Page 72 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
And peoplearekind. When I posted that apology, I thought it would be dismissed as us having been caught out and trying to cover our backs, but people really do seem to have taken it to heart and heard our point of view. She’s not the first visitor to say something similar, and the social media notifications are going mad.
And it all started with one anonymous post…
Re: Colours of the Wind museum on Ever After Street, Herefordshire. I want to draw attention to this beautiful little place today. A small, independently run museum full of artefacts from fairytales. A place of magic and wonder and imagination. They’ve recently become entangled in a dispute with a property developer, who are running a smear campaign to discredit them.
The adults among us know those exhibits didn’t move by themselves, but we kept up a pretence around children, no different from helping little ones to believe in Santa Claus at Christmas. It’s harmless fun, a bit of magic in an otherwise dreary world, and that’s all Colours of the Wind was trying to achieve. This didn’t start as a marketing ploy, but as a way to make a soulless property developer see what the people of Ever After Street see – a place where you can leave adult life behind and believe in the impossible, just for a little while. A place where even the most jaded souls can feel wonder again. A place where someone lost, alone, and desperately wishing to find some meaning in life again can find it in every corner.
Warren. The moment I read it, it’s like reading the words of a ghost, and I feel the imaginary tingle of phantom fingers up my spine. Is that just a coincidental use of words, the wishing to find some meaning in life and the Santa comparison he said to me, or is he secretly sticking up for us on the internet?
I write this as someone whose wish at the very, very old wishing well was granted, not by magic or fairies, but by a small group of people who put their hearts and souls into everything on Ever After Street. People who love that museum and will do anything in their power to save it, and everybody should be standing shoulder to shoulder with them. Colours of the Wind inspires wonder, sparks creativity, and connects people to stories and to each other. It brings joy to children and adults alike, it ignites the imaginations of all who go there, and it’s a vital part of a wonderful community. The world would be a much less interesting place if we let it go without a fight.
It’s him. I’m certain of it. It sparked creativity inhim. Some of those words are exactly the same words I said to him in the early days. And it sounds like Warren, even the businesslike subject line at the beginning.
But if itisWarren, that’s a hell of a conflict of interests, and I can’t work out what he’s playing at. If his company know he’s writing stuff like this inourdefence, they’ll be the unhappiest bunnies of all time, won’t they?
Especially because the tide is turning against Berrington Developments. Warren’s suggestion to use the Santa Claus comparison in my apology may well have been our saving grace in getting people to understand the reasons behind what we were trying to do.
Corporate greed!
Someone posts in response to my online letter.
I ran a candle shop for twenty years, and these rotten sods bought one entire side of the street and evicted all of us without a second thought. Six independent shops wiped out, and for what? Yet another cinema-slash-bowling alley! Will never, ever go to anything they’ve been involved with! Good on you guys for standing up to the pressure from those money-grabbers who think they can own anything!
The museum must stay! How dare they try to ruin childhood magic just to get one up on the owner! Show them where to shove all the colours of the wind!
They granted my daughter’s wish too! It was for some colouring books and new pencils. It took me ages to work out where this random parcel had come from until I saw that awful Berrington video! Thank you, Colours of the Wind! Everyone needs to get behind these wonderful humans!
I don’t expect it to make any difference to the outcome for the museum, but it’sniceto think people do see it from our point of view after all, and that everyone can see the damage that developers like Berrington do. The comments I read bring me back to life. So many people are on our side, and it stirs up the fighting spirit in me again. I’ve never let unbeatable odds deter me before and I’m not about to now either, not when it comes to something I love as much as I love Colours of the Wind. And the thought that Warren’s out there somewhere, anonymously supporting us online, makes me think about his true intentions and my mind goes back to something else he said to me last week. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but there was purpose behind it that I didn’t understand at the time, but if that post really was him, he’s just signposted me in the direction of something that may turn the tide for good…
* * *
It’s many never-ending nights spent researching, and a mountain of paperwork that I get Witt to help me with, but this is my last option to save the museum and it has to betheone. Ithasto be.
Somehow, the days drag past. It’s the seventeenth of December and Ever After Street is busy with Christmas shoppers. The museum visitor numbers have fallen to what they were before September, before the very first pair of glass slippers went to a ballroom all on their own, and it’s oddly fitting, like the past three months have been erased from history. If only they could be erased from memory as well.
‘Hello, hello!’ A cheerful man wearing a festive bowtie and carrying a briefcase comes up to the front desk with a happy smile. ‘I’m here about a well? An application has been made to Historic England, suggesting that it might be relevant to us as a site of special historical interest?’
Ahh, finally! I clasp my hands together and try not to get my hopes up. ‘Yes, that was me. I have a well in the garden and I’ve recently come to believe that it pre-dates the building by many years. We’re under threat from property developers and if there’s anything on this land that they won’t be allowed to destroy, I need to find it.’
‘I know you, I’ve been following your story online,’ the man says kindly, his bowtie flashing with red and green Christmas lights. ‘Trust me, it would be my pleasure.’
I might not have been sure about that first online post, but Iamsure about this. Warrenaskedme about that well. He knew it was older than everything else here. He told me to look into the well if anything went wrong, but rather than meaning to literally look down it, he was telling me to investigate its age, and in that online post, the specific reference to it being ‘very, very old’ was a shove in the right direction – one that nobody but me would recognise.
Witt and I have filled in endless forms, taken loads of photos, and sent them off to Historic England with a prayer and a wish, because despite everything, for one final time, I have to put my trust in Warren, and hope that this time, it’s not misplaced.
‘What would being a site of special historical interest mean?’ I ask the man as he sorts paperwork out of his briefcase.
‘You’ve heard of a listed building? Very similar to that, but it includes smaller places, monuments, memorials, and landmarks that demonstrate a connection to an important aspect of the nation’s history. In real terms for a building owner, the well would be unable to be changed or altered, it would need to be carefully maintained, and any repair work or modifications will need to be vigilantly managed according to our standards.’
‘And developers would be…?’
‘No. No developers would be doing anything. The site must be retained, untouched and intact, and if there were to be any development plans in the area, the developers would face an exceedingly complex landscape of regulations. The number one priority is heritage conservation. Planning permission, approval from local authorities and ourselves, and careful monitoring to ensure that no harm comes to the listed landmark.’
‘So they couldn’t knock down the building and turn it into something new and modern?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ The man looks like he needs to breathe into a paper bag at the mere suggestion, and he seems like he might be of too much of a nervous disposition for the scream of joy I want to let out.
I close up and take him to the garden where he oohs and ahhs, takes a million photos, and then I show him down to the basement where he gets even more excited about the crumbling stonework and broken remains of what was once the bottom of the well that probably held water once upon a time, many years ago.
