Imaginary Russian Gold

I have been distracted from my original novel and just completed a draft of a short story about this poacher/miner , renamed again, for the moment Samuel Crowe,( I liked William Crowe but jokes about beaks and bills became too bothersome) and he has become a sort of detective. The first is based on the true story of the Buttyman in the previous post, only Crowe’s case is a bit less clear cut…

I have other Crowe stories in mind. I don’t know if they are a new direction or a step on the way to Uncle Reggie’s story, however they are easier to write, and I’m lazy. I can take a subject at a time, so doesn’t matter too much if I don’t know potato farming or brass bands or sick pay or how to swing a miner’s axe- I get to learn this stuff inch by inch.

There is so much to interest of Crowe: not all the migration was exclusively economic, nor were all the migrants miners before they came to Kent: some men were running from troubles: some were blacklisted militants, some were ostracized blacklegs, and some ran off with other men’s wives, some with other men’s money.

There were rootless men who moved from new coalfield to new coalfield, because the first seams sunk were easier to work, seen I think, as profiteers by other miners.

The new frontier town attracted some of the best and the worst, lots of tension, lots of stories.

At the back of all these stories there is some outlandish running mystery about a Russian donation to the Strike fund. Any twenties detective story needs a missing Russian treasure. Samuel knows more then he lets on.

Above all I love a man that can watch the change in flight of a woodpigeon and know that someone is moving towards him along the left side of the far field...