Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time is the fifth novel-as-such and sixth entry in the Village Tales.

Contents
The duke, on the ‘Advance Praise’ page of the novel, calls it damned cheek. Peter Maughan, author of Under the Apple Boughs and of the ‘Batch Magna Chronicle’ (The Cuckoos of Batch Magna; Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall; The Batch Magna Caper; Clouds in a Summer Sky; and The Ghost of Artemus Strange), calls it, in the advance blurbage, ‘... stylish, witty, original, and beautifully written, speaking splendidly of Old England. In short, bloody marvellous’. The author calls it unconscionably delayed. But here it is.

Synopsis
A novel about archaeology and history and historiography – or, really, about the English past and its persistence and deep continuity, Ordinary Time is set in 2017. Inevitably – 2017 having been 2017 – it concentrates upon the snap General Election, the haplessness of Mrs May, the inability of Mr Corbyn to score against an open goal, Brexit, and the year’s various terror attacks, including the Manchester Arena bombing at the Ariana Grande concert. But the physical storms of the year, including Storms Doris, Ophelia, and Brian, perhaps matter more, to farmers … and to archaeologists, who find unexpected remains uncovered by storms.

There’s an intelligence and counter-intelligence inquiry (and a contact with Israeli intelligence and Saudi intelligence, and a Belated Entry gazetting of the Duke’s actual rank with hints of what he’s been up to as a purportedly shelved Army Reserve officer); a murder in the West Midlands in which Canon Paddick’s two oldest friends feature as the victim and the accused; crises of faith; a Becket-style showdown between Church and State.... The fallout from the cock-ups of Ye Little Hills Like Lambs continues; as do the canal project, the Great Vale Dig, and the plans for the new school in the Downlands, with those parishes’ ongoing integration into the Combined Benefice.

But at the end of the day, what matters are scholarship, sanctity, love, and the land: births and baptisms, marriage engagements, several marriages (as trailed in the preceding book, the Duke to Professor the Baroness Lacy; his former sister-in-law Connie to Sir Giles Trulock; and Sher’s sister Ameena to Tariq), a few funerals, farrowing and lambing and shearing and harvest, mercy and justice – and cricket; for, as ever in the Woolfonts, in times ordinary and extraordinary alike, in the deep continuity of England, ‘pigs and parishes, saints, scholars, and sheep, go on forever’; ‘all things begin and end in Albion’s ancient Druid rocky shore’; and ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’

‘Everything is much older than we think.’

Main characters introduced
New significant characters introduced in this volume, or attaining significance since a previous reference in the series, include Emma Seaton MRCVS); Jack Fothergill, great-grandnephew of Hugo Mallerstang’s old WWII batman, valet at Hellgill Hall (and Mr Yeates is now there in wintry Westmorland on extended loan to Lord Mallerstang, buttling away); the Black British officers Colonel Robbie Gant (whose insistence that there’s no ‘r’ in ‘Gant,’ as ‘he’s not a bloody Scotsman,’ dowered him with the Army bye-name of ‘No-Arse Gant’) and Major Gar ‘Lefty’ Lewis; Jack Proffitt, late an ornament of the Int Corps Sergeants’ Mess; Mr Justice Collingridge; Sher Mirza’s sisters Noor and Ameena, Ameena’s fiance Tariq Ali Khan Alvi Baig, his parents Sohail and Gulrukh, and Dr Amla their imam Oop North; Lady Manningham-Buller, in cameo; Kevin Bagnall; Gerry Douty and Anne Custis; Gemma Douty; old Mrs Lacy, Millicent Lacy’s mother; and Mr and Mrs Westgate and their small son Andrew.

Appearing also, at fête and Village Concert and so on, are McFly, British Sea Power, and Penelope Keith; and, for a bit of smithing, Alec Steele. And there are Royals at a few weddings, as Strictly Private Occasions.

Setting(s)
Locations are Wiltshire, mostly; Town; the West Midlands; Westmorland and, briefly, Cheshire (and Alderley Edge); Perthshire; and, a new entry, the Hebridean Isle of Avard.