Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: GREED (avarice, particularly for wealth and things) (01/22/15)
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TITLE: Little Man Made Big! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Danielle King
01/29/15 -
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With sharp wit and intellect, he’d clawed his way up the pecking order of Local Government officers to become Director of Education for Stokes City Council.
Lest anyone forget his high ranking, on the day he took early retirement he removed the plaque bearing his name and eminence from the office door and re-sited it above the door to his garage at home; the one housing the Range Rover.
Trevor was raised in humble circumstances. Old Ernie, his father provided well for the family. A real grafter, albeit unskilled labour meant there was no shortage of food on the table, though treats and extravagances were rare.
Trevor, the clever one with a head for maths and science, evolved into Trevor, same head, yet tainted with ugliness, not genetically acquired and unfamiliar to his peers…
A thistle, germinating amidst spring blossom; a prickly weed, sharp to the touch.
The grand retirement pay-off was squirrelled away. Money made money - once. The more it multiplied the more fixated Trevor became, studying the financial market, transferring funds, here to there, and back again…
He conversed about money, incessantly! Yet bizarrely, did not part with much.
When his third marriage failed and children long fled, Trevor decided to trace his ancestors, to piece together gaps in the Short’s family line.
Would he be upper crust, the landed gentry and the toffs? Or belong to a line of successful entrepreneurs? His elephant sized ego egged him on. Money sitting in bonds, and stocks and shares was not enough. He needed to be revered.
And so his search began in earnest.
He discovered that baptism, banns, marriage and death records were the building blocks for every family tree. Prior to civil registration, in 1538 following the Church of England’s split with Rome, it was decreed that each parish priest should keep such a register.
The amount of information amassed online was staggering and only whetted his appetite for more. Disappointed to learn that as yet he was a mere commoner, and not nobility, spurred him on to dig deeper.
Eventually his search led him to a remote village, deep in the heart of a ‘National Trust’ area, where oddly, many ancestors had been born, lived and died.
The next day he travelled 500 miles north towards the Cumbrian Lake District National Park and checked in a B&B late at night.
In the morning he was awakened by a peculiar alarm. He sat upright and glanced through the window. Puzzled, he climbed out of bed and onto a chair. The cockerel crowed again; now fully awake he gazed in awe over the stunning landscape, steep ridges and impossibly picturesque fells.
Directly below nestled the tranquil village of St.John’s-in-the-Vale with its traditional slate cottages and carpets of fields with grazing cows and sheep.
Something connected with Trevor Short; drew him right inside the panorama.
After breakfast Trevor donned his walking boots and set about the tricky descent into the valley below. Passing through a gap in the dry stone walling, he followed the track through aromatic pines with the foreboding and ruggedly individual Castle Crag, loved by climbers, ahead.
And there, beyond the next wall, the church.
The present day building, dating from 1845 incorporated older parts. The original church dated 1554.
Trevor, fatigued, slumped heavily on a bench.
The silence was surreal; no traffic, no voices, only a sparrow chirruping in the Yew tree.
He glanced around; many gravestones ancient, the inscriptions illegible. People, his distant relatives must have trekked miles to worship here.
Without warning, an inexplicable affinity, a kinship swamped Trevor’s senses as he rested in the stillness. No-one here cared what car he owned, what status he held, how the money market faired.
He took a stroll around.
Parents, losing six and seven children; children losing mothers during childbirth; diseases wiping out entire families.
Every life lost was committed to the ground, in the sure and certain hope of resurrection.
They would never comprehend the present day distractions.
And the roll of honour…
Still legible on a huge tomb stone, the names of many young men who never returned from the Great War.
Trevor lost sight of his short lived dreams of nobility. He walked to the front of the church and knelt at the altar…
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