Tag Archives: Bury St Edmunds

The Day I Met Myself: or how I survived my death-omen doppleganger.

It was an overcast day, and I was walking through Bury St Edmunds with my best friend, Hugh. After lunch sometime, killing time before our scheduled afternoon classes. I don’t know the date or even the year — and Hugh … Continue reading

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A Suffolk Tragedy –The Red Barn Murder; Polstead, Suffolk, 1828

I don’t have time to give a full account of the case, so I will quickly summarize it here. On Saturday 18th May 1827 William Corder, a son of a prosperous Suffolk family apparently set out to elope with Maria Marten, a village beauty of humble origin. The two walked separately through the night to a barn, the now infamous ‘Red Barn’ on Corder’s property, Maria dressed in men’s clothing to avoid local notice. In the barn Maria change in to her women’s attire, and while changing met her death, and was buried by Corder within the barn. Continue reading

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The Battle of Fornham 1173: re-fought with Ars Magica!

I have written a lot on games recently and not much else, but back to the normal soon. Despite the title this post is as much about real English history as my game, and therefore possibly worth reading — you can skip the sections with green headings and read the ones with dark blue heading to find the fact rather than the game stuff! I have just finished hosting Grand Tribunal 2012 the Ars Magica roleplaying game convention, and so am still full of enthusiasm for my gaming exploits. This year saw a rather unusual one — trying to recreate a rather important if obscure event in English history (a battle at Fornham, just outside Bury St Edmunds in 1173) with a combination wargame/freeform/rpg game set in the world of Ars Magica, using the 5th edition rules.

However, let’s start with the real world history… Continue reading

Posted in Games, History, Reviews and Past Events, Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Story of St. Edmund

Story time! As son of a pagan Dane, from Bury St Edmunds, you can see my interest!

I wrote this years ago – in places I use Suffolk dialect, and it’s written from the perspective of someone in 1220 Bury St Edmunds….

‘This is the tale of Saint Edmund, long regarded as the Patron Saint of England, though I understand some Crusaders pay reverence to St. George who slayed the dragon’ he announces… ‘though I have heard that owd George was foreigner!’ Continue reading

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The Vanishing House – a real ghost story…

ROUGHAM GREEN: We have all heard of haunted houses, but who has ever heard of a house that is a haunt! Yet for over a century this is exactly what has been occurring on the stretch of road between Rougham Green and Bradfield St. George. Our story begins in 1860 when a Mr Robert Palfrey was out in the fields on a warm June evening, putting the finishing touches on a haystack. He shivered as the evening grew suddenly chilly, and then was shocked to suddenly see a large redbrick house with gardens in full bloom, where there had been no house a moment before. Continue reading

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Pigs might fly: facing a flu pandemic

It all sounds really scary doesn’t it? A flu pandemic, spreading out from Mexico. Even The (Gloucester) Citizen ran a headline story yesterday – two people in quarantine at home. OK, I was surprised when it turned out to be Tony and Kandia of Inkubbus Sukkubus – I had no idea they were gigging in Mexico City, way to go guys! (they are a rather fun local pagan rock band and decent folks) — but I’m more interested than frightened at the moment. Yes that’s right, CJ, Captain Paranoid about Epidemics, is not remotely bothered. Why? Continue reading

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Want a cheap house? Move to Derby, or head west to Gloucester!

Find out what is happening to housing market in your area with BBC link. Just experimented with my postcode, my parents postcode and a few of my friends postcodes…
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Posted in Social commentary desecrated, Uninteresting to others whitterings about my life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments