Thank You Elsie and Frances...

One of my fondest childhood memories is spending hours at a time, hanging around the bushes at the bottom of the garden, waiting to see fairies. 

I know... "How did this boy not grow up to be a heterosexual?" I hear you say. But that is beside the point. I was six, possibly seven, and had become utterly seduced by a book my mother bought on the subject of "strange and unexplained phenomena." 

In it was a detailed account of the "Cottingley Fairy" case, in which two girl cousins (Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths) hoaxed a series of five Fairy photographs using paper illustrations copied meticulously from a children's picture book. The "hoax" part of the chapter had little to no effect on me. I was far too young to even attempt reading the journalistic piece. All I knew, there in plain black and white print, was photographic evidence that fairies existed and it thrilled me down to the bone. It was my first taste of addiction.

I must have spent hours searching for the tiny, winged things that leaped about the pictures, willing them to appear.

I would sneak to the very end of the garden, scale the compost heap, climb though a broken panel in the garden fence and wander around the neighbouring woodland. Eyes alert for signs of magic.

On one occasion, I found a tiny scrap of pink fabric caught on the branch of a low growing thicket. I kept it for months under my bed, believing it to be a fairy garment of some kind.

As an adult, I understand that this may seem like a pointless subject to write about. But those fairy photographs left as big an impression on me as, years later, a tattooist would leave on my skin. They were what fueled my creativity and love of storytelling and suspended disbelief. They distracted me from the fact that I most certainly did not fit in at school. I was always the slightly odd child that others puzzled at. They provided me with endless intrigue and delight and carved out my love of the "left of life."

In my older years, the fact that the Cottingley photographs have long been proven fake, makes absolutely no difference to me. They are real in the sense that two little girls were gifted with a secret that no-one else knew about. The pictures were nothing more than paper cut-outs taken on a shaky camera but they fooled an entire nation. They even fooled the likes of Harry Houdini and great thinkers including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into becoming avid followers of fairies and folklore.

Before she died, Frances admitted the hoax to a magazine reporter, BUT, she only admitted to faking four of the five pictures. The fifth picture, known as 'the sun bath' and the only photograph to feature neither Elsie or her ten year old cousin, she swore was genuine. I guess we'll never know.

This blog is simply a nod in the direction of Elsie and Frances... The delightful tricksters... Thank you ladies, for putting a tiny bit of magic back into the world x