THE Hangman haunted by a horrific discovery that spooked us all
Laurie Lee’s enchanting tales of village life are part of our childhoods. But, as recordings of his own memories reveal, the dark truths behind Cider With Rosie tell a whole new story...
deep into the valley. He had a cottage there. I remember it well.
But the story that haunts the gibbet was that one night he was called out to string up a sheepstealer. He came up, got the rope and took in charge a shivering lad. He put the noose round his neck and strung him up.
It was a very stormy night but as the culprit was swinging and struggling and dying, the cloud was torn away from the moon by the gale and the moon shone on the face of this strangled young man and the hangman recognised the face of his son. He did not know until that moment that he was hanging his son.
He went down, he said nothing, he went down to his cottage in Dead Combe, and there was a hook. I remember going down there and you would go into the kitchen and there was a big iron hook on the wall and he went in there and he hung himself. And the cottage, over the years, was never inhabited again; it just fell down brick by brick.
And I can remember going in there in its state of decay, we used to play in there, not insensible to the mystery of it all, you know what kids are like, they like a bit of drama.
But that was a very haunting story to most of the villagers and Bulls Cross was a traffic zone even in those days, busy. There was a stagecoach and the horses went wild taking a stagecoach down to Stroud and they bolted across this empty space here, and the stagecoach turned over and all the passengers were killed.
And Granny Trill said, ‘If you are at Bulls Cross at night on New Year’s night you’ll hear the neighing of these horses and the shrieking of women passengers and the breaking up of the carriage. And if you hear that, you won’t survive the New Year, your face will go green.’ ‘Yer what, gran?’ ‘Your face will go green and you’ll die by drowning.’ And we believed her. We never came up here on New Year’s night. We could hear the sound of the horses neighing over the top of the hill. But we’d never come up here; maybe it still happens.
So I give you warning.
I rememBer one chap, a decent chap, who was full of affection when he made [a production of] Cider With rosie about 15 years ago. He put all the girls in white pinafores and all the boys were wearing brand new caps straight out of the wardrobe
Well, we were very poor and ragged and I thought that was a misjudgement so I said, ‘Before you start, get all the boys to jump on their caps,’ which they were all happy to do.
They put them in the gutter and all whooped and jumped and got their caps into what I call a sense of realism, ragged and muddy, so they were all right. They don’t always remember to pay the past its rightful claim, that we were a grubby lot. That was just part of the reality of life. We weren’t filthy, we were grubby and unkempt. We’d wear a shirt for two days running and old neckties, you’d never see a creased shirt. I’d like to see more recognition of what the past was really like, that it had a reality that was in many ways brave, and dignified.
DOWN IN The Valley by laurie lee is published by Penguin Classics on November 7, £12.99. © laurie lee. To order a copy for £10.39 (20 per cent discount), call 01603 648155 or go to mailshop.co.uk. FRee delivery on all orders. Offer valid until November 19, 2019.