Sample

Town sprawled untidily both sides of the river mouth on a strip of level ground between sea and mountain. It had little significant history, being properly founded only when coal and iron were discovered in the nearby valleys. It ballooned out from the old crumbling castle sitting on top of a rocky knoll near the river and soon absorbed the original rustic scattering of ramshackle hovels in the vicinity. It spread and kept on spreading into an urban muddle.

    Welsh only by geographical location, it was not far from the border with England, thereby enjoying all the benefits, disadvantages, prejudices and disasters from both opposing cultures.

    At the height of its industrial power, an aerial view would have shown Town as a crammed mass of mean streets, black, dusty coal tips, dismal ironworks and foundries belching unending clouds of noxious smoke overlaying a dreary landscape of gloom and misery.

    It was an ugly place to live.

    Somewhere in that squalid mess of dirty bricks, roaring industry and swarming humanity lay Pellican Square, though that wasn’t its original name.

    It wasn’t even a proper square; more like a misshapen triangle with its apex to the east: half an acre of bleak cobblestone surrounded by terraced houses and a few shabby business premises. At its centre lay a large triangular island upon which a few seats and a water pump had been installed. On market days several tatty stalls sold local produce here. To the east, a few hundred yards brought one to the docks entrance. The town’s main shopping centre lay a little further to the west.

    Once part of the wealthy Pellican estate which encompassed most of Town and its surroundings, the area was filled up with back-to-back terraces towards the end of the 19th century. The square was then known as Docks Approach.

    Commerce at the docks expanded greatly at this time with iron, coal and other refined metals being shipped all over the world. There was an urgent need for cheap, dense housing to accommodate all the new labour required. Where better to put them but on the otherwise useless sand dunes at the river mouth?

    Sir Gosbert Pellican, latest and last in a long line of landowners and industrial entrepreneurs, lived in sybaritic splendour at Pellican Hall halfway up the hill back of Town. This prime position overlooked the Pellican empire of fetid, smoking chimneys and had a good view of the docks where Pellican vessels of all shaped and sizes loaded and discharged cargo.

    Former masters of the Pellican dynasty (all of whom were christened Gosbert, by the way) had a well-deserved reputation for being hard taskmasters, ruthless businessmen and careless for the welfare of their vassals. The terminal Sir Gosbert wasn’t like that at all. Oh no! Though taught to be every bit of a martinet and popinjay as his forebears, he grew up to be an amiable philanthropist and Classical scholar with artistic yearnings, spending his indolent days composing dreadful poetry, making useless pots, painting unidentifiable landscapes and draining the bulging coffers of the Pellican dominion into the pockets of the poor. He built and equipped several schools, a hospital and funded free housing for his workers. Sir Gosbert was loved by all.

    It couldn’t last, of course. Without a strict Lady Pellican to enforce some sort of self-discipline upon the innocent lord, he finally went broke just after the start of WW1. In a rather asinine attempt to temporarily evade his baying creditors he wangled a commission in the army.

    Like so many top brass of the day, Sir Gosbert was neither physically nor mentally equipped for warfare. Within his first week of active duty in the rear trenches he inadvertently attempted to occupy the same space as a sniper’s bullet. Poor Sir Gosbert expired without issue. The Pellican reign came to a sudden and messy end.

    Prolonged and anguished was the mourning for Town’s greatest benefactor - not least that of his dispossessed creditors who also contributed a large measure of breast beating and gnashing of teeth to the emotional climate. Elders of the community unanimously agreed to immortalize his memory by renaming several streets, open spaces and buildings after him. Town councils love things like that. Docks Approach was out: Pellican Square was born.

View Synopsis View Information Purchase Options