The Forgotten Village. Lorna Cook
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the time they reached Tyneham House, Guy was miserable. Melissa had been right when she’d said it was all just so depressing. It really was. He’d not felt like this yesterday. The schoolhouse was charming and it was clear the guides had made an effort in sprucing it up for visitors. But he was more interested in the house, which gave off an air of absolute abandonment, despite the fact it was one of the very few buildings in the village still intact.
The village had been weeded and the grass cut, but the grounds of the Great House were in need of some love. They stood on a large patch of trampled grass in front of the manor. So this was it then. Tyneham House. He stood back to look at the once-great building. He noted the boarded-up doors and windows with their words of warning emblazoned across. For a reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint, he felt as if a heavy weight was on him.
While his grandmother didn’t have especially fond memories, he’d found it enchanting to know she’d turned up for work here during the early war years before she’d had to leave Tyneham behind. In the village, he’d tried picking out her family home she’d described to him, but those that were still standing all looked the same. He couldn’t locate any individual property out of the identical ones from the long row into the village, towards the market square and back out towards the coast. He’d taken pictures in the hope she’d be able to spot her former home, but he was rather against showing them to her now. Her once lovely village home was in tatters.
‘I’d love to see inside.’ Melissa looked up at the house. ‘I can just imagine that front door leads on to a large and ornate entrance hall complete with fireplace and sweeping staircase,’ she said. ‘I used to dream of living in a grand old country house in the unlikely event I ever became a millionaire.’ Melissa blushed.
‘It’s a pity it’s not for sale,’ Guy mused. ‘It’s run-down of course, but with a hell of a lot of money and TLC, it could be a home once again. It’s a shame it can’t be.’
‘Why can’t it be?’
‘The house and village are still owned by the Ministry of Defence,’ he said. ‘The army uses the land around it for artillery and tank training. The village and this house were in the way then and still are now. Not during summer though. They stop their training exercises over summer.’
Melissa’s face fell. ‘Oh, right. So it’s just going to stay like this then? Until it falls away to rubble?’
‘I suppose all we can do is appreciate it as a piece of social history now and endeavour to understand the huge sacrifice the residents made,’ he said. ‘That’s just the way it is with all those villages requisitioned during the war. Some of them were given back, but they were often unliveable by the time the army had finished with them. They’re mostly tourist attractions now.’
Melissa sighed and then busied herself getting the picnic food out of the paper bag. She’d bought some breadsticks and various dips, a crusty loaf, two kinds of cheese, some delicious-looking sliced ham, and paper plates and empty takeaway coffee cups for the water. She looked quite pleased with the little array until, ‘Oh damn. I forgot to ask for plastic cutlery to slice the cheese and ham with. We’ll just have to use fingers, I’m afraid.’
Guy sat down next to her on the grass and drew his eyes away from the building and down to the feast in front of him. ‘Impressive.’
‘Tuck in,’ Melissa encouraged.
Guy ripped off a bit of Brie. He held it between his fingers and narrowed his eyes at the building.
Melissa glanced at where he was looking and then back to him. ‘What?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said and put the cheese into his mouth and chewed. When he finished, he asked, ‘Did you know the owner of the house, Sir Albert Standish, was an MP?’
Melissa shook her head and rolled up a piece of ham. ‘Gosh, that was unfortunate. Being an MP and still having your home whipped out from underneath you, same as your constituents. No special treatment for him. Bet he wasn’t too chuffed. Was that who your grandmother worked for?’
‘He and his wife, Lady Veronica. My gran doesn’t speak very highly of him though. Bit of a bastard from what I can gather. Gran was one of their maids. I think she was the last one to leave.’ Guy frowned, trying to remember what his gran had said. ‘She loved Lady Veronica though. The family owned the entire village and all the surrounding farmland. Everyone rented their properties from the Standishes.’
‘Where did they all go? The villagers, I mean. How do you rehouse a whole village in the middle of a war?’
‘Temporary accommodation in the nearby towns. Some went to stay with family,’ Guy said. ‘My great-grandparents went to stay with relatives, I think, and then my gran joined the war effort and was posted away for a while.’
Melissa looked at the house again and then dipped a breadstick into some hummus. ‘Where did the Standishes go?’
‘Good question. They probably had a London home.’ He rolled up a piece of ham and looked back at the house.
They shared small talk and when they had finished their picnic, tidied up and walked slowly down towards the church.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing these pictures now,’ Melissa said. ‘You’ve really built this up, so it had better be good.’
‘You won’t be disappointed.’
He opened the heavy wooden door and showed her into the church, removing his sunglasses and hooking them into his shirt pocket. The church was beautiful on the inside and out. Built of the same pale brick as the Great House, it had huge stained-glass windows that dripped an array of sunlit colour onto the flagstone floor. Tourists milled about and an elderly guide whose name badge read ‘Reg’ acknowledged Guy immediately and started fussing. Guy shook the man’s hand and then raised his finger to his lips, indicating the tourists. The guide smiled knowingly, pleased to be in on the secrecy, and left Guy and Melissa to it.
Melissa pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and looked up at one of the stained-glass windows. The light was streaming through and casting glorious colour onto her, her face raised up intently, studying the glass. She was beautiful, Guy thought as he leaned against one of the pews. Almost ethereal in this light.
She turned to look at him and walked slowly towards him. He felt like his heart had lurched into his mouth.
‘Come on then, Mr Historian,’ she said quietly. ‘Show me these photos.’
He led her over to a series of boards that had been staggered around the nave of the church. Each one showed a group of properties, their owners, and had a bit of information about their family histories and what had happened to them after they had left Tyneham.
‘That’s Gran.’ He looked proud as he leaned over her shoulder to point to a photo of a teenage girl in a pinafore, her hair up in a loose bun with a few front sections falling down by her face.
‘She was very pretty,’ Melissa said and turned to smile up at Guy. He was only a few inches from her, and he smiled, a lovely smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle.
Melissa read each of the boards with interest and scanned the pictures of the various houses, the vicarage and the post office. At the final board, Melissa saw the same bit of blurb about the Great House that she’d read in the leaflet and looked at pictures of the house in its heyday taken from various angles. A few black and white images of the staff and owners throughout the years were on display. And then there was the portrait shot of Sir Albert Standish and his wife Veronica taken outside their house. It was larger, much more clear than the miniature version on the board at the Great House. She could actually see their faces. The caption said it had been taken by the local Historical Society. Melissa was taken aback by Veronica and Albert. They were much younger than she imagined they would be; they looked no older than their early thirties. She wasn’t sure why, but Melissa had imagined they’d be at least middle aged.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Lady Veronica was beautiful,’