The House in The Sky a serial by Melandra A. Bethel

This serial tells the story of a young woman as she grows up with her brothers and sisters in a 14th century house in England.

The Strines - Our House in the Sky, we called it; our birthplace, our home, our inspiration, our school and our playground. The Strines, a long low 14th century farmhouse clinging to the wild open hillside on one of the foothills of the Pennines on the Staffordshire-Derbyshire border; set in half an acre of scrubby ground, half reedbeds, half grassy hummocks, with a couple of tinkling streams, a large pond, and a stone track winding round under the dilapidated outbuildings into the wide front yard. 6 bays of crumbling stone with a blue slate roof, patchy whitewash, a motley assortment of multicoloured doors and window frames, and the whole surrounded by a sagging barbed wire fence to keep out the sheep and cows grazing on the surrounding fields.

Life, Larks, and Liberty - The guitar tutor was called Tony Sheldon. He was to start lessons with us on Wednesday next, our parents told us. We had wild imaginings about what such a person should look like. We were apprehensive about him, and convinced ourselves he would arrive all in black leather and shades, with his guitar strapped to the back of a large noisy motorbike. He would have a beard and be rough and scary. We called it Black Wednesday, because we were very militant, and dreaded his appearance.

Our parents were disappointed - Why does life have to be so complicated? Metia, Felix and myself attended church with our parents most Sundays; in a truly old-fashioned sense it was quite a social outing for us too. We enjoyed singing. We loved talking to the nice old ladies with their fur hats and watching the suspicious ones who wouldn't sit in the front pew, with their sideways glances and foregone conclusions. We even liked the vicar's sermons, especially the bits about dropping his glasses in the fire and leaving for home early because there was something good on TV! And pretty soon we were getting a little more involved with village life.

Well, life goes on - Well, life goes on, and we were still in existence the next day of course, minus our beloved brass instruments, which we had strived so hard to learn, and which Keith had taken from us when we left the Manifold Hotel the night before.

Los Angeles Mountain Band - Los Angeles was destined to be very successful, and we had literally years of fun out of it; as we have a concert coming up next Wednesday, we can truly say that it has not died yet despite our all being diversified and working and living in different places...

The Angels Hit Wales - Tone had been dropped off by Tod in his shiny black Lexus, a stark contrast to our old Volvo estate, an S reg., cream with a blue door, our seventies caravan which now in the nineties was looking somewhat worse for wear. We sat bundled together among all the instruments and luggage; we hadn't dared to put too much inside the caravan, as it was sagging behind the single middle axle. The weather was fair, and we had a good stereo and a massive collection of cassettes with us. As we pulled out at the top of our track onto the open road, Felix put on a tape of Don Williams' country music.

Holyhead at last! - Holyhead at last! The sky was a clear, fresh blue outside the caravan, and we woke to the cries of gulls wheeling overhead. We had driven down to Holyhead from Conway the night before, picked up our Mum at the railway station, and dropped Tone off with his parents, who has come down in their car. He was now staying with them in an hotel, and later in the day, before going down to the concert hall, we met up with them all on the beach.

the big day - On the big day we all dressed in our Los Angeles gear and piled into the cream Volvo Estate. Jed, the Geordie landlord, who Metia and I were sometimes doing a bit of work for on the weekends, was conniving with us to make the trip a success.

Turning Japanese - 'I think this would be just the thing for the children,' said Daddy, looking in the back page of the Buxton Advertiser, one day. 'Japanese tuition.'

What shall we do? - We were all growing up rapidly. It is an inevitable process, I suppose! In the autumn of 1995 I applied for a place at London University to take a BA in Japanese, and despite having no formal qualifications, managed to get a place in the second year, passing all my first year exams in an afternoon at SOAS.

A Day in the Life of Someone - There’s something rather touching about a winter without any autumn, I thought, looking from the 3rd storey window of the office where I work in my telephone job. All the trees are losing their green leaves, I felt a pang of sympathy; it was not right for them to fall, but there they were, spinning past the pane, green and cold on the wind. November now, and hardly a touch of autumn colour to grace summer’s demise.