The cold winter wind1 swirled2 around the single swinging3 bell in St Mary’s church tower. It’s mournful, lonely toll4 a call to the family and friends of Frank Cartland.5
It was November 5th in 1965.6 The date for the funeral of Frank.7 There would be no fireworks in the village of Burlham this year.8
A shiver went through the body of Lady Mary Marshall.9 Always causes regrets for those still living, she thought,10 as she sat in the hard-old black oak, Cartland family, pew.11 Here to bury her father Frank Cartland.12 All the; I will, I can… and maybe next week,13 have suddenly become,14 I should have, I could have and …never.15 Her father had always been the most important part of her life, until William Marshall had entered it and stolen her heart.16 The longstanding Cartland and Marshall family conflicts had constantly saddened her.17
Now, without her father, she felt an important part of her had also died.17
Sitting in the pew directly behind Mary eightyeight- year-old Doctor Howard Jones shifted his large body trying to find some comfort on the unyielding wooden surface.18
Shaking his bald head slightly and thinking,19 how could this elegant, beautiful woman be the scruffy oily handed little girl I used to know?20 He had sat in this place many times for the weddings and funerals of the Cartland family. Sadly, far more funerals than weddings.21 The last time the bells had rung for Frank Cartland it had been a joyful peal to celebrate his wedding in 1920.22
Howard was the only one, of more than one hundred people crowded into the church, who had known Frank as a boy.23 What a life, he thought. I never expected all those years ago that,24 skinny, battered,54 and bruised little boy would have packed so much into his.