Category Archives: Factual

The church was full today. The whole town had gathered to say a heart-felt goodbye to one of their oldest residents, Jan Prideaux. Eighty four years of age, old Jan had continued working until the day he died. Like his father and grandfather before him,  masters of their trade. Now the village would no longer have a blacksmith. As a boy he had cut his teeth shoeing the horses from the farm, the big house and the local hunt stables.  All had succumbed to changing times. Motor cars, tractors and the demise of hunting with dogs. No more would the smithy ring to the sound of  hammer blows, the hiss of steam from drenched iron or the wheeze of the bellows keeping the raging fire aglow.  It was fitting that Jan would be carried through the doors so beautifully decorated with the crafted ironwork of his last commission.