What the Wind Saw is a collection of 25 short stories of the people, real and imagined, from a small tract of ancient land in the heart of Hertfordshire: Wheathampstead, The Ayots, Welwyn Garden City and St Albans. It is a journey through the landscape and through history.
The wind has always blown over these villages, fields, rivers, its towns and its city. It always will. We have the same worries, fears, hopes and dreams today as we have always had. We are connected to each other by our shared experiences, by the places that we live and by the paths that we tread. The wind narrates the stories through a prologue and an epilogue and makes its presence felt in the stories themselves.
These are stories of friendship, power, love, grief and ambition inspired by the landscape and what is in it - John Bunyan’s Cottage, Shaw’s Corner, the annual Ayot St Lawrence art show, the Devil’s Dyke, St Albans market, a walk in the woods, a walk across the fields.
In 2024 What the Wind Saw was the subject of an interpretive exhibition at Mill Green Museum, Hatfield.
​
With a Foreword by Robert Voss CBE CStJ
HM Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire
In 1945 Jean Barnet put her war in a box - all her memories, achievements, and heartache. She hoped it would stay there so that she might become the dutiful wife, mother and daughter a post-war world demanded. Eighteen years later, in 1963 she still hasn't moved on. She knows she must. But in the box is Albert, the gunner she loved and Alice Bragg, the charming socialite who led the Women's Voluntary Service in Cambridge. Will allowing herself to be open to her memories and reinvigorated by the excitement of the wartime years bring Jean the happiness she craves?
Hope is Daffodil Bright weaves the historical biography of Lady Alice Bragg, leader of the WVS and Mayor of Cambridge, with the imagined story of Jean Barnet and her family and friends in the village of Grantchester on the outskirts of Cambridge. It tells how the WVS was founded and the multitude of tasks the volunteers took on. It asks timeless questions about remembering, forgiveness, volunteering for the sake of others, censorship and self-censorship. With a vivacious cast of actual and fictitious characters, it asserts that it is never to take the happy and the sad from the past and move on to a brighter tomorrow.
​
An uplifting true story of an inspirational woman in the Second World War, it is also a well-researched story of volunteering and interesting piece in the history of Cambridge.
A story book for adults exploring the relationships between people and their pets and why the love they share is so frequently celebrated in painting.
​
Paco: Bartolo and his pet dog teach headstrong Consuela to dance flamenco at the Seville April Fair – to her parents’ disgust.
​
Percival: Emily, unhappy in a stale marriage, buys a painting of a sheep at an art show which leads to an unexpected chain of events.
​
Guy: Edward lives with his parrot on a houseboat near Keswick. Their secret threatens to destroy a special relationship.
Smokey: Derek, retired and widowed, has a date with Jenny. All seems to go well until he meets her cat.
​
Winnie: Anna is desperate to keep her dog safe when the bombs fall during the Blitz. She will go to any lengths.
