The Fever of the World, page 29
King Arthur’s Cave is one of several holes in the Doward. The remains of prehistoric animals have been found there and – allegedly – a very big human skeleton.
On the subject of anomalous sightings around the Doward, during the recording of the BBC Radio 4 Rambling programme, the presenter, Claire Balding, revealed that a very large, apparently wild cat had just crossed her field of vision. Nobody else on the team saw it.
The Queen Stone also exists, and there is, at the time of writing, no official public access. Thanks are due to Richard Vaughan, whose family have owned the stone for over four centuries, for allowing me to sneak up on her. As the fields below Huntsham Hill are now used for specialized farming, I can understand the problem. There are, of course, several photographs in books and online and the Queen Stone can be glimpsed from the road linking Goodrich and the A40. Alfred Watkins’s theories about it as a place of human sacrifice can be found in The Old Straight Track and that photograph of him with his own wicker man on the stone itself can be seen in Alfred Watkins’ Herefordshire, (in his own words and photographs, with a biographical introduction by Ron and Jennifer Shoesmith (Logaston Press)). The Ordnance Survey map shows a line from the stone, through the ancient Wyeside church of St Dubricius, through Great Doward, the Doward caves and the Seven Sisters to the Far Hearkening Rock. The site of Goodrich Court also seems to be on this line. Thanks to the intrepid ex-soldier who passed on his own reactions to the Queen Stone, where he says he wouldn’t want to spend a night.
St Giles’s Church at Goodrich is, as noted, one of the few village churches inaccessible to vehicles.
Copse Cross Street starts at the top of Ross-on-Wye town centre and is sometimes said to have dropped its r. Some say, perhaps a touch queasily, that the burial of suicides there is pure conjecture. Some don’t.
And closing credits: people who helped.
Mark Austin, forestry bushcraft
John Billingsley, Northern Earth
Rosalind Lowe, author of Sir Samuel Meyrick and Goodrich Court for providing really useful information not in the book
The Revs, some of whom do deliverance
Ben Bentham
Jason Bray
Peter Brooks
Kevin Cecil
Petra Beresford-Webb
Liz Jump
Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch
Sir Richard ‘Indiana’ Heygate
Dr Mike Inglis, astronomer
Garth Lawson, pathfinder
Prof. Bernard Knight, pathologist and crime writer
Prof. Peter Mahoney, CBE, consultant anaesthetist
Anne Holt, astronomer
Graham ‘Sven’ Hassel, of Summit Mountaineering, Symonds Yat
Tracy Thursfield, astrologer and general esotericist
Dave from The Electric Shop in Ross
Andrea Collins
Sara Craig Lanier (on Lucy)
Richard Vaughan, of Huntsham Court
Marcus Buffrey, Hereford Archivist
Former Insp. Felicity Keane, of West Midlands Police
Former Hereford detective, West Mercia Police, Paul Matthews
Tamzin Powell
Peter Smith
Russell James
Andrew Jones
Pete Bibby
David Colohan
Dunstan-Maria, who’s been sending me stuff for some years, but whose identity I still don’t know
Rosalind Lowe
Prof. Peter Mahoney, ballistics
Doug Mason
Gary Nottingham
Ronal Ronsbury Fairweather
Trudy Williams
And a special thanks to Mairead Reidy who uncovered background information for virtually all these novels and died – very prematurely – during the final stages of this one. Thank you, Mairead, for years of help. Dream well.
Marcia Talley, novelist
Tom Young, techno-guru
Allan Watson, for Lol’s music
Long-overdue appreciation to journalists Marla Williams and Andy Ryan in Seattle. Marla’s help was essential in the final stages. So was Sarah de Souza, who took over as editor of Corvus in Fever’s final week and immediately saw what it needed.
And Carol Rickman, who usually gets thanked for editing and seriously improving a book… this time, due to me being in gruelling recovery for two years, she had to unload much of that, due to the barely possible task of doing absolutely everything else.
Phil Rickman, The Fever of the World
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On the subject of anomalous sightings around the Doward, during the recording of the BBC Radio 4 Rambling programme, the presenter, Claire Balding, revealed that a very large, apparently wild cat had just crossed her field of vision. Nobody else on the team saw it.
The Queen Stone also exists, and there is, at the time of writing, no official public access. Thanks are due to Richard Vaughan, whose family have owned the stone for over four centuries, for allowing me to sneak up on her. As the fields below Huntsham Hill are now used for specialized farming, I can understand the problem. There are, of course, several photographs in books and online and the Queen Stone can be glimpsed from the road linking Goodrich and the A40. Alfred Watkins’s theories about it as a place of human sacrifice can be found in The Old Straight Track and that photograph of him with his own wicker man on the stone itself can be seen in Alfred Watkins’ Herefordshire, (in his own words and photographs, with a biographical introduction by Ron and Jennifer Shoesmith (Logaston Press)). The Ordnance Survey map shows a line from the stone, through the ancient Wyeside church of St Dubricius, through Great Doward, the Doward caves and the Seven Sisters to the Far Hearkening Rock. The site of Goodrich Court also seems to be on this line. Thanks to the intrepid ex-soldier who passed on his own reactions to the Queen Stone, where he says he wouldn’t want to spend a night.
St Giles’s Church at Goodrich is, as noted, one of the few village churches inaccessible to vehicles.
Copse Cross Street starts at the top of Ross-on-Wye town centre and is sometimes said to have dropped its r. Some say, perhaps a touch queasily, that the burial of suicides there is pure conjecture. Some don’t.
And closing credits: people who helped.
Mark Austin, forestry bushcraft
John Billingsley, Northern Earth
Rosalind Lowe, author of Sir Samuel Meyrick and Goodrich Court for providing really useful information not in the book
The Revs, some of whom do deliverance
Ben Bentham
Jason Bray
Peter Brooks
Kevin Cecil
Petra Beresford-Webb
Liz Jump
Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch
Sir Richard ‘Indiana’ Heygate
Dr Mike Inglis, astronomer
Garth Lawson, pathfinder
Prof. Bernard Knight, pathologist and crime writer
Prof. Peter Mahoney, CBE, consultant anaesthetist
Anne Holt, astronomer
Graham ‘Sven’ Hassel, of Summit Mountaineering, Symonds Yat
Tracy Thursfield, astrologer and general esotericist
Dave from The Electric Shop in Ross
Andrea Collins
Sara Craig Lanier (on Lucy)
Richard Vaughan, of Huntsham Court
Marcus Buffrey, Hereford Archivist
Former Insp. Felicity Keane, of West Midlands Police
Former Hereford detective, West Mercia Police, Paul Matthews
Tamzin Powell
Peter Smith
Russell James
Andrew Jones
Pete Bibby
David Colohan
Dunstan-Maria, who’s been sending me stuff for some years, but whose identity I still don’t know
Rosalind Lowe
Prof. Peter Mahoney, ballistics
Doug Mason
Gary Nottingham
Ronal Ronsbury Fairweather
Trudy Williams
And a special thanks to Mairead Reidy who uncovered background information for virtually all these novels and died – very prematurely – during the final stages of this one. Thank you, Mairead, for years of help. Dream well.
Marcia Talley, novelist
Tom Young, techno-guru
Allan Watson, for Lol’s music
Long-overdue appreciation to journalists Marla Williams and Andy Ryan in Seattle. Marla’s help was essential in the final stages. So was Sarah de Souza, who took over as editor of Corvus in Fever’s final week and immediately saw what it needed.
And Carol Rickman, who usually gets thanked for editing and seriously improving a book… this time, due to me being in gruelling recovery for two years, she had to unload much of that, due to the barely possible task of doing absolutely everything else.
Phil Rickman, The Fever of the World
