Lazy Sunday afternoon as I head off South to begin a brand new life

A Sunday drive in late summer from North Wales to Dorset, in a 1950s green Morris Minor, is one of the most relaxing journeys I can think of. Well I found it relaxing on that sunny day in 1974.

It was just as well that I have always found driving myself from A to B to be more relaxing than being driven, or travelling by train or bus.

I was turning my back on a profession I had followed for nine years and starting a a new adventure in which I would be in a new town every Sunday for the next six months.

I arrived at Harry Corbett’s home in Child Okeford, not far from Blandford Forum, in the late afternoon and as I drew in to the large yard behind the house I could see Lawrence waiting to greet me, standing alongside a deep blue three-ton Luton van with The Sooty Show painted in bright yellow on the sides and the rear and images of Sooty on both sides alon%%%%with varying sized stars.

Not a vehicle designed to go unnoticed.

As I got out Lawrence came over, welcomed me and told me that Tobes had told him to bring me straight into the house for a cup of tea.

That was when I first discovered that Harry’s wife, Marjorie, who was also the voice and operator of Soo, was known as Tobes (as in Toby jug) to family and friends. I gather it was a name given to her by her sons, Matthew (actual name Peter) and David, when they were children.

Harry Corbett with his wife Marjorie (known as Tobes) and their puppet family, Soo, Sooty and Sweep

Tobes greeted me as though I was a member of the family she hadn’t seen for a while and gave me a great big motherly hug. She told me to sit down while she brewed the tea and as she handed me a mug Harry came in and also gave me a friendly greeting.

We ate with Harry and Tobes that first night and then, tired from the drive, I retired to my bed in the caravan which Lawrence and I would be sharing for the tour.

When I woke the following morning at about 7.30 I had to think first as to where I was. My bed was at the dining end of the caravan and the table dropped down between the two seats to form a double bed. The cupboard door folded out to create a partition.

The other end was a sort of U-shaped seating area (a bit more squared off) and a part similar to the table slotted in to create another double bed.

Over the next few months those remained as beds for the tour and it gave Lawrence and myself our privacy.

After breakfast that first day I was shown around the set store and the workshop and soon realised how efficiently organised everything was.

There were three main sets which were about ten feet wide, but folded down for easy storage on the truck. I know there was a kitchen scene because Sooty baked a pie and I had to make sure the “dough” was ready in place.

Then there was the finale set which was a water garden in which Sooty produced a water fountain from his wand, Sweep’s head, Harry’s finger if I remember rightly, and various other props on the set including a potted plant.

Again this was an unseen role for me as I kept my head down behind the set, made sure the water tank was full, and ensured there was the right water pressure when Sooty “magically” switched the fountain to the other objects.

I think the other big set was a Haunted House. This sequence did not involve me as much as the water feature and I had my role as soundman to keep me occupied (same as with the kitchen scene).

In the fourth Sooty sequence we had a set which consisted of black drapes and a low piece of set at the front, cut to look like rocks or waves and painted in bright colours.

The colours were really bright because they were fluorescent and the whole scene was done with UV lighting. It was an Arabian nights setting and included the magical appearance of a genie.

The genie was controlled by the guest on the Sooty Show Tour, an escapologist called Howard (I don’t remember his surname) who joined us to rehearse his UV role a day or so before the first performance.

I went on a steep learning curve during the fortnight we were at Child Okeford and my first lesson involved providing Sweep’s voice.

Lawrence operated Sweep during the tour and required an “instrument” called a swazzle to make sure he got the right note for Sweep’s squeaks. If you listen you will realise it is like the Clangers and you can actually make out what was being said.

I used to make 20 swazzles a day at the beginning because each one had to be at exactly the right pitch and Lawrence would try them out. The ones that failed to pass the test were junked. Later in the tour I could make a few swazzles at the beginning of each week and one would last the week.

Each day was busy, preparing the sets; making sure all the lighting rigs worked; that the sound system was functioning properly; all the stage drapes were clean and folded neatly for storage on the Sooty van.

That was something else we practised during that fortnight – loading and unloading the van. Everything had to be placed in exactly the right position so that unloading was easier for ensuring the right things went in first.

I’ll give you an idea of how full that van was at a later date and you might be surprised about what we got into it.

I know at the end of the first day I was more worn out than I had been at any time in my journalistic career.

When we knocked off for the day Lawrence and I went to the nearby pub for a well-earned drink or two.

It was a fascinating little pub, really just the front room of a cottage. The serving hatch was in the back wall and the place was run by a little old lady who looked as though she had been there since the year Dot.

There were seats in the tap room with tables and there were benches outside as well to take advantage of the last of the summer weather.

One thing I did find out was that at 10pm the old lady went to bed and trusted regulars to draw their own pints, leave the correct money and turn everything off and lock the door when they left.

As far as I am aware nobody took advantage of this honesty system.

That’s village life for you.

As if in a dream I hear the radio playing Ukranian patriotic songs

Michael Rosen

born 1946
As if in a dream
I hear the radio playing Ukranian patriotic songs
and lovingly produced discussions
about the history of Ukraine
and admiration pouring out of my radio and TV
for the brave people of Ukraine
daring to stand up to this terrible invasion
and I felt warm and sad at the same time
wrapped in the care and kindness of it all
and I was pouring out my admiration too,
and images of the TV came to me from last night
of hundreds of people squashed into a station subway
trying to get out on a train to Poland
and more sounds from the radio of people on the border
shivering and hungry and crying
not knowing if they could get out
while arcs of light flashed over apartment blocks
and the morning showed the cold gray ruins of people's homes
and I heard the words of sympathy
from our leaders
while they explained that Ukranians
would need visas or relatives in Britain
if they want to come here
and I wasn't sure that people crushed
into the subway would have visas
or relatives here, would they?
so if they don't have visas and relatives
what happens to them in the freezing cold
on the Polish border?
and I thought about the care and kindness
coming out of my radio
and I felt uneasy
that I remember other invasions and other bombings,
and the same radio and TV stations
pouring out hours of words
on why similar bombings and invasions
were necessary and good bombings and invasions
and why those resisting were crazy and bad
and of course - as always -
why there wasn't room for
people of those countries
to get out and come here
and I was left looking for the principle being defended here.
This principle can't be that it's  wrong to invade
other countries.
The principle can't be that it's wrong
to bomb civilians.
The principle can't be that we must help
those who resist invasions.
The principle can't be that we must help
refugees.
But then I thought,
what's the matter with me?
what is the matter with me? 
why am I looking for a principle?
Well, not a principle that lasts
or a principle that is valid in all places.
Our leaders' principles are things
they pick up, boast about and then drop
in the hope that we can't remember anything
from before last week.
Or that we don't notice what else they do
in other parts of the world.
One moment they are friend with people
who are tyrants or backers of tyrants
snd the next they are explaining to us
that the tyrants are tyrants
and the friends of tyrants are friends of tyrants
as if we didn't  know that the tyrants are tyrants
and that they themselves are friends
with the friends of tyrants
as if we hadn't noticed this
as if we had forgotten this.
And this is a cycle
that goes on turning,
it's turning in my mind
remembering my parents
talking of the leaders of their town
chumming up with Nazis
corporations selling oil to Nazis
oil they would use to bomb us
and my parents talking of uncles and aunts and cousins
who criss-crossed the very same land
that the refugees are crossing now,
one who escaped
the rest who didn't
and it's a cycle
it's a cycle that grinds millions into the ground
burnt, dismembered, starved, maimed
and I am listening to the radio.
And I am listening to the radio.

Television

by Roald Dahl

1916-1990
The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is  never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set -
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink -
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES THE CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away, 
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their life was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, and -
Just How the Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr Rat and Mr Mole -
Oh books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelf with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites, and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks -
Fear not, because we promise you
That in a week, or maybe two
Og having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start - oh boy! oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Farewell to a comfortable office life and it’s hey ho for the open road

Having made my decision to move on it was not just a simple case of finish work as a journalist at 5pm on a Friday and start working as a roadie for a puppet show at 9am on the following Monday morning.

Giving up the flat would be a bit of wrench. It was the first home of my own (I don’t count the caravan and cottage in Burnham as that was always temporary) and I had had some good times in it. There had been parties galore in the 18 months I had lived there.

It was also where I had told the love of my life how I felt and knew that my feelings were reciprocated.

On the other hand that link to my love would have been a daily torture if I could never see her again, and that was the way it seemed.

Handing in my notice to the corporation, as landlords of my flat, was simple enough. I would need it up to the last moment of work in Basildon would sleep there on the Friday night. Before leaving on the Saturday morning I would leave the keys with a colleague and the corporation agent could collect them on the Monday morning.

Before that, however, I had to arrange to get the majority of my furniture and belongings stored somewhere safe. Where else would it be safer than with my parents.

It was fortunate that there was clean, dry storage place in the outbuildings at Mum and Dad’s place. Each weekend for three weeks I hired a Transit van and took some of my stuff up to North Wales.

There was one mishap and that was on the middle weekend. when on the motorway the traffic ahead of me stopped suddenly and I just managed to stop about two feet short of the car ahead of me. I automatically checked in my rear-view mirror and could see the car behind had managed to brake hard enough not to run into me.

A few seconds later I was jolted back on my seat and the van was shunted into the car in front.

I got out just as the driver in front got out and headed towards me. Before he could say a word I said: “I was shunted.” At which point we both went to the back of the van and could see that vehicle was nuzzling my vehicle’s bumper.

The driver was getting out and, seeing us bearing down on him, before we could speak he also said: “I got hit.”

I was sure he was right because I had seen him stop, so the other car driver and myself moved down the line. There were only three more cars and each had a crumpled front and rear except for the last one. His rear bumper was bent but there was no car behind him.

He claimed he had been hit but the car had reversed and then gone to the outside lane, which had been clear.

We had our doubts but couldn’t really be certain as to whether he was the one who had failed to stop in time.

In the end all the vehicles were driveable, I escaped the worst because Transit vans are solidly built. I swapped details with the driver in front and the driver behind and after they had also swapped details forwards and backwards we managed to drive off soon afterwards.

While I was at home with my parents I typed up the information on the shunt, including the details from the other two drivers, and gave it to the hire company when I returned the vehicle.

I never did find out what had caused the initial stoppage but I did suffer from a stiff neck for the next few weeks. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I was shifting scenery and loading and unloading the equipment before it had eased.

On the third weekend I took the last of it up, except for basics like a plate, mugs and kettle and pans, having bought myself a camp bed and sleeping bag to survive the last week.

Work kept me busy and my weekends were spent in North Wales but that last week was not easy. I was giving up everything and going on the road for at least six months. I hadn’t even considered what I would do after that.

On that last Friday I didn’t really have much to do. All the stories I had been working on and had been tied up and my notepad was clear.

I did have to say goodbye to one special person, a goodbye I believed might be forever. That didn’t stop me giving her a list of our tour dates with addresses and phone numbers for each theatre.

I woke early on the Saturday as I wanted to leave before the town was brought back to life. The keys were popped in an envelope which I dropped off through the letterbox at the office.

Then I was heading for home (North Wales will always be my home) in my car, a Morris Minor again, with my suitcases, camp bed, sleeping bag and kitchen essentials stowed in the boot and on the back seat.

I stayed with my parents overnight and packed away the last of my stuff.

On the Sunday morning I packed all that I would need in a single suitcase.

I had two black polo neck shirts; two pairs of black trousers; two black button up shirts; five pairs of black socks; two pairs of black cotton gloves; five pairs of briefs; a pair of black plimsolls; and a pair of black Chelsea boots.

You may have noticed a theme with this stuff – it’s all black.

I could say that I chose to do a Johnny Cash (Man in Black) as I was heading for a life with a broken heart. Actually I needed all the black clothing for stage work as although some changes would be done in blackout you would be less likely to see a stage hand dressed in black than in bright colours.

All the above were packed in my suitcase, along with toiletries, I also had my trusty portable typewriter with me, but as it happened my travelling attire was also black, trousers, shirt, socks, slip-on driving shoes and a black leather casual jacket (not a biker jacket).

I said my farewells and then I was on the road, heading south for Harry Corbett’s home in Dorset, in the village of Child Okeford near Blandford Forum.

I was setting out on my new life.

The Sun

by Mary Oliver

born 1935, Cleveland, Ohio
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the holls,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone -
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming up on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance -
and have you felt for anything
such wild love -
do you think there is anywhere,
in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed -
or have you too
turned from this world -

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Durin

by JRR Tolkien

1892-1973
The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No word was lain on streams or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head
The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall.
Of might kings of Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away;
The world was fair in Durin's Day.
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone forever fair and bright.
There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote,
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built,
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.
Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke;
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang
And at the gates the trumpets rang.
The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls,
Thecdarkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

Life

Charlotte Brönte

1816-1855
Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerfully
Enjoy them as they fly!
What though Death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair?

Who needs to run away to the circus I found my place in a puppet show

My father was a good man.

He didn’t lay down the law when I was growing up, instead he led by example. He was gentle and considerate, I never heard him swear and he only shouted at me once – I deserved it.

There is one piece of advice he gave me in my teens that I have never forgotten and that stood me in good stead more than once in my life.

I was 15 at the time and had just had my “difference of opinion” with the headmaster at Rhyl Grammar School. He wanted me to stay down and do my fourth year again – I didn’t.

The point is if I didn’t go back to the school on the headmaster’s terms then I wouldn’t be able to go back at all and that would make achieving the future I had planned since I first started there – to be a pathologist.

I would be able to get decent exam grades in some subjects by studying via a correspondence school, but the practicalities of studying the sciences with distance learning would be somewhat remote.

My parents took it well but they wanted to know what I was going to do.

That was when my father said to me: “If you want to travel the world that is fine, but you’ll need something to fall back on when you settle down.”

He wasn’t expecting me to down everything and go and jump aboard a ship with no experience of life beyond Rhyl. What he did want was for me to decide on something I could train for while working, but he wanted it to be my choice, not something he and my mother had come up with.

As I have said before, I had a good think about what my alternative to pathology might be and it was obvious – my other great love in life was words, the written word and the spoken word. After all I had spent years working on the basis that if I needed to know something then all I had to do was find a book about it.

Nowadays people just Google. The problem there is you may not know the source of the information.

That was when my life took a turn for the good. I studied and then became a trainee journalist and knew that at any time I could walk away if I wanted to; I could take a completely different path and, if that failed, I would have a career in journalism I could go back to.

It was nine years before that moment came, however.

By late summer 1974 I may have been doing well as a journalist but my private life was falling apart.

I had met the love of my life and I knew she cared about me, but …

Yes there was a “but”.

You have probably heard someone say: “Can’t live with her. Can’t live without her.” That was the position I found myself in. She was a good person and she had a strong sense of moral duty. Yet as long as we were in the same town – not even the same town, but the same county, neither of us could move on.

At the same time I was somewhat confused about my life as a journalist and where it was going.

I enjoyed writing, I enjoyed creating pictures in words and seeing it go out to people who would hopefully enjoy reading it.

I also enjoyed writing on a more personal level and, like every other writer, saw myself as a poet, but the poetry I had written so far had been for two people only and it has remained like that ever since.

I was down at the Arts Centre having a drink with Lawrence one Sunday evening and I happened to tell him that I was looking for a change of direction and needed to get away from Basildon and away from journalism for a while.

Then came that life-changing moment.

He told me he was leaving the Arts Centre and was going to work for a small touring show as stage manager. His new employer had also asked him if he could find an assistant stage manager: someone capable of shifting scenery and operating a sound system for the show as well as other general jobs.

The point is the person would need to start in four weeks’ time as there was work needed doing before the tour started.

It was Sunday night, I had to give four weeks’ notice.

The timing was perfect.

I told Lawrence I would like to take the job and he was already aware of my experience of working backstage, front of house and on stage.

We shook hands and the following morning I gave in my notice to Tony Blandford, my editor.

Which is how I came to run away and join – not the circus, but something I thought far better and far more fun.

I ran away and joined The Sooty Show.

A Subaltern’s Love Song

John Betjeman

1906-1984
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymous  shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
Amd mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park, the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead,
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

Britons retire into the west as the mercenaries fight each other

Britain was no longer British after Anglo Saxon mercenaries mutinied against their Romano British paymasters. They wanted the land to expand into as their homelands in Europe were not enough for a growing population.

The Celts/Romano Britons, had withdrawn to the west (what is now Wales, Devon and Cornwall and a large portion of what is now the Midlands), the border between them and the Anglo Saxon ran from the Severn estuary in a sweeping curve up to Lothian.

The occupied areas had split into minor kingdoms with some paying dues to the larger, better-armed kingdoms.

The largest kingdoms were the Northumbrian; Mercia; East Angles and West Saxons. These eventually becoming Angle Land or England, and uniting the kingdoms (the Jute lands had already been absorbed by the greater strength of the Angles and the Saxons).

Rather than working together these early kingdoms not only fought against each other but also against a new wave of invaders from the North, often called Vikings but more often known as Danes.

By the late 9th century, 860 AD to 870 AD there had been battles between kingdoms for supremacy and battles against the invading Danes when two or more kingdoms might combine for strength.

Then came the Great Heathen Army (yes the various kingdoms had become Christians by now) in 865 which consisted of various armies from the Viking countries united to attack Anglo Saxon Britain.

The individual Anglo Saxon kingdoms were not overly keen to fight and the Mercian king was overthrown and it became a puppet kingdom.

The only real resistance came from Wessex and this is where the modern-day English (more a mixture of Anglo-Saxons, Norman, French, Scandinavian etc. etc.) gained one of their favourite heroes Alfred the Great.

Not that he was great at the time, he wasn’t even king of Wessex, that position was held by his brother Aethelread. Alfred did, however, lead the Wessex army and defeated the Danish army at Ashdown.

Alfred did become king three months later when his brother died. When the Danes turned up again Alfred did not face them in battle, instead he bought them off, just as other kingdoms had done.

The Danes were allowed to settle in the east, an area which became known as the Danegeld, as part of a deal which also saw them getting payments from the Anglo Saxons.

Alfred used this period to build up his own strength and create deals with the other Anglo Saxon groups to form a more cohesive group. This involved various deals and marriages until the time Alfred was accepted as King of all Anglo Saxons (which did not give him power of the lands held by the Danes).

This title (which marked Alfred as the first real king of England, was passed to his successor, his son Edward, when Alfred died in 899.

Although Mercia was still an entity in its own right it was subservient to the Kingdom of Wessex. A Northumbrian army (Danes) was then defeated by the Wessex/Mercian alliance and Edward turned to defeating other Danish enclaves in the southern region until only Northumbria was left to the Danes.

By now Edward had taken Mercia into Wessex and he was the Anglo Saxon ruler of all the lands from Northumbria down to the south coast and out to the east.

The line from Alfred the Great to Edward the Confessor (he’s the one who died and left no real heir but was succeeded by Harold Godwinson even though William of Normandy claimed he was the rightful heir) is fairly straightforward, although there was a glitch when a Danish king Cnut (we know him as Canute) ruled for a while.

Basically the title King of the Anglo Saxons (by the Confessor’s time King of England) went from Alfred to his son Edward the Elder (a lot of names were similar in those days which is why monarchs tended to have descriptions as well) and then to his son Aethelstan who called himself King of the English; he was succeeded by his half-brother (still a son of Edward) Edmund I, who was succeeded by his brother Eadred.

The crown then went to Eadred’s nephew (Edmund’s son) Eadwig the Fair and later to Eadwig’s brother, Edgar I the Peaceful and then to his son Edward the Martyr who was succeeded by his brother, Aethelred the Unready.

At which point we get the glitch and a temporary rule by the Danes who left England with an interesting tale about a throne on the beach and an incoming tide.

In 1012/13 Aethelred had been quite happily ruling England for over 30 years and the last thing he expected was for the Scandinavian hordes to descend on his kingdom.

It all began with Harald Bluetooth the Scandinavian king who gave his name to the modern Bluetooth communications system. He was usurped by Sweyn Forkbeard, who for centuries was believed to be his son. It appears Sweyn was actually the son of Harald’s brother Knut but was raised in Harald’s household.

Sweyn then headed an invasion fleet of England which landed in 1012 and his army was powerful enough to send Aethelred into exile and Sweyn ruled as King of England as well as with his Scandinavian titles.

He didn’t enjoy his new position for long as he died in 1014 and Aethelred came back to reclaim his throne. He didn’t have long either as two years later he died. He was still the longest-serving Anglo-Saxon king as his split sovereignty meant he ruled for 37 years.

His son Edmund Ironside replaced him but only lived a few months as king.

Cnut had remained in Scandinavia when his father died but he decided to take an invasion fleet to England and eventually forced Edmund to sign a deal in which the Viking would rule the area known as the Danegeld and would become king of England on the death of Edmund.

He didn’t have long to wait as Edmund died, probably of wounds received in battle, a few months later.

The foreign usurper actually proved to be a good king for 20 years but on his death the kingdom was returned to the hands of the Anglo Saxon dynasty when Edward the Confessor, another son of Aethelred, was eventually crowned king of England after a tussle between Cnut’s heirs and the Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxons won and brought Edward back from exile in Europe..

This gave peace in England for over 20 years until Edward died without an heir – but that’s another story.