Changeling Read online

  Famously, or perhaps infamously, a Bronze-Age skeleton known as the ‘Wentshire Cripple’ was found in the early 1900s beneath a burial mound at the top of the hill, alongside an array of pots and animals. The skeleton was first thought to be a chieftain of the ‘Pobl y goedwig’ or ‘People of the Forest’. These forest people were a Celtic tribe, an offshoot of the warlike Deceangli. The origins of the skeleton, however, are a focus of debate. Recent CT scanning and modern archaeological research techniques have revealed that the deceased, a woman, had both legs purposefully broken before she died. Marks on her teeth and the position of her jaw suggests a stone was placed in her mouth post-mortem. And why it might have been done is unknown. It is also unclear whether the road was named after the skeleton or vice versa.

  ‘The Wentshire Witch’ is a cautionary local folktale about the forest, but its origins are unclear, although it’s difficult not to connect it to the ‘Wentshire Cripple’.

  Extract from ‘The Wentshire Witch’, Border tales: New Versions by Felicity Kilbracken

  (Ellie Hill Publishing, 1981)

  And thereupon, the traveller heard such beautiful singing, which drifted out to him between the trees. He heard lyres and lutes and the sound of breath in wooden pipes, all of these sounds swirling and whirling and dancing in his mind. He was sure he could smell roasted meat, and his mouth began to water as, in his mind’s eye, he could see a merry camp of folk all laughing and singing. The thought stirred his heart, as well as his nose and stomach. The traveller quite forgot his journey, he even forgot his horse, and found himself walking into the trees, his feet barely touching the ground as the music guided him deeper and deeper into the forest.

  From the folds of her hollow oak tree, black and dead at the centre of the forest, and on which no leaves grew, the Wentshire Witch kept calling, kept singing her song, rubbing her belly and smacking her lips as she heard the traveller approach. She would not go hungry today…

  Perhaps, like many cautionary tales, the story of the witch was dreamed up to keep young children from getting lost in the forest. As we will come to see, it does share many elements with the folklore surrounding the forest and the rumours about what dwells beneath its branches.

  I ask Sir Harrison about whether the history of the site had any influence on his purchase.

  —Tommyrot, the lot of it. The only horror story that ever happened in Wentshire Forest was the disappearance of that poor little boy.

  It clearly pains Sir Harrison more to talk about Alfie Marsden than it does his failed business.

  —I went there personally to join the search for that boy, I even paid for a load of extra bodies to assist, most of whom declined the money but searched anyway. The issues with the equipment were … unfortunate. I found the backlash to that particularly upsetting – personally I mean. It was beyond our control.

  The disappearance of Alfie Marsden prompted waves of sympathy and would fill the front pages of the British press for months.

  Sir Harrison’s contractors were the first to assist the police in the search of Wentshire Forest, but the issues with their equipment, which Sir Harrison mentions, would remain a bone of contention for years to come, and their first good intentions would be widely forgotten. These contractors searched through the night for the missing boy, but their lack of judgement and their malfunctioning equipment ended up doing more harm than good. For example, the brakes and engine of a flatbed truck gave up the ghost only metres from Sorrel Marsden’s car, sending the vehicle almost onto its side, blocking the road and obliterating any forensics that might have otherwise been salvaged. With no single person to blame, the vitriol and outrage seeped its way back to Blackwood and Baxter, and their company was condemned for hindering the search.

  Local and national searches for Alfie went on for years after he vanished. Sorrel Marsden still makes a yearly pilgrimage to the area, and walks the Wentshire Forest Pass in search of his son. A bus stop, erected after Alfie disappeared, but which then fell into disuse, now serves as a small memorial to the boy. The local people treat Sorrel Marsden with great sympathy. On cold days, people are known to drive up to the pass with food and hot drinks, which are passed through the windows of vehicles to the shuffling pensioner, a shadow bound to the forest by his grief.

  But back to that night.

  As I’ve mentioned, Sorrel Marsden placed the call to the emergency services at 11:05 p.m. He was at the edge of the Baxter’s development site, not far from the pass. The contractors had recently demolished a row of abandoned buildings. Back in 1988, phone boxes were much more common, and it was not particularly strange that one stood in such a remote location.

  Officers from Heddlu Gogledd Cymru (North Wales Police) arrived approximately an hour later to find Sorrel Marsden curled into a ball inside the phone box.

  While a statement was being taken from Sorrel, the first responders began a preliminary hunt for Alfie, and more police and the ambulance service were called to the scene. A perimeter was quickly established and that was when Sir Harrison’s company was asked to assist.

  —Those lights … that was the start of it. There was not a single piece of equipment that behaved as it should that night. Some people even thought we’d deliberately sabotaged it all! Humphrey himself drove down there on Christmas Eve to try and help. We did all we could. But that forest, it was as if it was against us from the start.

  These are pertinent words, as we will discover.

  Sir Harrison now explains to me the effect the calamity surrounding the initial search for Alfie Marsden and the resulting negative press had on his business partner.

  —That was the beginning of the end for Humphrey. It ripped him open – the idea that anyone would think we’d done any of this for our own gain. When I got to the site myself, I could already see what it was doing to Humphrey, the newspaper reporters around him like vultures.

  —Do you think that’s what killed him in the end?

  —Doubtless. He used to dream about that little boy, you know? Humphrey said he used to dread going to sleep, because he kept hearing his little voice crying from the forest and he couldn’t do anything to help him.

  Humphrey Blackwood was found dead at his home the following year, a cocktail of prescription medicine and alcohol in his system. His death was reported as suicide.

  Back to the night of 1988.

  The initial search effort had already been hindered by the weather and the denseness of the forest. The pass was closed so that a new team of officers could comb the area, but this was only after a huge delay while they moved the contractor’s vehicles and equipment. The half-constructed development in the forest was searched first. One of the most famous – and poignant – photographs of the time shows a rough line of police in oilskins, drenched through, heads down, sticks in their hands, pushing through the relentless forest. The oak trees in that photograph rear up all around them like claws. Between the trees great swathes of hedge woundwort and ferns lap at their shins, as if trying to push them back. The searchers’ faces are grim, eyes downcast. It is an image of futility.

  The perimeter was widened further and further as the days passed. Cadaver dogs were brought to the forest and people from the surrounding communities arrive to aid in the search.

  No trace of Alfie was ever found.

  Let’s now go over the statement given to police by Sorrel Marsden.

  Sorrel Marsden was driving seven-year-old Alfie back to his home in Wrexham from his ex-partner’s home in Audlem.

  Sorrel’s former partner, and mother of Alfie, Sonia Lewis, was, allegedly, an alcoholic. According to Sorrel, he and Sonia had been trying, for Alfie’s sake, to spend Christmas together. Sorrel says he had an additional reason: Christmas was always a bad time for Sonia, so he couldn’t trust her to be alone with their son.

  Sorrel states that he bathed Alfie, read him a story and put him down to sleep at around 8:30 p.m. According to Sorrel, Sonia had been drinking for most of the day and by 9 p.m. was �
�a mess’. Sorrel began wrapping presents to fill the boy’s stocking when Sonia became argumentative and abusive. Sorrel says she was angry because he was being ‘too loud’ with the wrapping paper and began to raise her voice. Alfie woke up, crying, at around 10 p.m., whereupon Sonia threw a pair of scissors at Sorrel. At that point Sorrel decided that his and his son’s safety was in jeopardy. Sorrel dressed Alfie and put him in the car. Sonia was, by this point, ‘shrieking and delusional’ and ‘could not be reasoned with’.

  At around 10:30 p.m., Sorrel was driving along Wentshire Forest Pass when he heard a strange noise coming from his car. He describes it as a ‘tapping noise’ coming from the engine.

  Sorrel states that he was afraid of driving any further in case he had an accident. So he stopped. At this point Alfie was still asleep. After looking under the bonnet of the car, Sorrel states he went to check on Alfie, but found the car door open, Alfie’s seat belt undone and the child nowhere to be seen.

  Sorrel says he panicked and began searching in the nearby forest for his son, but the persistent rain and the darkness made this impossible.

  This is when he decided that the most sensible course of action was to alert the emergency services. Sorrel, like anyone else in the area surrounding Wentshire Forest, knew about the Baxter and Blackwood development and thought he might find a phone box at the site. You heard the call he made at the start of this episode.

  When the forensic search was eventually conducted at the site, it was found that Sorrel’s car had no mechanical problems whatsoever. The persistent rain and the complications with the contractors’ vehicles left little else for the police to examine.

  The most unpleasant and disturbing element of Sorrel’s story is the empty car seat. What drove Alfie Marsden into the darkness of Wentshire Forest? Some have questioned whether he was driven in there at all, suggesting instead that he was lured. If that is the case, then who or what could entice a child away from his father? And this is when the idea of the Wentshire Witch is inevitably raised…

  Aside from the witch, however, there are other stories that abound about the inhabitants of Wentshire Forest.

  —Hey Scott. First of all, it’s a pleasure to see you’re still here, if it is you, that is!

  —Who knows anymore, right?

  [laughter]

  The voice you’re hearing may be familiar – if you’re a fan of paranormal podcasts that is. It’s Howie Dove, host of the long-running They’re Out There.

  —Seriously man, I’m honoured to be on.

  —So, They’re Out There covered Wentshire Forest a year or so ago, didn’t it?

  —Correct. I steered away from the Alfie Marsden disappearance as much as possible though.

  —OK, so your podcast looked into the history and folklore of Wentshire Forest. I’m going to play an extract from it now.

  Audio extract from They’re Out There, Episode 19: Wentshire Forest

  The earliest known inhabitants of that part of North Wales were the Deceangli or the Tegeingl, who were a Celtic tribe, obliterated by the Roman invaders in around ad 48. According to the records of General Pullius Ostorius Scapula, an attempt to clear the forest to construct a silver mine was thwarted by some sort of resistance from what were known only as ‘forest people’, who held the oak trees ‘as dear as a dwelling or a palace’ and defended them ‘with terror’.

  The Romans were able to build their road around the Celts’ forest but not through it, so were unable to make it a straight route.

  So what do we know about these ‘forest people’? Almost nothing. There is a passage in Tacitus’s The Annals that mentions something about ‘forest ablaze’ or ‘forest lights’ … but these terms seem at odds with the idea that these people held the trees sacred.

  —Howie, Wentshire Forest is a popular UFO hotspot, is it not?

  —Yeah. Although, claims of bright lights above a military air force base, to me, at least, are not exactly surprising. And with the witch story and the UFOs, it’s like people are trying to layer stories upon stories to obscure other stories.

  —How do you mean?

  —There’s a lot more to Wentshire Forest. During the fourteenth century, the black plague was spreading across Europe, killing thousands. A passage in the writings of a local scholar states that in this area, the ‘Pobl y goedwig’ were ‘unaffected’.

  —The what?

  —The ‘people of the forest’. There’s no more detail than that, it’s incredibly frustrating. I did, however, read a medieval account from a pastor in a nearby village that spoke of local children being sent into the forest in exchange for some sort of ‘cure’.

  —That sounds significant, given Sorrel Marsden’s story…

  —Sorry, Scott, but I’d say it’s just coincidence.

  —You did discover other accounts of people being lured into Wentshire Forest though, didn’t you?

  —I did. During the mid-1900s, there was another pastor, this time down in Pontypool – that’s South Wales, the other end of the country. His name was Edmund Jones and he firmly believed that the ‘Tylwyth Teg’ were part and parcel of Christianity.

  —Tylwyth Teg?

  —The fairy folk.

  —Jones stated that they favoured the oak trees, and those who cut them down ‘lost their lives by a strange aching pain’. He was also apparently ‘led astray’ by the ‘old woman of the mountain’ on Llanliddel Bryn near Pontypool. He says the same thing happened to him in Wentshire, but this time, it was a ‘dancing company with music’ that tried to ‘entice him to join their merriment between the royal oaks’. According to Jones, he held tight to an iron cross around his throat and recited scripture until they went away.

  —The story of the Wentshire Witch has something about being lured into the forest with music, does it not?

  —It does.

  —Was there any more detail about these ‘fair folk’?

  —Yes, and this is another pertinent point for your investigation. Jones claimed that the Tylwyth Teg have an admiration for ‘lovely children’ and will do their best to ‘take’ them or else exchange them for their own babies.

  —Changelings?

  —Precisely. In fact, Edmund Jones said he had first-hand experience of a baby that had been swapped for one of the Tylwyth Teg. When he described the changeling, he said there was ‘something diabolical in its aspect’.

  —Poor kid.

  —These folk beliefs were strong at the time, but that’s all they were: folk beliefs and superstitions. It was easier back then to blame birth defects or mental illness on witches and fairies.

  —I suppose another big question, then, is whether Sorrel Marsden had any knowledge of these stories?

  —I’m sure both Sorrel and Sonia will have known about the Wentshire Witch. But as far as I know, neither of them ever mentioned anything about fairies. Sorrel still sticks to his story, doesn’t he?

  —I believe so, yes.

  —Do you think you’ll interview him?

  —It’s an interview that the world would want, but I very much doubt Sorrel Marsden would talk to me.

  —Poor fella. Can you even imagine losing your kid like that? Have the whole world speculating on whether you killed him or not.

  —I still hope he’ll speak to me, though.

  —I get it, man.

  Sorrel was the prime suspect in Alfie’s disappearance, and was even questioned officially for his murder, before being released. In fact, no evidence that any wrongdoing occurred has ever emerged.

  —So when did you first meet Sorrel Marsden?

  —It was in the kitchens at the Crown Royal in Penmaenmawr. We were just a pair of boys, like – only seventeen.

  Darren Morgan is in his mid-sixties but looks ten years younger. His frame is statuesque: rugby player’s shoulders and a square jaw. We talk over a pint in his local pub in Conwy, where he lives with his wife.

  —Grotty little commis chef, I was, when I left school.

  —You were good
friends with Sorrel Marsden?

  —That’s right. Best friends, I would say. It’s amazing what a kitchen can do … it makes or breaks you.

  —An intense environment then?

  —Oh, it was brutal. That’s what brought us together, see? Chef burning your backside, while you’re deep in the shit in the middle of service. You’ve only got each other you to rely on, see?

  —You became close quickly?

  —I’m not sure if close was the right word for it. We were mates, but we were never close. Sorrel wasn’t an easy man to get to know; he put up a lot of front. He was short as well, and always had a bit of rage, didn’t he?

  But kitchens are more or less like the military, and I think he liked that. You have to wear uniform, do what you’re told and put up with a big fat fucker shouting in your face. You also spend half your wages on booze at the end of the night to wind down. Ironic.

  —Do you remember those times well?

  —They’re all a bit blurry really. I remember seventy-six because that was the year we both moved away.

  The two friends separated naturally: Sorrel had found temporary work in Wrexham and Darren found a more permanent job in Conwy, where he met his wife-to-be. Darren doesn’t know much about what Sorrel did during the time they were apart, save that he never stayed anywhere long. There’s nothing untoward about this, high turnover being common in the catering industry. But while Darren was putting down roots, Sorrel was still drifting in the wind.

  A few years later, and purely by chance, Darren and Sorrel were brought together.

  —We were back together again. The old team. Living in a shared house in Shrewsbury, I think. We were in our mid-twenties by that point. Working in hotels.

  —Was Sorrel still the same?