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AOSA ANNUAL REPORT 2001 |
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This Magazine Contents
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Foreword In the late October 1943 edition of the Roseberry Review (a magazine which was produced weekly during the 1940s, and displayed for all to read on the notice board outside the Meeting House), I came across a couple of articles about Tanner Jackson, written by Elizabeth Geary, now Shrimpton, and wrote asking for her memories of his story during her time at Ayton. Elizabeth is still writing ghost stories to this day, as her haunting tale - ‘Magda’ - below, shows. Gill Jackson MAGDA It all started on a bleak April day. I went into Oxfam in the High Street in Ely to find Helen behind the counter, in an uncharacteristic flap. She beckoned me over. “Do you speak German?” she whispered. “Nein liebe Frau,” I said “ein, zwei, drei - that’s it.” “Dutch then?” “No, sorry Helen. You’ve got a customer,” I said, pointing to the closed cubicle. “Yes, a young woman, ill-looking, wearing a long, rather ragged coat, and she said something in German - I suppose German - and I helped her find coats and trousers and things to try on. She’s been in there for half an hour.” Helen lowered her voice. “Do you think she’s one of these illegal economic migrants?” “No” I said. “I can’t imagine German or Dutch job seekers in England. It seems most unlikely.” At that moment the curtains opened and out came a fair-haired young woman, certainly looking ill, and now embarrassed by our scrutiny. She said something neither of us understood, then gestured to the till and shook her head, showing her empty hand. I turned to Helen. “I came in for my Maya cocoa and chocolate. I’m going to give you the price of those clothes as well. Get it? GET IT?” Helen calmly punched the till, and I paid as I took the cocoa. We shook the German’s hand and told her our names as she told us hers, Magda. I took Magda’s arm as we left and crossed the road to the Sacristy gate, intending to make for the cathedral. But Magda became agitated and walked, half ran, away from me. I had to go to work anyway and it was several days before I could go back to Oxfam to ask Helen if she knew more. Helen did not and we wondered what we could, or should do. We put off a decision. The girl was, it seemed obvious, a runaway, but from what? The next morning, I took my sketchpad and pencils to the Lady Chapel, to continue my drawings of the sculptures of the life of Mary on the south wall. It was very early, before you had to pay or the tourists and guides arrived to disturb the peace. But, sitting under the scene which I intended to draw, was Magda. She looked alarmed and then recognised me and relaxed. I showed her my drawings. She managed a small smile. After an hour, I went to see if Ann had arrived at the admissions desk. Did she know if a German speaker would be in this morning? Probably Ilse, at round about 11 o’clock. Perfect, all I had to do was persuade Magda to stay until 11. Meanwhile, I collected two coffees and two scones from the refectory and took them into the Lady Chapel. Magda looked alarmed - horrified even - by the sight of the scones and pulled a disgusted face at the smell of the coffee. She refused to eat or drink. At 10.30 a.m., Ilse came into the Chapel. “I hear you need a German interpreter,” she said. I introduced her to Magda and explained how we had met. Ilse exchanged a few words with Magda. Then she turned to me. “This is an odd dialect, I think I know what it is, but I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. I’m going to stick with small talk for a while. Patience!” I continued with my drawing, as the murmur of their voices receded into the background. The sun left the east window and the chill began to come off the floor and the walls. I shivered. Magda walked quickly out of the Chapel and Ilse looked at me with a face near to tears. I sat down beside her. She said, “Do you remember going to see the dig out here a month ago?” “Very well,” I said. “In a way, I wish could forget it.” The cathedral is rebuilding an old passageway between the Lady Chapel and the Choir. It means the archaeologists have the opportunity to dig the ground first. Some of us were invited to view their findings when they had finished digging. We walked on planks over very uneven ground. There was some evidence of the earliest building in the poor local ragstone, probably Etheldreda’s 8th century monastery, the later building in the 10th century for the Benedictine monastery, and the use of this area as the monks’ graveyard. The archaeologists had left one or two of the many skeletons on display, I suppose for public view, but more hidden from the light, were the bodies of many babies and small children, in an area set aside from the monks. We had been told about these burials but it was still a shock to many of us. Too many, too many dead babies. I doubt if I were the only person - or the only soppy grandma - to have difficulty sleeping that night. “We haven’t had the official report on the dig yet,” I told Ilse. “Is Magda concerned about it then?” Ilse was silent for a while. “Listen,” she said. “Listen, take this slowly, deep breaths, don’t think, just listen. The young lady you call Magda speaks with what I can only call Old Saxon. She’s an Anglo-Saxon. She was one of Etheldreda’s nuns and the mother of one of those dead babies. Her baby died like the others of cholera, or measles, or food poisoning, in the nuns’ hospital.” Magda said she had a vision, I think she said a visitation, that the baby’s body had been disturbed. But, don’t worry, she has gone to St. John’s; all the babies are being reburied, with a service, in the churchyard there. She will rest in peace now.” Postscript The dig described was exactly as it was in reality, November - March 2000, by University of Cambridge Archaeology Department, and the babies were reburied at St. John’s. Elizabeth Shrimpton (Geary 1939-45) |
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