I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,102

written by Radio Brian,’ said Charlie and chortled.

‘I give up, I can’t make out the lettering even with my glasses on,’ said Robin, taking them off and slipping them back into his shirt breast pocket while stepping out of the way so that Luke could get closer to read.

‘Fays here that Figgy Hollow waf an Anglo Faxon fettlement,’ said Luke.

‘Ah, “hollow” means “valley”,’ said Bridge, reading sensibly.

‘ “Valley of figf”?’ questioned Luke. ‘I wonder if it was originally Valley of cigs then. Maybe Figgy Hollow is where all the Vikings got their duty-free fags from.’

‘Stop being an arse, just for a little while please,’ said Bridge, even though she could see Robin, Mary and Charlie giggling like toddlers who had just heard the word fart.

She read on, expertly translating the ‘f’s into ‘s’s where it was appropriate to do so: ‘ “The name Figgy Hollow is said to originate from the production of fig plants brought over by the Romans and farmed from the thirteenth century by monks in the nearby monastery. The valley, i.e. hollow, and tributary stream gave perfect sheltered and watering conditions for the figs to flourish and the monks both traded in the harvested fruits in the markets along the east coast and made figgy beer, wine, and brandy.” Ah, so figgy really does mean from the fig then. “The monastery was destroyed by troops of Henry the eighth in 1540, but the industry endured. The stone was reclaimed to build local houses, the old inn and, in 1641, the church of St Stephen, which stands on the site of the wasted monastery.” ’

‘How fascinating,’ said Charlie.

‘I bet the monks were wasted as well with all that figgy booze,’ joked Robin.

‘Maybe those cottages were once filled with workers who used to reap the fig harvest and tread on them, or whatever you do with figs destined for bottles,’ said Luke. ‘I shouldn’t think it’s still going as a local delicacy, though, I haven’t heard of it.’ And he would have, at a food fair.

‘I wonder if the church owns all the buildings, then?’ said Bridge, cogs turning in her head.

‘You’d buy it?’ asked Luke, instinctively knowing where her thinking was going.

‘If the price was right. With a bit of TLC, it could be one of those places that turns up on the prettiest villages pages on Pinterest. Like Cockington or Bibury.’

If the photos were anything to go by, Figgy Hollow was very pretty once upon a time, with its central stream and tiny village green. The church and nearby run of cottages appeared to have been designed by an architect who’d discovered a secret cache of figgy brandy before he’d picked up his drawing tools, but the overall effect was quaint and perfectly imperfect.

There were foxed sepia photos of children playing on the green; a man with a huge moustache, in a smart waistcoat, standing proudly outside the inn, smoking a clay pipe. An elderly lady in a bonnet and shawl sitting in a wicker bathchair outside one of the cottages; a soldier in uniform by the bridge with a bride in a long white dress holding a posy. He had one leg and a crutch held under his arm, an older woman and a man at the other side of him, dated 1918 at the bottom.

‘Fascinating,’ said Mary. ‘He must have come back from the war and married his sweetheart. Poor man.’

‘Marriage isn’t that bad, Mary,’ teased Luke.

‘I mean poor man because he lost his leg, not because he’d got married,’ replied Mary, giving him a playful nudge.

‘Here’s some later ones,’ said Robin, following the wall around to where there was a series of colour photos with subjects reflecting the fashions of the era. A group shot of giggling women in miniskirts, then two men with mullets and flares, another bride and groom, this time both sporting mad eighties perms. And the last of them, a grinning gent in an enormous jumper with an impressive browny-grey combover and a short, portly woman wearing an apron. They were standing outside the cottage furthest away from the church, their feet planted in snow.

‘Figgy brandy sounds fantastic,’ said Charlie, licking his lips.

Bridge, however, was thinking what an opportunity to not only inject new life into this part-time patch of Yorkshire, but resurrect an ancient industry as well. Exciting, very exciting.

* * *

Charlie’s stomach gave a grumble and Bridge offered to knock up some sandwiches. Mary said she’d help. She buttered silently, things clearly on her mind, so Bridge let her get