An anchor from childhood

One place that I have always visited, from being a pushchair to now pushing my own, has been Wollaton Hall. It’s funny, I can always remember thinking about all the stuff you don’t see as a kid. I remember as a teenager riding up there most days in the summer holidays with my friends. We would leave our bikes outside and rush inside to walk through the museum, but for the most part, obsess about the staircase that led to the third level…..the staircase that was never open. Why was it never open? Why could we never go up? Who was up there?

All these questions and we still to this day have never found out the answers.

 

[image error]The rear view is my favourite, shame the old pond isn’t full anymore!

 

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have some great ideas in my fevered little brain as to the so-called truth. We had everything from the ghost of an old resident of the house to a recluse hiding (which is ironic when we come to the filming that took place there later in the post).

The amount of made-up games and imagined adventures I created in the house and on the grounds aren’t even measurable. Funny how I have always gravitated here, though, all my children know it, my wife and I take the children them at least a few times in the summer holidays and generally a fair few times throughout the year.

I have always loved the majesty of the house, something has always tickled my imagination and I can, and often do, find my WRITER’S STARE setting in as I look at it and think what I could do in one of my stories with this place.

So yesterday, for the first time we took just our daughter with us. The boys were at school and very rarely do we get time just the three of us, so we decided to go there. Needless to say, my head almost exploded with ideas as normal. This time though I took the camera for once (I normally leave it behind or forget the memory card). There we were walking the grounds (catching Pokemon obviously too), and I’m already telling my little girl it’s a Castle and making up some new spurious story.

Thankfully she’s too young yet to give me the look of doom as if to say “dad you’re being stupid……again!”

I stood to take a picture of the front when I remembered back to when they filmed The Dark Knight Rises there. I was in full flow, at the time, in writing Footprints On The Other Side and I remember feeling something akin to jealousy as they filmed everything. I think at that moment I saw how much I wanted to make a story worth telling, to write something worthy, one day, to be filmed. I never got to “officially” meet the cast (I did get a work deployment that got me into their hotel but professional as I am I couldn;t go for an annoying fan selfie).

I remembered then that I had hit a writer’s block stage with Footprints and I went for a run around the exterior wall when they locked down the site, not only to sneak a peek but also to get some inspiration. There I could see all the props (when it re-opened I even got to see the graveyard at the end of the film and also Bruce Wayne’s Lamborghini under tarpaulin – sad and nerdy I know). But seeing all that made-up in the real world only helped to toss more fuel to the imagination fire.

That night I was talking to my oldest son about making a trailer for Footprints, and he couldn’t see how editing makes different places look the same. It was entertaining him mull over how one place can become another by clever editing. In fact, we have decided to try and set a summer holiday challenge for him and his brother to make a film together. Script it, prepare it and record it, as some sort of imagination-led activity. We will see how that goes down, I fear perhaps the sibling rivalry will lead to some very realistic fight scenes!

I love this place. It carries so much of my life there that every time I go I feel I am in touch with me. That may sound completely idiotic, but here I used to come on my own and just ride around the lake, go through the gardens or even just walk if nothing than to be out and about in my own little world.

Yesterday when we went it was so refreshing seeing my daughter greet the place with the same excitement I did when I was her age I expect.

The ladies enjoyed the museum and exhibits whilst I amused myself taking pictures of this, that and the other. Not to mention a very conveniently displayed Bison skull (which has always been the basis for The Magdon skull from when I first created the beast). I must have had some very strange looks with the angles I was taking the pictures as I wanted them to be physical reminders for me so I can use them as inspiration in the modern Magdon book for next year.

Strangely I found myself facing the closed door again. No matter what I still try the handle in case one day it is open, and I can rush up before some angry curator comes and tells me off. Alas, as always, it was locked. As if to console myself I am seriously thinking of featuring this place in (WT) The Magdon Generations if only so I can pretend to know what’s up there after all these years.

I, of course, dropped off one of my free copies of Origins Of The Magdon: Vercovicium in the hope someone finds it in my vain attempt at self-advertising.

Needless to say, my visit was, as always, inspiring. I came away with a dozen new ideas all from wandering around the grounds. I also came away with some proper pictures as opposed to snaps with my mobile phone which I will store away as inspiration. Naturally, I will bore you with some now, not just of the architecture but also of the wildlife there.

I had better be quiet now, you’re probably at the point of thinking “here he goes again”.