Strangers to the Marsh

It all started off with the scuppering of the Emma. The Emma was not, as you might suppose, a fishing smack, but old Jim Deck’s ancient and unroadworthy bicycle, on which he hung various seamanlike things such as an anchor and fender and a lantern. Distracted by Tamzin’s shout of greeting, Jim careered down Dunsford’s main street into a baker’s van; in no time at all he was resting on a bed of rich cakes, and when he was finally hauled to the surface the damage had been done, not only to the cakes which would have to be paid for, but to old Jim himself. Tamzin decided, quite arbitrarily according to her father the Vicar, that it was her fault and that therefore she should pay. Her friends rallied round, and a great idea was born. They would write, print publish and sell a local newspaper – the Westling News – and pay the baker out of their profits. So began a most adventurous time for all of them, because in their search for news they discovered a Colorado Beetle and then lost it, to Diccon’s anguish; a motor-propelled invalid chair for old Jim which was the cause of several escapades; the astonishing fact that old Jim had a father; a man who reduced even Jim himself to comparative insignificance; and above all the arrival of a family of rare birds – hoopoes – at the castle. It was these beautiful birds which proved the innocent cause of a local sensation which rocked the district from end to end.