Andrew E Swenson and the Glories of Childhood

Lake Tahoe, California

In The Happy Hollisters by Andrew E. Svenson (writing under the pseudonym Jerry West), the Hollister family move to Shoreham, where Mr. Hollister runs a hardware and toy store. Embodying the entrepreneurial spirit, Mr. Hollister invents many of the items he sells. His bold and creative spirit rubs off on his children, as they help him run his store, make new friends, and solve any mystery they encounter.

Svenson started writing the Happy Hollister novels in the 1950s. My third grade teacher, an older woman, had read the books to her class for many years before I came along. Every day in class, I sat rapt at my wooden desk as she related the adventures of this large, loving family, and showed us the illustrations in the book. We no longer took naps at this age, but thankfully, the teacher still read to us. The memory of those story times shines brightly from that school year, and is one I will always cherish.

I cannot remember at what grade level my teachers stopped reading to me. Perhaps that class was the last year I enjoyed story time each day. I know I didn't get along with my fourth grade teacher. I remember her being hard and cold to me, and finding fault with everything I did. Perhaps she did not read great stories like the Hollister series to us, and resenting this loss, I acted badly in response.

I rescued some Happy Hollister books from my aunt's house after she died. They sat in my bookcase, waiting for me to read them, for too many years. How nice to discover that all 33 novels are still in print, and also available online. I enjoyed the family's first adventure, in which they moved to Shoreham, and discovered the villain who robbed their moving van, as an ebook on my kindle. Now it's time to delve into my bookcase, immerse myself in more of their adventures, savor the illustrations, and, oh yes, remember my third grade teacher. 

What a kind and loving woman she was.

Dragon Dave

For more on The Happy Hollisters, visit www.thehappyhollisters.com

The Guardians of Blythburgh

When tragedies strike, we wonder why. People ask: Why didn't God intervene? For Christians, there are no easy answers. Christian teaching suggests that each of us have a guardian angel, who looks after us in times of need. Yet where were God's guardian angels in 1577, when the legendary Black Shuck burst into Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh, England, and killed a man and a boy?

These carved angels adorn the ceiling of Holy Trinity in Blythburgh. Even after centuries of existence there, their features can still be distinguished. The gentle restoration of the sanctuary preserves their beauty, without obscuring the way they have weathered the ages. So why didn't they prevent the death of two innocents on the day of the Black Shuck's attack, you ask?

Isn't a better question this: Why didn't the ghostly Black Shuck kill the entire congregation, instead of a man and a boy?

Either way, after the spectral beast's attack on Holy Trinity, the congregation took additional steps to ensure the Black Shuck would never terrorize them again. The local craftsmen created a Jack o' the Clock to protect their church. They set this additional guardian up in the church tower, where it could gaze out upon the surrounding land. 

If the Jack o' the Clock saw the Black Shuck, or any other danger approach, it could ring the church bell to alert the locals.

Still, the memory of an attack pervades a place. So these days, when worshippers kneel in prayer at Holy Trinity in Blythburgh, they not only look to the angels on the ceiling for protection, but to the Jack o' the Clock, who inhabits an alcove above the altar. He still rings his bell to call the faithful to worship.

 

Let's hope he never has to ring the bell for any other reason. 

Dragon Dave

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Blythburgh

To most Americans, history goes back hundreds of years. What occurred before the founding of the United States? Who knows? And does it really matter?

Residents of England take a longer view. Histories extend not just hundreds of years into the past, but thousands. Take Blythburgh in the county of Suffolk for example. The local church, Holy Trinity, has stood for over a thousand years. It has survived the ravages of war, the weather, and changes of religious beliefs that have stripped many East Anglian churches of great portions of their history.

Once, it even survived an attack by a savage, ghostly animal.

The first documented sighting of the Black Shuck occurred in the twelfth century, perhaps around the time Holy Trinity was built. Four centuries later, in 1577, locals reported that the satanic dog broke through the front door during a worship service. Within sight of the entire congregation, the Black Shuck killed a man and a boy. So ferocious was its attack that the church steeple collapsed. 

Naturally, today's more scientific minds, who seek to discredit the supernatural, claim a storm hit the area, and lightning struck the steeple. Who are you going to believe? An entire congregation who witnessed the tragedy, or modern revisionists? 

Countless stories have been lost to time. Yet the exploits of Sherlock Holmes endure forever. Foremost of those is The Hound of the Baskervilles. Could some of its timeless allure be due to the legendary Black Shuck, a spectral creature that haunted the Norfolk and Suffolk counties of East Anglia, as well as Dartmoor and more distant reaches of the British Isles?

Two things we know for certain. Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles, became an ardent spiritualist in his later years. And Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh, England, no longer has a steeple.

Dragon Dave

Arthur Conan Doyle in Princetown and Cromer

Visit Dartmoor National Park in England, and you'll see the desolate landscape Sherlock Holmes braved in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Travel to the town of Princetown, deep within this brooding landscape, and you'll see the prison from which the murderer Seldon escaped to terrorize the local inhabitants. Stop by the Dartmoor National Park High Moorland Visitor Centre, and you'll see the great detective himself, along with the terrible black hound that haunted the Baskerville family.

It was here that Arthur Conan Doyle stayed a century ago, when the visitor center was the Rowe Duchy Hotel. From there, he investigated the claims of his friend, journalist Fletcher Robinson, who told him of about the Black Shuck, a dark, spectral beast that prowled the lonely moors, looking for souls to devour.

Travel north, to the seaside town of Cromer in the county of Norfolk, and you'll see where Fletcher Robinson first told Arthur Conan Doyle about the Black Shuck. The two were visiting Cromer for a golfing holiday, when Robinson told Doyle about the legendary Black Shuck that had haunted the good people of Norfolk for centuries. 

According to researchers, Arthur Conan Doyle transformed Dartmoor's Fox Tor Mire into Grimpen Mire for The Hound of the Baskervilles. He transformed stories of a notorious Dartmoor lord of the manor, Richard Cabell of Brock Hall, into Hugo Baskerville. He even combined several large houses, so say Dartmoor historians, into Baskerville Hall. 

Historians in seaside Cromer disagree, at least with the latter. They point to Cromer Hall, a local manor house, as the inspiration for Baskerville Hall. They claim that descriptions in The Hound of the Baskervilles portray Cromer Hall, not some backward Dartmoor manor house. 

Did an evil lord of Cromer Hall once live to hunt and terrorize the peasantry? Was this wicked aristocrat killed by the ghostly Black Shuck, whose fearsome howls could be heard across the land at night? And does the Black Shuck still roam Cromer and Dartmoor?

If you visit either place, and the wind sweeps over the land, then you'll know.

Dragon Dave