Shillingstone
On Friday May19th 1855 thousands of area villagers travelled to the small village of Shillingstone to celebrate May Day around the tallest May Pole in all of England. It was also an opportunity for young people to mingle and evaluate marriage prospects. It was in the midst of this bustling crowd that young Sarah and Byron met for the first time.
In the following months they fell in love and made a commitment to get married. However, for Sarah it was not to be until she was no longer responsible for her sick mother and demanding father. Byron was dismayed but agreed to wait. However, he decided he could not remain in Shillingstone.
He joined the army for 7 years and fought battles in India and China. After 7 years he returned to Shillingstone and found that Sarah’s obligation to her family had not changed. He was flummoxed.
Grudgingly Byron signed up for another 7 years and was sent to New Zealand. These years would be very different for them both. Neither Sarah nor Byron could ever have imagined how the last 7 years would end.
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By chance two young boys boarded the convict ship Minerva to sail to the penal colony in Australia. One was 12 year old Daniel, the son of peerage, and the other was 17 year old Alfie, a convicted felon of poverty.
In a ferocious gale the ship foundered and sank on a reef near the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. Alfie survived and saved young Daniel’s life. In the months following this tragedy Daniel and Alfie established a strong bond and promised they would never, ever forget each other
Ultimately Daniel returned to England to inherit a large estate, and Alfie sailed on to face a punishing life as prisoner in Australia’s penal colony.
In the following years that promise would flow like an undulating thread weaving its way amid a montage of characters, both miscreants and hero's. It would continue through good and evil, success and failure, delight and despair.
Dramatic events ensue over several decades. Gold is discovered, an aboriginal infant is saved from infanticide, Daniel loses his estate and Alfie is subjected to harsh punishment working in a road gang.
The thread continues with incidental characters who have an influence on the outcome of the lives of Daniel and Alfie and on the promise they made years ago. A mosaic of the weaving thread culminates in an unexpected ending.
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