Ah, the hill above West Wycombe. We used to go there sometimes when I was a kid, I loved it. It was such a strange and mystical place to an eight year old boy – strange, mystical and dangerous.
It was one of those Sunday afternoons, one of those afternoons when dinner was done, ‘Family Favourites’ just finished on the radio, the Instant Whip sitting heavily in our bellies and the sun, bright and hot outside our dim little kitchen, blazing.
My dad was never one for inactivity so after dinner we’d usually pile into whatever battered old car he had at the time - my sisters holding pennies or sitting on newspaper to stop them from being sick. Anyway, off we’d go, my dad just driving where the mood took him, usually not too far although occasionally it turned into a real adventure and we would end up thousands of miles away from home – or at least it seemed that way.
Occasionally my mum would drive, she was learning. Once she stalled on Chinnor Hill in the days before the motorway and began to roll back on a 1 in 4, the dead drop to the right getting ever closer and closer, my sisters screaming, my dad shouting, my mum panicking, the handbrake just-in-time stopping us eventually though.
That may have been a West Wycombe day or it may not, it may even have been the West Wycombe day - the day I took a tumble and saw the devil in the stars.
The gold ball on the top of the church was a fascination. My dad said that they used to eat dinner inside it but now it was too rickety and nobody was allowed in. He said there were caves under the hill where the devil lived and if you looked at the ball for too long you might see the devil reflected in its gold. He said that it was under the hill that the Hellfire Club met, drinking wine or brandy or blood, getting drunk and generally doing things that should never be done.
We’d park up by the entrance to the caves and I’d quickly run past them into the woods, just in case I caught a glimpse of the devil. The entrance was all boarded up, an old gothic castle full of bones and dust. This was once the ancient village of Haeferingdune, the Hill of Haefer's people, a village of hundreds before the Black Death washed them all away.
“Bring out your dead, bring your dead - they’re all stacked in the caves” my dad smiled.
The caves were chalk, expanded into a network of tunnels and passages by the infamous Sir Francis Dashwood, founder of the Hellfire Club. He used the chalk to build a road. A man about town, with influential friends - Benjamin Franklin was a close one and visited often. My dad said that ladies wearing masks and badges that said “Love and Friendship” attended the meetings in the caves and sometimes danced naked and drunk in the golden witches ball high on the hill.
Whores and witches plagues and secret societies, the Devil and chalk caves deep inside a hill – what a wonderful place for a summer’s afternoon dream.
We sat in the sunshine at the top of the hill for a while; maybe we ate a sandwich, or just watched the world go by. I was bored; boys my age bored easily back then. What to do, it was too hot to sit? Kicking my heels and looking around I decided to run down the steep chalk slope just because. Yes, I'd run the hill - it would be a dare and fun.
And at first it was fun, the cooling wind in my face, the green of the grass and the white of the chalk flashing by – green – white – green - white - green. At first the slope was gentle; my white-plimsolled feet steady as I gained speed, my striped blue T-shirt stretched across my back. One, two, one, two - my feet drumming on the ground, flints flashing past, grey and white and white and grey and black.
And then I knew he was watching high above my head, wanting me to fail. I glanced around, a flash of gold high on the hill behind - and there he was all horns and beard and coal black eyes, clinging with his talons and peering out from behind the golden ball as it gleamed in the sunshine.
He flicked a wave as my foot caught a flint and suddenly I was falling. The world turned upside down - blue - green - white - blue - green - white- as I tumbled over and over, hearing the echoing laughter, the dancing music deep in the hill below, the ring of the bell, the “bring out your dead”, seeing the stars and flashes and cutting flints as I tumbled and tumbled and tumbled.
I stopped when I hit the thick bramble hedge at the bottom.
When I came around, my mum was dabbing my face with a hankie. It came away red and red again. My face was sore; my clothes all smeared grass green. My dad shouted something loud and I began to cry.
I wore the scabs for weeks. Just grazes really but sore and covering almost all my face, raw and red and brown. A mask just like the a Hell Fire lady.
Of course, they flaked and faded away eventually – and the devil? Well he remained.
