Here we are now

Entertain us.

The children are getting bored as children will at this time of year. We all know those tell-tale signs: the whining, the moaning, the scratching at the door, the whispering in beshadowed corridors, the wan faces at the study window.

It is all attention-seeking behaviour of course and I try my best to ignore it. But the children can be devilishly persistent. Even as I write this they will insist on running about the house snickering like ring-tailed lemurs. It is most distracting.

Oh very well, then. Who wants to tell their tale? The young fellow at the front perhaps? Yes, you holding the severed arm.

Chronic ennui

I must apologise for not keeping this 'blog' up to date. I am afraid I have not been well of late. Franz was forced to contact our local doctor - Dr Trewain. He reluctantly agreed to come, despite the fact that he had previously said that he would never set foot in this house again. Come to think of it - he did not 'say' these words, so much as scream them like a girl as he ran out of the garden gate.

The good doctor diagnosed chronic ennui.

Dr Trewain's family are originally from Cornwall, but they have been doctors here for generations. His great-grandfather actually appears in one of Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. The story is called Offerings and concerns a young boy - the son of the then vicar (the rectory is shown in the photograph above) - and the relationship he develops with a. . .

But I would not want to spoil the ending. I know that there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many people who have not yet read these stories and there is always a chance that you may be able to pick one up cheaply in a remainder bookshop.

Oop north

I must thank the various railway companies with whom I travelled for giving me the opportunity to taste the delights of so many provincial railway stations. Halifax, Wakefield, Leeds, Peterborough - their names are like some roll call of heroes from days of yore. And it has taken me a mere forty-three and three quarter hours to get home.

I do not get to the North so very often. The architecture is so wonderfully grim, of course. Rain-polished cobbles. Soot-blackened mill chimneys. Windswept car parks. But the people are so friendly.

To each other.

I am joking of course. They are not friendly at all.

I am joking again of course. Oh dear, Franz has warned me never to attempt humour and yet I will persist. The people of 'the North' are wonderful folk. I could listen to their amusing accents for many minutes without growing in the least bit fatigued. I mean that most sincerely. Mr Priestley himself hails from 'the North' and it seems not to have held him back so very much. A certain coarseness of manners remains, it is true - but I am perhaps a little old-fashioned in that regard. I'm sure that manners do not matter at all when you are 'prodding' strangers on 'Facebook'.

And so Franz and I say one last 'Ay oop, lass,' to all my northern friends as we retreat once more to the quietude of Pity's End.

I marvel at the efficiency of modern rail travel

I am making good time on my return journey from Halifax, a small town in the north country between Leeds and Glasgow. The speed of modern travel is breathtaking and I will almost certainly - weather allowing - be home by the day after tomorrow. I had decided to go to Halifax having learned that Mr Priestley had been nominated for the Calderdale Children's Book of the Year award.

Mr Priestley's book, Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, has been nominated for several awards but so far, he has not managed to win one. Not one. This award proved to be no different. It is embarrassing to be connected to such a person and have my name associated with his rejected work, but there is nothing I can do it seems.

I stayed at the same hotel as Mr Priestley but of course he will not acknowledge me in public. He likes to maintain the fiction that he invented these tales and I am contractually obliged to play along. Franz and I ate in the hotel dining room and listened to Mr Priestley taking credit for the children's stories. Franz became very agitated.

Calm yourself, Franz, I said. The time will come. The time will most definitely come.

Wedding bells

I am very honoured to be asked to attend the wedding of Miss Helen Szirtes and Mr Rich Horne tomorrow in that fine city, Norwich. Franz will accompany me as always and I can only hope that he does not disgrace himself as he did at the Cholmondeley wedding last year. I never thought to receive another invitation.

Weddings can be tedious affairs of course, though I am sure this one will be the talk of Norfolk society for many weeks to come. I was rather more meaning they can be tedious for children. I have memories myself - distant ones now of course - of such events: insufferably drawn-out affairs involving distant relations. Tight clothes and false smiles.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror has story set among the poor victims of such a wedding set in a large house. It is in actual fact young Victoria Harcourt's story as she has just pointed out to me. I am well aware of that, Victoria. There is no need to scream.

In the book, the story is called A Ghost Story. How does Mr Priestley keep coming up with these titles?

Some notes on the impertinance of illustrators

This is a still photograph from the moving picture Nosferatu, a rather diverting piece of work, directed by the esteemed German director F W Murnau, a reimagining of Mr Stoker's Dracula.

The children have pointed out to me that there seems to be some similarity between Mr Roberts' depiction of 'Uncle Montague' in Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror and Max Schreck in the role of the vampire. But I fail to see what this has to do with me.

Time and time again I have pointed out that I have not even met Mr Roberts and that he has simply chosen to make that allusion himself. It is not a drawing of me, I protest. Yet still the children taunt me, pointing at the illustration and then at me, laughing most horridly.

It is very hurtful.

Some notes concerning the misadventures of my jacket

I gather from my good friend Mr Priestley, that there has been a curious incident concerning the cover for Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. It seems that design has been 'borrowed' by another author.

This book is apparently by some fellow who writes under the rather preposterous pseudonym of Leander Deeny. No, I have never heard of him either. He is an actor apparently.

I say no more.

The book in question is an Italian translation of his book - Hazel's something-or-other - which was published in this country recently to moderate acclaim. But it is enough that this Deeny person has purloined my illustrator, Mr Roberts, but surely it a step too far when a man wears another man's jacket. It is simply not done. It is simply not done at all.

Not that I blame him personally, you understand. Investigations are still afoot. But the children are very angry: very angry indeed. They insist on paying Mr Deeny a visit to discuss the matter.

Yes, Thomas. Of course you may take your axe.

A wanderer above a sea of clouds

When I was a young man I was much taken with hill walking and spent many a happy hour among the fells of Cumberland. I would fancy myself the Romantic wanderer, my head full of Wordsworth and Coleridge. If I ever was happy, then it was there and then. As the poet Shelley once said:

I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be. . .

So it was that I already knew of, and could picture very clearly, the small hamlet at the foot of the Kirkstone Pass through which poor young Matthew Harter passed on the fateful day related in Mr Priestley's tale entitled The Path.

The story of The Path in Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror may seem fanciful to those who read it. I wish with all my heart that it were so. But I do not have recourse to such comfort. I know it to be true.

For I heard the story from Matthew's own ruined lips.

Desolate charms

I was mentioning the muddy creeks of northwest Norfolk not so long ago, in relation to Mr Priestley's book Redwulf's Curse, which is set in those parts. Mr Priestley used to live in that area himself and like me, is much taken with its desolate charms.

Because of this association, he was greatly interested in the curious story of Ben and Peter Willis, two sons of that strange land. Twin sons at that. Rogues, the pair of them. Their story forms part of Tales of Terror from the Black Ship, out second collaboration; a collection of uncanny stories of a nautical flavour. It is a story entitled Mud. I will not say much more for fear of spoiling it for you.

I must rest now. The children have been very demanding of my time today and I am tired. How I wish I could have just one night of untroubled sleep.

The demon bench end

Mentioning Cambridge as I did the other day, made me think of an old friend of mine - Dr Rupert Haynes. Rupert was a fellow of Pembroke College and something of an expert in English folklore. We became friends after the unfortunate business with his son Thomas.

Rupert was a rational man and could not make himself believe that Thomas' affliction was anything other than a mental breakdown. He firmly believed that Thomas was subject to some sort of crazed fixation with a curiously carved church bench end, believing in his madness that the thing spoke to him and forced him to perform the acts of violence that caused him to be imprisoned in Bedlam.

I knew the truth to be rather different of course. It was not madness that was to blame. The Demon Bench End in Mr Priestley's Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror tells the real story.

A heartfelt recommendation on the occasion of World Book Day

Apparently it is World Book Day. Franz has encouraged me to share with you a book of which I am especially fond, and so I have displayed The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Mr Edgar Allan Poe. It has always been a particular favourite of mine. I met Mr Poe on several occasions of course - but more of that another time. I need do no more to recommend it than quote the first words of the title page:

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827.

There are not nearly enough books about mutiny and atrocious butchery in my opinion.

Why do I not write these tales myself?

Some of you may be wondering why I do not simply write my own books, rather than let Mr Priestley take the credit for these so-called 'Tales of Terror'. You may have a point. I do have rather a lot of time on my hands these days.

I suppose the fact is that I was flattered by the interest in my stories and allowed myself to be persuaded that Mr Priestley ought to ghost write them. Really, Franz - every time? It is a most unpleasant laugh, by the way. And I am trying to concentrate.

Mr Priestley has on occasion visited me here at Pity's End. He is most enthusiastic about the venture. His taste for horror does has its limits, however, for I remember that the last time he was here, he left screaming like a parlour maid. He had seen something moving in the woods, he said. My young nephew Edgar has more backbone.

It was only one of the children after all. . .

Some musings on the vice of botany

Other people's obsessions are always a little mystifying are they not? I understand some people find gardening a relaxing diversion. I have never been tempted by its dubious pleasures. Some, like my young friend Mr Kirkham are even actually employed in this area. Extraordinary.

My old friend Algernon Bentley-Harrison was utterly obsessed by plants. His story is told in the latest of Mr Priestley's books, Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth, published by Bloomsbury this autumn and available from all reputable book mongers.

Algernon travelled the world in search of new plants - as if we did not have enough of the things already. He would disappear for months on end and then return weighed down with specimens. I show a photograph I took on a visit to his house. I was there only a month before the unfortunate incident some of you may recall from the rather sensational coverage in the newspapers.

A rich man, Algernon was happy to spend his entire fortune on this endeavour, constructing a huge glasshouse at his home in which to nurture his precious collection. But of course, this obsession - like so many obsessions - was his ultimate undoing. Take my advice and keep well clear of the vice of botany.

Plants can on occasion bite back.