Fever: A Story from a Devon Churchyard by Liz Shakespeare

NEW REVIEWS!

"Fever is a good read, well-researched and dramatised with sensitivity. Liz Shakespeare has done a valuable service to history by compiling these facts to present a snapshot of Westcountry life in the latter nineteenth century."
Western Morning News. 10th December 2005.
"What makes her book so fascinating and so unique is its structure. Liz alternates the chapters of factual information from her research with chapters of fictional, imaginative reconstruction, bringing these poor families back to life, making them real people full of tumultuous emotions, rather than just allowing them to become simply another dusty old statistic."
North Devon Journal. 15th December 2005
"A mixture of social history, research and imagination produces this sympathetic portrait of a community struggling to survive in harsh conditions ... this book is a valuable reminder of how hard life used to be"
Devon Life. December 2005.
"'Fever' is a fascinating and moving book which combines research and imaginative reconstruction to bring the nineteenth century village to life. There are fascinating glimpses of the village schoolroom; of a young girl making gloves by candlelight to help her family survive; and of the deaf and blind coal-carrier who achieved fame but spent his last years in the workhouse."
Torrington Crier. December 2005/January 2006
"Personally this book gave me a great deal of pleasure to read. Liz Shakespeare has carried out her research very thoroughly... The cover is excellent and unusually gives a real insight into the heart of the book."
Devon Family Historian. February 2006.
"This moving account tells the story of a Devon village blighted by an epidemic of disease... The author's approach to telling the story is unique, switching between two different styles over alternating chapters... I found this technique very effective - the fictionalised narrative allows the reader to empathise more easily with the problems of the people involved, while the investigative chapters remind us that this is a story based on real events and actual suffering."
Family History Monthly. March 2006.
"The author produces powerful and believable images through the use of vocabulary and setting which transport the reader to time and place... This is a fascinating book that deserves a wider readership then I fear it will have. Well written and nicely produced, and a snip at the price to boot!"
Readers' Review. Spring 2006.

The following is excerpted from Fever: A Story from a Devon Churchyard.

PROLOGUE

     The harsh words were cut deep into the cold stone. The severity of the message was undiminished even though the passing of time had allowed sage green lichen and tendrils of ivy to soften the edges of the headstone and flowering grasses to grow about its base. I shivered despite the warmth of the morning sun on my back. A father aged 33 years and his three young daughters. All four had died within a few weeks. The date seemed somehow familiar and I frowned in concentration. February 1871. I straightened up and looked around.
    The churchyard in Littleham, North Devon is set on the side of a hill and enclosed by trees. The headstones seem to gather about the small, rugged fifteenth century church that huddles in the middle. Whereas most local churches are set on hilltops to declare their whereabouts, Littleham’s tower is hidden from view until one turns the final corner of the high-banked lane from the village. Its secretive location gives the churchyard a particular air of seclusion and peace. Only the occasional drone of a tractor disturbing the birdsong reminds us that we are in the twenty-first century, for the church is too distant from a main road for any traffic noise to be heard. Like many rural churchyards it is the last vestige of unadulterated pasture amidst improved farmland, the grass between the graves only being cut in early summer when many of the wild plants have already flowered. In January the grass under the old yew tree is white with snowdrops, later come early purple orchids, huge clumps of primroses and violets in the hedge banks and wild daffodils and bluebells amongst the graves.
    I lived in the village of Littleham and passed through the churchyard most days while out for a walk, for it is crossed by a public footpath that links old tracks and woodland paths. Like most people I glanced at the headstones as I passed and those alongside the path grew familiar, like the faces of old friends. Here and there a name gathered greater significance; this one was familiar through reading the deeds of my house; that one bore a name still to be found in the village today. It was not until I wandered off the path one day that I noticed the memorial to the father and his three daughters.
    1871. Why was the date familiar? I stood very still and tried to remember. Then I walked back towards the path. There it was. An insignificant stone bearing the name of a small girl who had died on 10th April 1871. From there I searched on and found more graves, all dating from the first half of 1871, most of them of children. I continued on my walk in a subdued frame of mind. Of course we know that child mortality was high in the nineteenth century, that childhood diseases which now cause a few days’ discomfort were then killers, for the story is told in every graveyard in England. But I felt that I knew some of these people; that I lived not only in the village of today but connected by imagination to the village of the past, and I began to wonder how so many deaths in a short time would have affected this small community. Who were the parents and grandparents of that small girl? Who was the woman who lost her husband and three daughters within a few weeks?

Of interest to family historians:-
Surnames included in Fever.
Ackland, Acland, Allen, Andrew, Antony, Archdall, Bailey, Bale, Barry, Bartlett, Blackmore, Bowdidge, Britton, Brooks, Buck, Burritt, Capern, Christie, Clark, Colwill, Cooler, Crealock, Crocker, Dennis, Dunn, Farringdon, Friendship, Glover, Grigg, Harding, Harris, Hearn, Heywood, Hill, Hockin, Hookaway, Hoyle, Kingsley, Lake, Lee, Marshall, Martin, Middleton, Mitchell, Molland, Morrish, Mugford, Newcombe, Nickols, Padley, Palmer, Pickard, Piper, Powe, Prouse, Pynsent, Quick, Reynolds, Short, Shute, Sing, Stormy, Tallamy, Thorne-Thorne, Vanstone, Vilot, Walters, Westcott, White, Williams, Yeo.

Place names included in Fever. (Most in Littleham, near Bideford.)
Abbotsham, Adjavin, Alwington, Appledore, Apps Brewery, Ashridge, Ashridge Barton, Barnstaple, Bideford, Bideford Union Workhouse, Boundstone – Higher and Lower, Bradworthy, Bridgeland Street, Buckland Brewer, Chapel Cottage, Coldharbour – Bideford, Coombe Cottage, Cooms Head, Crealock Arms, Crossways, Culver Cottage, East Furlong Cottages, East Furlong, East Heal Cottage, Edge Mill, Ford – Buckland Brewer, Furlong, Hart Street – Bideford, Heal, Heale, High Street – Bideford, Higher Shutta, Higher Webbs, Higher Winsford - Abbotsham, Hole, Holland, Hoop Inn, Hoopers Water, Jennett’s, Knowle, Lakenham – Northam, Landcross, Langdon – Higher, Lower, Gregory’s, Littleham Court, Littleham Mill, Lower Dunn, Market Square – Bideford, Meddon Street – Bideford, Mill Street – Bideford, Monkleigh, Moorehead Hill, Moorhead, Moreton House, Mount Pleasant, Nethercleve, New Inn, Northam, Parkham, Peters Marland, Pollands Cottage, Rectory, Rudhabridge, Shutta, South Yeo, Summerhill, Torrington, Upcott, Weare Giffard, West Furlong, Yeo Vale House, Yeo Vale Inn.