Whistling Copse

What's this new project?

I've found details of a murder which took place near Bath in the thirties at a place called, rather auspiciously, Whistling Copse, in a part called "Midnight Wood". Some gamekeepers disturbed a poacher who ended up shooting one of the keepers in the throat. There's a whole series of newspaper pieces about it on old-looking microfilm all covered with nifty-looking scratches and lens artifacts and hair and so on, and it looks fabulous. There's all this other stuff about land and hunting and its depiction I can draft in visually as well- from the decoration of hunting rifles to pheasants on china. And class issues and so on, with a bit of Roald Dahl's "Danny the Champion of the World" for good measure. And lots of mud, blood and trees. Also, it was an important test case in establishing the validity of ballistics evidence in proving or constructing the details of the case. I wish I could get hold of the court transcript (if it exists and that's how these things work. I work in a library, so you'd think I'd know, but hem hem I don't sothere). There's almost too much to get started with. I can't seem to find my way into a single narrative strand to kickstart the illustrative drive in my practice- not that I think of my books as illustration. It's more a part of the machinery that I want a verbal way-in to the topics. Perhaps it has something to do with my girlfriend's being a proper poet, rather than my half-arsed wordery? WORK!