by Syd Moore
I’d heard of the Witchfinder General before but I had a notion that his spree took place in Suffolk and Norfolk and that Essex had little to do with it. When I mentioned this to friends and acquaintances I found I wasn’t on my own in that regard: many of my fellow Essex girls and boys were also oblivious to the local connection. As I drilled down further and uncovered the stories of the witches, I found myself becoming not only upset and saddened but also outraged. Their stories sank into me. In fact, I couldn’t get them out of my head. The one that I kept going back to was that of Rebecca West. The idea that this poor fifteen-year-old was responsible for the death of her mother and her friends was appalling. I mean, she was only fifteen! I remember what I was like at that age – not very responsible, nor sensible nor long-sighted. Then, when I looked at her in the wider context of Hopkins’ evolution/deterioration into a full-blown Witchfinder, I could see that her complicity quite possibly fanned his monstrous ego and bloodlust, thereby indirectly condemning hundreds of other souls to dreadful deaths. I tried to imagine how she felt after the trial and the executions, and was inspired from that daydream to write what would later become the prologue of the novel.
How did you write it? Did you plot it out before you started?
I knew Sadie had to have a connection to either Hopkins or Rebecca or both, so I plotted those connections out first of all. In my first draft Sadie’s mum, Rosamund, was alive for the first third of the book, which allowed me to explore the parallel mother-daughter relationship with that of Anne West/Rebecca West and Rebecca’s daughter, Mercy. It was all good stuff but it didn’t really belong in a ghost story so I cut it out. I haven’t discarded it though and hope someday I might return to it, maybe as a short story.
How much research do you do for your books?
A lot. It usually starts with the internet, then moves on to books, then I’m off round the country viewing original documents and authentic contemporary accounts, visiting sites, interviewing people. I love that side of it, and quite often experience strange synchronicities on my travels: when I was in Chelmsford researching, I went to find the spot where the gallows were erected for the July 1645 executions. I was early for my next appointment and, fortuitously, seeing that there was a pub (the Saracen’s Head) right opposite where the site would have been, decided to go in an get a drink then sit outside and soak up the atmosphere, make notes etc. Walking in I heard my name called out and found myself face to face with one of my old students. When I told her about my research she made a few calls and, within an hour, we were able to descend into the bowels of the old pub and view these horrid, tiny cells which, local custom insists, were where the witches were held before trial. It was very spooky and gave me a lot of material for several ghostly scenes.
Lots of the research for Witch Hunt distressed me, mostly because this stuff was real – people had to live and die through it. It was a terribly, bloody time and I’m glad I live in a twenty-first-century England.
At the moment I’m writing about an eerie fictional village on a remote island in Essex. It has a creepy Wicker Man atmosphere which I’m having lots of fun with. To develop my descriptions I’m visiting similar places, seeking out derelict churches and making weird ‘fairies’ out of coat hangers, fruit and candles. I love this job!
Class seems to be a big theme. Do you want to expand on that?
Witch hunts were about scapegoating and power, or lack of it. It was unusual to find the rich being victimised. When Hopkins got involved he used finger-pointing and neighbourly feuds to whip up hysteria, detect witches and so exact a fee. He made the whole thing into a commercial venture. And I thought that it was important for Sadie to be (or to think she was) an Essex Girl as that stereotype is on the receiving end of a whole host of pejorative judgements about sex and class, just like the witches. It made Sadie more likely to sympathise with the underdogs.
Some of your scenes are terrifying. Do you ever scare yourself?
Yes and no. I scared myself with the Pitsea station chapter. The little boy hanging was such a pitiful image. However, once I get those kind of scenes out of my head and onto the page they stop ‘haunting’ me, so to speak! I think it’s a bit like ‘tag’ – the stories touch/scare me, I write them down and send them out into the world to touch and scare others. What I hope to do is raise awareness of what happened back then and also, at some point, try to garner enough interest and funding to erect a monument to those lives that were lost whilst simultaneously drawing attention to the fact that witch hunts are in some form, shamefully, still trundling on.
For discussion
Reading groups may wish to use some of the following
questions to generate discussion:
To what aspects of the novel can you apply the term ‘witch hunt’?
Moths proliferate the story. What do they signify?
What is happening in the hospital scene with Dan?
Does Sadie’s character change as the novel progresses? How and why?
The story of the witches could be seen to be very much a female story. To what extent does it resonate with male readers?
Acknowledgements
I must first acknowledge a direct reference to the master of the ghost story, M. R. James. The bone pipe that Felix finds in St Boltolph’s bears a close resemblance to the object of evil which Professor Parkins stumbled across all those years ago, in ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, rated by many as the most terrifying ghost story of all time. For those of you whose whistles have been whet, so to speak, the story can be found in Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, published by Penguin Classics.
I am also indebted to Richard Deacon’s book, Mathew Hopkins: Witch Finder General, which planted a seed of doubt concerning the circumstances of Hopkins’ death. And to Peter Gant of Manningtree Museum who pointed me in the direction of Malcolm Gaskill’s brilliant book, Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-century English Tragedy.
Thanks must go to the dedicated staff of Colchester Castle Museum for their help and untiring accommodation of some of my more bizarre requests, particularly the staff member who entered those grim prison cells and measured them for me. I am also grateful to Mark Curteis of Chelmsford Museum, who helped me make an educated guess as to the whereabouts of the gallows erected to execute those condemned in the 1645 trial. Emma Wardall was responsible for smuggling me into the cellars of the old Saracen’s Head, where I was to view some strange cells in which, rumour has it, prisoners were kept prior to their trial.
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge my long suffering dad, Tony Moore, and his excellent chauffeuring service, without which I don’t know how I could have got around Manningtree, Mistley and some of the more inaccessible points of north Essex (I promise this year I will learn to drive). And also Dave Cresswell for his companionable presence and his invaluable information on mental health procedures. Pat Watkins was also an exceedingly helpful driver and a robust springboard for many of my ideas. Thanks, Pat.
I also need to express gratitude to my sister, Josie, for her kindness and innately helpful nature. And for the long stretches we spent on bony knees laboriously plotting out Hopkins’ hot spots in Essex and the witchcraft outbreaks in Massachusetts and Connecticut up to 1692 – a procedure that spanned weeks.
Sincere thanks also go out to: my editor, the lovely Caroline Hogg, who doggedly continues to work with me despite developing phobias about pinecones, cockleshells, Leigh Library Gardens, moths, plastic bags, scratching in attics and now Facebook. Thank you for your determined persistence and insight. To Keshini Naidoo for managing to copy-edit without making me cry (a skill indeed). To Juliet Mushens, fellow Essex Girl, agent extraordinaire and life coach. It is an on-going pleasure to be represented by a chick as glamorous and sassy as she is smart.
To the staff of Waterstones in Southend (especially Sasha James) and Leigh’s Book Inn for their continued support. To Colin Sheehan who came up with the concept of turning Mercedes into Sadie, a thoroughly
more palatable name for the protagonist of a spooky tale. And also to all my Facebook fans for their support, wisdom and frequently salient advice. To Frank McLoughlin for supplying me with the copy of Hopkins’ burial registration. To my test readers Steph Stephenson and Jane Wilkes for their feedback and criticism. And to Kate ‘Nobody seems to know what the hell is going on’ Bradley for her enduring faith and flashes of brilliance. Thank you, my friend.
To Sean, Riley, Mum, Ernie, Pauline, Richard, Jess, Kit, Samuel, Steph Roche, Ian, Rachel L, Colette, Jude, Heidi, Jo, Hob, Rach, Caroline, Liz, Jo, Midge, Tammy and everyone that has taken the time to encourage me.
This book and its success belong to all of you.
About the Author
Syd Moore is the author of The Drowning Pool and Witch Hunt, both novels inspired by the story of Essex witches.
She is also co-creator of Super Strumps, the game that reclaims female stereotypes through the medium of Top Trumps, and was founding editor of Level 4, an arts and culture magazine based in South Essex.
Syd has worked extensively in publishing and the book trade and presented Channel 4’s late night book programme, Pulp.
By the same author:
The Drowning Pool
THE DROWNING POOL
Death is not the end …
Relocated to a coastal town with her young son Alfie, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life. But following a séance one drunken night, she begins to be plagued by horrific visions. Her attempts to explain they away are dashed when Alfie starts to see them too, and soon it seems that they are targets of a terrifying haunting.
Convinced that the ghost is that of a 19th century local witch and her own namesake, Sarah delves into local folklore and learns that the witch was seen as evil incarnate. When a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing and no one is as it seems, maybe not even the ghost of Sarah Grey …
The Drowning Pool is a classic ghost story with a modern twist – the perfect chiller for fans of The Birthing House and Sacrifice.
ISBN 978-1-84756-266-1
£6.99
For more information about Syd Moore, visit her Facebook page Syd-Moore or follow her on Twitter @SydMoore1
THE CITY OF SHADOWS
A missing woman.
Two mysterious murders.
A city shrouded in secrets.
‘She looked up at the terraced house, with the closed shutters and the big room at the end of the long unlit corridor where the man who smiled too much did his work. She climbed the steps and knocked on the door …’
Dublin 1934: Detective Stefan Gillespie arrests a German doctor and encounters Hannah Rosen desperate to find her friend Susan, a Jewish woman who disappeared after a love affair with a Catholic priest.
When the bodies of a man and woman are found buried in the Dublin mountains, Stefan becomes involved in a complex case that takes him, and Hannah, across Europe to Danzig.
Stefan and Hannah are drawn together in an unfamiliar city where the Nazi Party are gaining power. But in their quest to uncover the truth of what happened to Susan, they find themselves in grave danger …
ISBN 978-1-84756-346-0
£7.99
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Syd Moore 2012
Syd Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9781847562692
Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007478484
Version 1
FIRST EDITION
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