Mr. Thistle is a charming gentleman, over ninety years old, and very much a figure of the last century. He wears plus fours and hiking boots, frequently undertaking long meandering walks. He knows Nat’s parents fairly well, and on several occasions went with Nat to Oval Wood. This was after Nat had found a piece of pottery there. His parents had laughed, but Nat had insisted that it be shown to the old archaeologist. Mr. Thistle had sent the shard to the British Museum for analysis, who returned it with the description: “carbon-dating revealed definitely pre-Roman, almost certainly Belgic pottery”. Mr. Thistle had been delighted as this supported his Belgic settlement theory. It was after this that he and Nat went off together on many little expeditions to the wood, but never unearthed anything exciting. They did once see a rare and beautiful hoopoe bird—Nat mistook it for a giant butterfly, it was so colourful—but Mr. Thistle, a keen ornithologist, had recognised it instantly. He had not seen Nat since then, some ten years ago. Nat had become obsessed with dinosaurs, whereas Mr. Thistle’s studies favoured the anthropological, and so they had drifted apart. How sad.

I wasn’t shocked to hear of Nat’s childhood adventures in the wood. He had already suggested as much, but I was rather surprised to learn that he had enjoyed the company of this Victorian gentleman. Previously I had built up a picture of his infancy as either being a private fantasy world shared with his younger brother, or else solitary.

Mr. Thistle regaled me with stories of curios and buildings in the area, particularly the vicarage, which he claims was once haunted: “seven times the north-east facing chimney was destroyed and seven times it was rebuilt. This was all in the last one hundred and seventy years. Only on the seventh occasion was there a vicar wise enough to exorcise the place and silence the ghost”.

He spoke with the whimsy of one who had spent much time in sepulchres and grown immune to supernatural mysteries. Quite clearly, however, he believed what he was saying. “It’s been quiet these last thirty years” he observed. “There’s also a secret passage between the church and vicarage, which I helped to explore. I advised that it be sealed so as not to be a trap for inquisitive children”.

Today was the first time that I had met Mr. Thistle, his doctor being one of my more senior colleagues. He is one of the last genuine characters left in Black Langley. It is peculiar, the way in which people, facts etc. drift into one’s world. Although I have lived in and around Black Langley all my life, I find that I have never desired to know much about it. Perhaps I shall study the booklet which Mr. Thistle gave me. He had privately published this over a decade ago; the first fruit of his late retirement.