! How could I , how can I go back now?

And yes he said well what will you do now?

But before he asked the question,

He knew he must find the witch

Or that the witch now knew his whereabouts

For she had enchanted the stone

And somehow this news would travel back

Through all the black cats she had known in the past

Through their eyes and their looks

And their walks upon the wall

And they would come back and deliver her

Her lover and all, deliver her lover and all

So gradually when the American left the explorer

Whose name was Nathan

He passed back and saw the people in his hotel

And they said who have you seen?

I've seen the lover, the long lost lover. 

And he passed this news on with a shake of the hand

and a look of his eye to his other travelling companions

and they went their separate ways

And both shook and looked and took and gave

Their glances and

took their chances and had romances

all the way to France's shores from Cambodia

All across the Asian continent

All across the Russian Steps and up into the Scottish Highlands

Where the magical stone slept

Until they touched the stone again

And it turned

it turned over on itself

And began to spin, and began to shine

And then began to bleed

Like a lonely heart into the soil

And turned it red

And when the witch was passing next

She saw around the stone that bled

The blood of the love that was lost

Her own blood for the stone 

Was her heart you see

And he saw her heart was bleeding

Under the oak tree on the hill

And she picked it up

And put it back inside her chest

And said

I'll keep the blood flowing through me

For my blood is blessed

And I'll show the way into the light

The light of loveliness

And so went, and so we went, and so

We went and we went

And the woman came back

And the man returned

For he had lost and he had learned

That losing love is like being burned

And soon he would know that hell hath no fury

Like a woman scorned

And so he came into the Isles

Of Britain with its smiles

And with opening arms, it welcomed him back

And sure enough the charms

They jacked and saw him off, and saw him in

On the boats where he sailed

Within

And said to them

Now what is this?

I am in search of the witch

Who cast a spell and I knew well

I found no log to slumber under

She asked me to return a while

And so I did, and so I did

And in the moon light the witch now

Flew upon her broom

And the wind that grew into a gale

and flew and flailed at her sides

But she held on for she was strong

And she threw, and she threw

love down there, and she threw it

in his hair

This dust that dropped

This magic pixie dust

that fell from the sky 

like starlight

And it landed upon the travelling man who was

wandering there without a plan

Except what the black cats told him

Which was to travel North

until it enfolds him in the clouds and the swirling sky

And above he felt the star dust lie

Upon his brow

Upon his head

He looked around and then he said

Is that you my long lost lover?

My witch queen who I discovered

Is that you who love ago told me

I her heart had stole

And that I would forgo the love

If I went my own way

She said yes it's me

Who you betrayed

And my heart it bleeds almost everyday

For it was stone but now its blood

And perhaps there is life after the flood

For tears have welled up and the rivers run dry

And perhaps the blood of life cannot die

And suddenly the love was given to him

And she flew like a bird on the wing

And picked him up

Upon her broom stick

And they sailed away 

into the moon's ocean play

As it rolled on through swirling clouds above

And they kissed in the sky

And they made love

As only a witch can do

On the fourth day of June

After a new moon

And Soon it will be

A midsummer's day

And you will still see them

Up there in play

The lovers swoon

Under the moon

They say

They say

Yes the lovers swoon 

Under the moon

They say

Concrete dreams

Come on raise this building

Like a Moses foundation

Pillars of Salt

And pillars of rock

The three little pigs in a housing shock

Negative equity of Goldilocks

Rising inflation forced onto bears

Some of them built Shepton Mallet

The town

Sheep rustlers, shearers, 

Property of the crown

Strode was there with flowing hair

Looking down

Upon the poor who flocked to her door

Including the Ugly duckling

Black swan, white swan not seen anymore

Only on the pub signs swinging above the door

Periwinkle, weasel, wren and Robin

In the twisting clematis hob-gobble

Hoblin, goblin, shaven head

What dreams we have, when we are dead

Dying, trying to be new

Shepton Mallet, pallet crew

Shifting cider

Shifting saw

Bed pan, dustpan, bread pan more

Whistle down the truckers road

Hard granite town

Prince from a toad

Someone dreamt of a cinema

Another of a theatre

Built an enormous house

That turned into a monster

Some say its hideous, oh what an eye-sore

What do we need a fairy tale

We have Ugly post modernism to abhor

I'm not sure

It is a ball and chain

Tying the town down

It is almost a shame, almost a game

A mirror of the Church somehow

Except a warped being bent and contorted

Not given full form

Like a nineteen eighties computer game

Grasping at perfection

In replication, Ironic in it's supplication to

perfection, acknowledging limitation

Yet that was cool back then

Now it is a record of a time before

It is like a tetras castle fallen out of the sky

Landed like a giant parcel, some knowledge of 

an American Apple pie

But incoherent and intransigent,

And in, in , in itself  out of place

In congruent

But let's not worry ourselves

It was somebody else's concrete dream

And we no longer see the seams

It has been sewn into the fabric of life

Now it is a gym, it has turned into

It's own image of itself at last

A modern church - a temple to the body

The material wealth

Of protein and carbohydrate

Packed inside, prayed to 

Heated up baked in the crucible

Of exercise and self-belief

The Great I, the great I am

As we climb mount Ego

On the steps

As we let off steam

As we lose sweat by the buckets

On the exercise bike

Perhaps we lose our selves

We forget the boredom of days

That put on the fat

We negate with positive prayer, the mantra, I will get there

One step at a time

Like a stair way to heaven

Built of tetras bricks

That have fallen down for our sake

To climb, to work out

Rearrange angles, remake

So perhaps this ex theatre really is our modern church

as close as we can make it

Though I am yet to see John the Baptist

Lift a Bar bell in there

Although you never can tell of course

Fish in Cider

 Ever since I left that Cider factory I've had the feeling something fishy was going on.

The workers, my pals petitioned for something to happen, for some jobs

But they kept making us redundant - the old ones first, then it was my turn. I'd only been with the company ten years, but I was loyal and I thought it had a good future. So did my wife.

Now I can't bear to look at her these days, slouching a around at home I am, mooching about,

moping she says. Why don't you do something about it! She screams. I say what do you want me to do? I've done all I can. So to avoid the cold bed, I go out walking at nights, leave about 11 pm. I take long walks down the town roads. You know, I know I'm just killing time, and I don't know where I'm going, but then I end up here, but at the source of my grievances -the cider factory. And it's still rolling, machines are churning out something, ocassionally lorries go in and out. I don't see people though.

It must be all automated now I think to myself. That's right Terry, nothing left for the average Joe to do these days. But because it's piqued my curiosity I decide to take a closer look. I walk down the road, the yellowish street lamps giving off a sickening glare, there's one though that is off and there is more cover here, so I dive into the shadows next to the factory wall. Just going to take a peek, I tell myself, where's the harm in that? The windows though are high up and I will need to use the lamp post and jam myself between it and use it to help edge myself up the wall. Still got it Terry I tell myself but really I'm out of my comfort zone, I'm 45 this year and I could do with shaving off a few pounds. Still where I've got to there is a bit of a concrete ledge cut into the wall about 12ft up and another 6 ft up from that the window pane starts. I just about manage to cling my fingers onto the window ledge and carefully I pull my head and eyes up enough to look in. There is a hum of activity, of machines mainly. I see some men there. The usual cider machines have changed a bit, it seems they've added a few extra ones too on a different line, I can't quite see enough and I feel my strength failing me so I lower myself back down and shimmy down the lamp post.

What could they be doing? What do they need an extra line for? Is it food or drink? The used to make Baby cham as well I remember.

I keep walking the night is getting cold, it must be about 1 am and I'm thinking of calling it a night and turning in. And then I see something I wasn't expecting, wasn't expecting at all. A lorry pulls up, and reverses into the docking bay. It looks like an animal transport like a sheep truck or the like. I'm too visible so I slink into the cover of some trees on the otherside of the road. But I still watch.

A man steps out, kind of stocky with a cap on and I can't make out his face. Not a town person that much I recognize. He hands a slip of paper to one of the men there at the bay and others start to unload crates of what look dark things, I catch glimpses of fur. Then they pull down dressing rods on wheels. But what are hanging down from them on hooks are not dresses, but cadavers, animal cadavers. I can see deer and badger, some foxes even. And then they are finished, the bodies taken inside the factory and the man gets back inside his cab and drives off.

This seem strange, so strange. I wait and think hidden in the bushes. And I am just about to step out when a flashlight searches about the road up and down looking for anyone and then the shut the doors and turn off the lights on that side of the building.

What could they want with dead animals? Surely they weren't going to eat them?

The Whimsical Wood

In the whimsical wood

Is where the dove cot stood

Away from light and power and Magic

It grew too cold and soon was tragic

Then the whimsical woodsman came along

In his way with an axe

He sang his song

And levelled the trees which had stood there long

And let the light shine in

And the dovecot stood

In the whimsical wood

Just waiting for a dove

To fly down from above

And give it a sign it was true and good

Finally one day when the woodsman was asleep

Down flew a pair of doves

The dovecot to keep

And they made their nests

With a ‘coo’ and ‘cheap’, ‘cheap’

Gently rolling their soft vowel sounds

To the woodsman asleep

Inside his dream he was wide awake

Aboard a great Ark, like Noah did make

And along from the skies came a wandering dove

Who dropped an olive twig in his palm,

And spoke of love

All around him was a flood

Like around the dovecot stood the wood

And he knew not just about what business he should

Unless it was to speak of love

And as he did the waters receded

Just as the trees that once he had seeded

And his Ark it reached the land

Well then he awoke from his own dream

To find who had spoke, was a dove on a beam

Coo-cooing here and there

They flew in a pair

But startled when he moved

And flew into air

Come back, come back he pleaded and pleaded

But his cries they went unheeded

So he sat back down in a torpor

And stewed like a tea bag left too long in the water

Finally he grew black and bitter

What need have I of trees?

Without love nor Birds nor bees

I may live in my wood of high walls

And if another high tree falls

It will not be by my hand at all

I will live here in the dovecot

Penthouse Quarter

So he laid down his axe

And began to relax

Inside the walls of his new dovecot home

That evening on the breeze

He thought he smelt the smell of the seas

He saw the rustle of the leaves

Then in the dovecot’s eves

Spied his first love

The dovecot owner’s daughter

‘Hey there come down’

He coaxed her

She gave a coo, fluttered and flew

And he saw it was a dove

Returned not the daughter

Though sad, yet relieved

To find hope in the eves

He fed the little bird some grain

And it was bad he believed

To build high walls of pride made of leaves

Just to hide and cover up his pain

So he resolved the next morning

Without further warning

To break the spell of longing

On the whimsical wood

He took his axe and his belongings

And set out through the thronging

To carve out a new pathway made for good

The going it was hard

Often times dangerous

At night he stood guard

For wolves or bears, quite treacherous

Underfoot sometimes rock or stone

From the sky sometimes thunder

Rain or blistering Sun

Down valley and up hill

He used his woodland skill

To make a path to freedom

From the whimsical wood kingdom

Past the hives of honeyed bee-dom

To the land of shrilling shrill

Once his path was made

He then became afraid

That, others might tread down his road

But determined not to be a toad

He would carry the load

And deal with the consequences

Be they light or shade

One day while he was chopping

Near a time he thought of stopping

A lovely maiden upon him strode

She looked like sunshine popping

Through the leaves as they are dropping

And his heart it gave a coo like in a dove’s abode

She smiled and sat down near him

He stopped when she began to sing

A song of love I have been told

And from that day his heartache mended

No more high walls of Pride to be offended

What’s more the doves came back

To their woodland hold

The Egg that Rolled

The Egg that rolled

Just an ordinary egg

Came out of a chicken

On an adventure away from the kitchen

Down cobbled road

And Shaftsbury’s Hovis hill

It bowled its ovaloid body

Driven by an inner will

Narrowly avoiding disaster

As it crossed the road

This egg was its own master

And had destiny under its thumb

Like a Prince who came out of a toad

It missed each pram wheel by inches

Then evading the horses hoof

This was a living reminder

That life lives on a knife edge

If ever we needed proof

And trundling like a lost general

In search of his egg army

He seemed self important to the untrained eye

When what guided his blindness

Was courage and faith in his Life

So there is the irony

It was just that this was a fortunate egg

In that every move he would try

Came out a sparkling success

This was no shell-shocked guy

His formaldehyde soul

Grew very cold

Like Jekyll and Hyde

He was an egg of two minds

Brought together in the oxygen of his shell

Albumin and yolk

Played some practical joke

To make him indestructible

Meant he could not die

And so on he rolled

Down the tragic road

That was his life

Being an egg that could not crack

Meant likewise that he could not hatch

So to be spared the ritual

Humiliation of the chicken

On the pecking order

His will told him to leave the kitchen

And find another abode to board on

The ocean was his calling

From when he was a foetus

And soon he came to the ocean's cusp

In a land named Lyme Regis

He pervade the sea for all it was worth

From a top a cliff top and there he did perch

But as soon as he had settled down

He found himself in an albatross' town

Where busy gulls, guillemots’ and puffins

Were roosting and laying eggs ten to the dozen

And by chance a bird named Harold arrived

And plucked this egg so that he may survive

So, on they fled across ocean swell

Well into the evening and things were going well

Then down he landed on the coast of France

And said to the egg, you are free now take your chance

So the egg trundled on down roads that were familiar

He heard the faint call of accordions, smelt onions and the sky that was vermillion

Past hawthorn nests of owls

And smiling white cows

He alighted himself upon a hay cart

Pulled by an ox

Then travelled on there

With less a wing more a prayer

Until his wanderings brought him to the Alps

Now by this time he had made many friends

There was Alphonse the fox

And Bernadette the owl

Stephanie the squirrel

And Miriam the mouse

They all were dressed in berets and striped jumpers

And the egg dressed like them too

And they all said "it suits you"

So not out of place did the egg seem now

When he journeyed up the foot hills

Of the Alps with a cow

More the traveller with means,

For many things had he seen

And made a small fortune

Displaying in a circus

Where a strong man named Roger de la Forte

Tried to crack him with his muscles

But all that cracked were the piggy banks

Of the circus goers he would hustle

So saying “fair well” to the Ferris wheel

And “so- long” to the Ring Master Monsieur Devil

He journeyed on into Switzerland's fair Climbs

And soon found the time

To visit the sights and squares of Geneva

One day he stopped by the lake's great fountain

And watched a long time thinking it as tall as a mountain

And what sprang to his egg's mind was a plan

He began to hatch

A dream that one day he might fly

So at the dead of night

He took on a gondola to alight

Amid the luscious lake of the fair town

And boldly going where no egg had gone before

He nestled himself into the sleeping fountains core

And there he waited until the next morn

When the fountain man turned the water pipes on

: Then to everyone's delight

In the crisp morning light

The egg was shot clean into the stratosphere

Now feeling less earth encumbered

This egg went through the ozone

And around the earth

He orbited like an orb

Some clever folk from NASA said

There goes a UFO, proof that life

From another planet has arrived

And much was made by Europe

Of the flying eggs orbit

And it put to bed many wars

For the people of earth saw that they were not alone in the universe

So they no longer felt lonely or frightened anymore

Then the egg left the Earth's gravity

And was pulled by positivity

Out to the furthest region's of the solar field

Where he settled on Pluto

Feeling all was going well

A miracle then occurred

This Egg who could not hatch

Finally did just that

And the first extraterrestrial chicken was born

He went by the name Prince Pluto

And spent many a year going to and fro

Discovering what else could be explored

Until finally alighting

In a cave away from lightening

He found another chicken who was earth-bored

Together they made a family

And are living still quite happily

Raising many Plutonians abroad

Larry of the Levels

Lazarus and the silver spy of the Levels

            The travellers’ tale began when The Voice of The Wind said to Eliza the forces of Stink the Mink will be wiped out when the ring of roses has been brought to the floor of reeds. Eliza Wood was a blind spider who webbed prophetic messages across tow paths, gate ways in hedgerows etc where they would be seen, by interested animals. Business had been going fairly well for Eliza for the past few hundred years but unfortunately he did not see the arrival of the mink coming. The general way of things he believed was that God had made the levels to be paradise and it would continue that way with the odd hiccough for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately the minks introduction proved a bit more than a hiccough in fact it left a very bad taste in the mouth and made a mess of all his prophesies. It used to be his signs read things like 'rejoice for a new dawn is come', and 'consider the Lilly isn't it pretty', then it turned to 'try and be an optimist', 'look on the bright side its not so bad'. In recent years his signs had read more 'the end is nigh', and 'repent your sins you are basically doomed'. His Friend the shield bug, Ralph Bernstein, tried to cheer him up saying its not that bad and at least you aren't an enslaved Rabbit. One day Ralph decided that something had to be done to help the levels and so crawled up to Eliza in his web and said Look Eliza you have to find a prophecy that actually works I can't stand to see you just mopping around like this. Eliza thought for a bit then climbed to the top most quarter of a nearby Scots Pine...and he listened to the wind. It told him there was a golden egg that held the secret of the levels its salvation from the Mink Dominion by Stink. There is a bed of Roses over near Godney at a Garden Centre. And In the Garden centre there is a sad eyed seamstress and she works all day and all night to make Rings of Roses. Unfortunately she doesn't sell many and so is very poor but in amongst the pile of dying rose rings which have been discarded is one magic ring that will not fade or die even unto the end of all time. If this one ring of roses can be brought to the golden egg then a new dawn will reign over the levels one of freedom for all animals except the mink, and will see the end of the cruel King Stink for ever. When Eliza had heard this he climbed down and told his friend Ralph who said - there you go now don't you feel much better now?

Lazarus McDonald had been chosen for this quest by Ralph, acting as a kind of casting director for Eliza Wood. Lazarus was an otter of some promise but had been frittering away his talents for fishing and hunting, by playing gleefully away down rivers and rills at the foot of the Mendips. He had made his living in the past through a number of outrageous schemes. One for instance was working as a bandit -for- hire by making raids on battery hen farms with a few wayward foxes. Another time he spent months lazing about near a fishery finding it a most easy way of life as the fish were practically willing to give themselves up to him. Though all this laziness had bored him and he had become increasingly over weight by his life style so it was a surprise when a tiny but self possessed Shield bug with the self confidence of a Lord of the Manor sidled up to him and recruited him.

Lazarus was standing behind a fence of a garden centre peering into the ring of roses production centre with his comrade Hubert Cherrybatten. Lazarus now upon seeing the stinking pile of dead roses was regretting his decision to join up. But the truth was that all the community of otters on the levels thought him a wastrel and wanted him out of their sight so it was his only option really to join a war party.

In front of him now was what seemed to be an enormous pile of rotting roses. In fact that was exactly what it was. The smell was really awful and there were a lot of flies buzzing around who had evidently laid eggs there. "But why do I have to go in there?" Because, the Brown owl, Hubert Cherrybatten said, you are the chosen one.

” Well it did not say anything about rummaging through rotting compost in the job description.” He protested.

“Stop being such a big girl’s blouse Lazarus McDonald and get in there.” There was something in the serious and stern way the owl pronounced his name that made Lazarus or Lazy Laz to his friends, feel compelled to jump in.

Sarah Sutton, who had made the rose ring, was sitting a way back previously with her back to them but with the scuffling sounds now turned and watched interestedly while an owl squawked at an otter who then proceeded to jump in her compost pile. Stranger things had been known to happen in the Garden Centre it was true, like the time a porthole to another universe opened up and Miss Sutton journeyed instantaneously to the prehistoric town of Clacton on sea bought a shell fish then returned, that had been about four months ago and it didn't involve an owl and an otter on speaking terms. Suddenly she saw the otter emerging black and slimy but with what appeared to be an intact ring of her roses. As unbelievable as this actually sounded the otter then ran off followed by the owl.

            So then the quest to travel across Meare began in earnest. The pair were soon joined by other animals the shield bug had recruited and they all met at the bottom of the lane of a place called Kirlegate and walked beside the gate. There was Samson Matravers the badger, who a fairly dark and difficult to fathom creature. There was Eliza Wood, the prophetic spider, a family of rabbits -Michael and Nancy Robertson and their boys Tony and Ned. A field mouse was there also by the name of Teddy Murdoch.

            To begin with they looked out across the estate of Kirlegate and pondered how to get to the Shapwick heath levels. This was a dark and foreboding place as they stared into its blackness a shiver of instinct which made them very fearful passed through them all. Their wild side kept the animals away from built up areas and so all of them felt a natural mistrust of their surroundings now.

            Lazarus was standing looking at his friends. This was the peoples state of Meare - it was a treacherous road and held many dangers. It was filled with people the good and the bad and had a criminal fraternity who ran a racket and were in with the peat barons, they cared not for the levels wildlife they wanted the mink to prosper because they kept the curious types from snooping in on their dealings and dodgy businesses.

Of the good there were some who stood up for the rights of the wild life but these were a precious few and their will to fight was crushed by the continual progress of the peat barons - unstoppable it seemed under law.

            Their enemy were the Mink and their leader King Stink the Mink. His tribe haunts the levels and besets its population with terror and destruction. The mink had already covered much of the levels, and had bred and bred. They were also greedy for wealth and power and had dug up much of the peat in order to sell it off to the people who lived nearby. The levels had practically become a city built of peat and filled with mink. In the middle of all this was Stink’s castle which stood set out alone in the bogs and lakes. It was an impregnable fortress built of peat, reeds and bird feathers all stuck together with fishy glue.

            The mink in their desire to conquer the levels had eaten many of the birds and wiped out many types of wild life. They had cut down trees fouled the landscape killed off small shrubs and flowering plants that animals like deer eat and enslaved the rabbits of the area in their peat works using them as digging labourers. All in all if a species of animal had not been enslaved by Stink and his mink then they had fled the area in fear of their lives, nothing much of beauty was now left of this once picturesque landscape, they had even poisoned the water to almost all except themselves and their dietary requirement -the fish. 

           

            The animals stood poised - a sound could alert the men folk who were wary of wild animals and kept pets of Doberman dogs and tabby cats to ward against their intrusion. The cats ate the wild birds and prowled the streets of Meare and were known to the animal travellers all around as the dreaded Meare Cats. Their strong hold was Meare Manor where they breakfasted, luncheoned and dined in great style and often invited their raucous cousins the Mink to come off the levels to join them, headed at the table by Stink the Mink. The head of the Meare cats was a cat called Moses, a mean spirited gypsy like cat who had two sons one Morris and the other Tobias.

Sometime later...Somewhere near the northern face of the isle of Meare.

Beckoning in the distance of a long forgotten pose

The brown owl scowls morosely at the rose.

By any other name it would but smell so sweet

And the name of this one went by

Was St Mary's Street

The cock eyed cockerel crew

Again

Yearning for his winter Hen

And above the church tower the weather vein

Wheeled and squealed in a mild sunny breeze

The village was drowsing as men cut lawns

The sound of drilling rang out

While mothers hung laundry out doors

It was a good day for washing

And the shabby tabby cat lazed

Sprawled out on

The tar pitch roof of the granny annex

Warming itself in the rays

Lazarus observed this scene here

With the cool serenity

Of one who knows his destiny is to travel across

The Great Plains and estates of Meare

And far from loathing the prospect of danger

Coming from many quarters

He courts it like a suitor to the otter king’s pearly daughters

Starlings chattered in ever amassing flocks

As the animal troops look to the West

Of the eastern Glastonbury Blocks

The Tor faced back at them the sun its

Glimmering halo

And stretching between vast plains of country side

Thick with streams of alder and willow

And next to these Lazarus spied

The dark moors of Shapwick heath

Now shrouded in shadow

As if beset by some dark ineffable force

Yet this must be their final goal.

"Long will be our journey guarded the owl Hubert Cherrybatten

And many our foe,

The road will be dark

And every day the enemy grows

But end in sight there will be

Even when times seem darkest,

Even then the floor of reeds (Rush) will call

The Ring of Roses to it."

As he stared across the levels which once were his home, a monologue began in his mind and he was lost in remembering more innocent times, before the rise of the mink:

The Reeds which mark the water's edge

Do stay to unburden my night

In them I have all hope of day

And think my future bright

They are the Natural statute

Upon which are written Nature's Laws

And they mark the edge of an otter's emotions

How he conquers all his fears

My heart is proud

Will see me through dark night

I will not stoop to fear

Though I feel close to tears

That nature has absorbed from me

She will not let it near

The mighty oak stands in the bog

Myrtle sweetly smelling sways

Pigeons flock across the corn

On long hot summer days

The sun pours down its virgin rays

Upon this holy ground

The earth its hold

As natures song sings on and on

In this place which has my mould

The midnight swans move on the lake

The drake's song is clear

The twilight to the heaven turns

A wheel on celestial sphere

Ladders turn into the sky

Where silhouettes of silence roll

Into passing cloud shadows

As into Nature's folds I fall

As if carried by spiralling sparrows

The animal troops led by Lazarus chose to travel through the gardens of Meare, as the lamp lit pavements were too obvious a route and the Meare cats would spot them, at least, that was the plan.

            Lazarus crawled up to the fence and looked over a black current bush into the garden. Then they snuck in. A light was on in the kitchen as old Ann the retired teacher was pottering around, she had yet to let Tobias the fearful nine- paw high cat back in so he was somewhere around. A crow came down from above in the frozen sky but Mr Matravers threw a piece of shingle and knocked it down. Then as if as a swarm more crows began dive bombing the animals and Lazarus lead them all into the safety of a potting tunnel. The crows flew off and the animals exited the garden onto the pavement.

            There was an amber glow to the estate, the tarmac road and drives seemed to suck the sound out of all living things added to this the layer of ice frosted curb edges and chilled the feet of the animals. The rabbits were shivering in the semi circle that they all made around Lazarus awaiting his command. "We must make it across the estate - the other side is Down's orchard and beyond the farmers' fields until we reach Shapwick heath."

“But what of Tobias and Moses asked a timid rabbit at the rear

We shall have to face them when our time comes.”

“And what of King Stink and his hoards? How can we hope to fight him after marching across those fields day and night we shall all be exhausted?” -Asked Nancy -Michael Rabbits wife.

There will be time enough for rest once we have passed our immediate obstacle - said Owl and that is the Meare estates and its Meare Cats.

Yes these are no mindless rabble of buffooning stoats and weasels we will be facing. Said Mr Matravers they are a highly organised collective of vicious Pets and their owners are all members of Neighbour hood watch. Even now their spies may be watching us.

Well that leaves nothing for it said Lazarus than to start right away the sooner we get moving the safer we will be.

Yes indeed Mr Otter I second that, we shall be much better in our spirits once we have passed out of this dark and gloomy cul-de-sac. - said Michael Rabbit.

At this the smaller rabbits started to giggle at the look Nancy Rabbit was giving her husband - as if to say one of these days father - you will have pushed this family too far. Even though after this, they all knew that she would forgive them and that to keep moving would be for the best.

           

            The animals began moving off in the direction of the opening of the Main Meare to Glastonbury road and felt their way along the edges of the plank board fencing that lined the pavements and meant a barrier between them and what ever lurked in the gardens beyond. Even though, Michael rabbit still felt a slight uneasiness and an itching began in his nose as they moved further and further into the unmarked territory of Kirlegate. And almost imperceptibly as he was feeling this and Lazarus too by this time, a fine mist began to descend on the troop. Before they knew it the entire road had become a blur -the other side now seemed a million miles away as a swirling fog enveloped them. Try as they might they could not walk without stumbling and then stumbling lead to falling and disorientated they came to a stop. Looking around Lazarus saw that one road seemed to lead to another and the whole appeared to him as a maze.

All we have to do said Mr Matravers is to follow the fence line surely. And yet it was not as simple as there appeared to be any number of nooks and crannies false ways and cul-de-sacs leading to who knew where. Oh we should never have come this way muttered the field mouse. Only a lion would have attempted walking through this terrain and at dusk too. Nothing much remains of our path; I can hardly see the tail in front of me let alone be sure of my or his footing. 

The owl gave a twit-woo at this and flew up into the circling fog out of sight in a minute he had returned to say that the fog was thick and was covering most of the levels but a bank of clear air could be seen on the road - if only they could get to this.

Lazarus commanded: We will go forward I will be at the front and Michael Rabbit you bring up the Rear. With this they moved on...

Moses had been settled in one of the big luxurious armchairs at Meare Manor. A roaring fire and his owners rich brand of pedigree cat food had lulled him into a sleep in which he was coughing and spluttering in a dream. In it He was Stink the Minks butler and personal maid and had been charged with scrubbing him down in a bath. No matter how hard he scrubbed the Stinky mink just would not lose hid foul odour. Moses feeling he was losing his master affections rapidly kept pouring more and more suds into the bath to make it better but this resulted in the whole room filling with soapy bubbles. Eventually the whole wing and then whole of Meare Manor was filled to the brim with bubbles and Moses was in a raving panic being carried away down out onto the street and into the Brue in a sea of soapy foam! He awoke to his own voice screaming -no more Bubbles Sire! Please No more Bubbles! And the rap taps tapping of a rook on the window. His owner hearing only the sounds of an annoying meaoow! Bellow forth threw a determined slipper at him and he scarped away behind the curtain. Now at this time, to inform the reader, I should mention that Moses had been planning a party and banquet in Stink's honour at the Meare Manor to commemorate his rise to the king of levels. This was to be held when his owners were mercifully away on a holiday cruise around the Mediterranean.

            Still here now again, what was that sound, a rap pa tap tap. The window! Moses sidled up to the glassy pane and lifted it a little to let the cool evening air rush in and with it the fog. Then as mysterious as a ghost, the large black rook revealed itself once the fog veil lifted. Sir- the rook spoke in that rough military way of a soldier. “A Party of animals has been spotted entering the valley of Kirlegate, wild animals sir with what appears to be an otter at the head of them.”

“Animals, Wild animals you say well there cannot be any of them left surely King Stink has eradicated them or else brought them under the whip in one of his slave camps?”

“Sir they are as wild as the day I was born, if you'll pardon the expression and they mean to cross the whole village that is what my spies have heard.”

"Well we can't have that can, we Leopold?" No we can't a sly faced Siamese cat said sidling up beside him around one of the ornamental armchair feet.

“You as head of ravens And Spy Master Rook will inform my son Tobias of this that is his district And I will be damned if a son of mine can't stop a few rebels from going against the herd. Mark my words they will rue the day they decided to cross the estates of Meare.” With this, the Rook left in flap of feathers and Moses had shut the window pane.

“You are aware that Stinks visit is only hours away and we can't have a scene like this upsetting the apple cart Moses?”

“Yes. Thank you, Leopold, quite aware and nothing that these scoundrels are playing at will deter me from my preparations. Now how are the decorations coming, they both walked off into the hall way talking on the banquet and how it was to be achieved.”