My own terror in the Wild Wood

Like Mole I was terrified. Like Mole I was alone in the Wild Wood and like Mole I was there by my own choice.  Also, like Mole I was young, about 10, and certainly naive and finally like Mole, the trees became characters with seeing eyes, reaching arms and try telling me otherwise, they moved!

But unlike Mole, who wanted to visit Badger, in the warm cosy comfort of his underground home, I was heading towards a dark, I was to find empty, cold and forbidding house deep in the wood.  Although near to the beginning, there’s a sort of P.S. here: as I was beginning to think that through the mists of time, in my case not far from a half century, I might be exaggerating a little after all when you’re small things seem bigger, distances longer and just maybe events a little more scary!  But no, I google earthed it and what you are about to read, was all but confirmed by the satellite view – well almost ... the trees didn’t actually move on google earth, but they were certainly as I remembered them – tall, thick and dark, and believe me they certainly moved all those years ago!  And ... it had at the time seemed a long way and it indeed was!

Like my last blog post, I’m back at my prep school in deepest darkest Kent; a smallish, although at that time rather flat footed and plump, impressionable young schoolboy, but displaying a trait I still have, being only too happy to help a lost soul and particularly a damsel in distress!

It was the depths of winter cold and dark outside the large gothic windows of the classroom, set as I said before in a large gothic style country house of which a certain toothy count would have been much at home.  To make the most of the daylight hours our school day included sport for the early part of the afternoon, having had a rest or practised your musical instruments (there’s still one piece of music, the name of which escapes me, that takes me back to resting on my dormitory bunk bed all those years ago – the musician must have been getting ready for an important exam as he practised it over and over again for what seemed like weeks!!) to let our food settle after lunch, before a couple of lessons prior to tea, after which there was prep or homework, and finally a little R & R for playing games before bed.  But, now was the lesson before tea and darkness had descended like a thick felt blanket over the outside of the school, its sports fields and closely surrounding dense woodland, a million miles from civilisation in the eyes of an impressionable young lad like myself!

Into the classroom came the Housemaster’s wife from The Grange, the dark, cold and forbidding house deep in the wood, mentioned above which held a couple of dormitories, one of which was mine, but which at that point I didn’t know was empty and where normally it was a case of strength in numbers as at bedtime, the residents walked across together with a number of responsible adults, at this time of the year with a plentiful supply of bright torches through the dark empty countryside with a yew shadowed ancient church and churchyard, somewhere in the middle.

Having excused herself to the teacher, she enquired if there was anyone from The Grange, who wouldn’t mind running an errand for her.  She had left something she needed on the kitchen table in her part of the house, a part I was not familiar with, and wanted someone to pop and get it for her before tea, as boys and staff ate together in the main school.  Keen to be helpful and perhaps improve my popularity a little, my hand shot up, keen to please, and was excused by the teacher and left with the housemaster’s wife to be briefed as to my important mission.

I should have perhaps been slightly wary when she gave me a large iron key, which she told me opened the large studded oak door, in the back of a gloomy arched brick surrounded porch leading into her private quarters with the kitchen opposite across the hallway. It now seems so obvious that if the house was all locked up and as the Housemaster was himself a teacher and currently lessons were underway, the house I normally knew bustling with excited young schoolboys, in a couple of large dormitories, was going to be empty.  But, still wishing to be helpful and not yet realising what I had volunteered for, she gave me the final instructions for what it was she wanted fetching, from the shopping basket in the middle of the large kitchen table and please would I remember to turn off the lights as I left, and that was when it did finally strike me and I realised what I had let myself in for, but now there was nothing I could do about it. I’d volunteered and to now refuse would not only have been seen as disobedient, but could have led to ridicule from unkind peers, if the reason had got out.  So with false bravado and a cheery smile, I told the Housemaster’s wife I’d be back as soon as I could and out from the brightly lit corridor I went, through a large old wooden door, glazed in the top panels, which after it had shut behind me, allowed the last vestiges of friendly warm light I would see for some time, to light up two long distorted rectangles on the gravel path I was now on, with the terrible truth of my mission already causing my heart to start racing. 

At about the same time, my legs started racing, as never before had I run so fast, what a shame I couldn’t be so athletic during sports day, or on the frightful cross country runs we were assured were good for us!  Before I knew it, I was down the gravel path to the end of the school building, precious little light shining from the high classroom windows, round the end and onto the long sloping terraced lawn garden, with shadowy stone walls along its length, flights of uneven stone steps between the terraces and large evergreen hedges beyond, and nearing the gap in the hedge at the bottom, couple of hundred yards down, as they would have been in those days, before I remember that then just across another piece of lawn was the old picket gate, framed by ancient yews, the way into the rambling overgrown graveyard, with other large yews dotted randomly amongst the tall erratically placed lichen covered gravestones, in the centre of which nestled a small dark stone built church of some antiquity, although church architecture was at this time the last thing on my mind, as with a sharp intake of breath, I was along the winding churchyard path and through the creaky lynch gate at the other side, before crossing a country track and over the stile into a steepish uphill sloping field beyond.

Being relatively out in the open did little to calm my pounding heart, but has reminded me as I write this that the “damsel in distress” I was helping out, had lent me a small rather weak beamed torch, which did admittedly help me a little to find my shaky way, but I also remember thinking also highlighted my presence to anyone, or indeed any wild animal, who happened to be abroad this dark wintery night.  Perhaps that’s why years later, when walking the dog late at night, I’m inclined not to shine a light, preferring to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and other eyes remain oblivious to my presence!!  With the initial burst of energy fading rapidly and the flat feet dragging more and more, I climbed the slope across the field towards another small wooden stile, the “portal” into the Wild Wood we were in at the beginning of the story, with the all-seeing trashing trees, moving stealthily along besides me just waiting for me to stumble on a protruding root, before – now in the cold light of day before what?  As in most similar circumstances in the many and varied folk tales centred in the dark wild woods, the frightened traveller usually is the good who conquers the evil and lives to fight another day, but in the dark of that distant night, as far as I was concerned the trees had turned into cackling carnivores, capable of crunching me up, bones and all, leaving nothing behind but perhaps the large iron key I was holding so tightly, but was bound to drop as the wooden fangs devoured me.  Through the narrow twisting path I ran, finally emerging into the small clearing containing the Grange, dark beyond believe as the trees seemed to close in over it and the lower branches seemed to still be trying to reach out and grab me to pull me back into the gnashing jaws of the large gaping trunks.

The torch by now seemed to be fading, and as I fumbled with shaking hands to put the key into the large lock, turn the many levers contained within the ancient mechanism and push open the large heavy door to gain access to the safety of the house within, it finally struck me that the house was large, rambling, very dark and I was all alone feeling around for the light switch, that would once again spotlight me to any wayward wolves or persons of ill repute in the vicinity.  So the bright light that lit up the dark panelled hallway, did little to calm the nerves, simply made it easier to find the kitchen door and subsequent light switch, locate the important item that my quest was to find, and ruin what little night vision I had built up on the way, as I quickly turned off the lights, closed the door and fumbled once more with the key as I hadn’t had the presence of mind to leave it conveniently in the lock.  It seemed more difficult to lock than open and as I struggled once more with the aged levers, becoming once more apparent of the reaching branches beyond the open porch and the dawning realisation that although I had the object of my quest safely in my grasp, the quest was far from over.  I still had to return through the Wild Wood, across the sloping field, over the country track, through the creaky lynch gate and around the church and through the graveyard, out through the picket gate and across a stretch of lawn, up the terraces and around the end of the school and onto the almost reassuring crunch of the gravel path.  Except this time having retrieved the treasured item, the flailing branches and lurking ne’er-too- wells, were all keen to find out what the gallant knight was carrying for the maiden in distress, and I’m sure as I none too gently closed the outside door of the school, I could hear footsteps in the gravel outside.

Leaning against the wall to catch my breath and abate my racing heart, as well as to make a mental note to think more about how much distress the maiden might be in, before committing myself in the future, I finally calmed down enough to search out the Housemaster’s wife and cheerily say “Your house key and the cigarettes you sent me for Mrs ......!!  But in light of current court cases of historic child abuse, perhaps she had better remain anonymous!!