A new novel has just been published detailing the little-known story of Ann Camell of Southwold, who, in 1645 was accused of bewitching a sailor, William Whitton.
‘This Fearful Thing’ by Reydon author L M West is extensively researched and tells the sometimes harrowing story of a woman accused of witchcraft, not once, but three times and her fight to survive. Ann was the wife of Thomas Camell, whose family once owned what is now Sutherland House in Southwold High Street and the novel is set very much in Southwold and the surrounding landscape as it may have been 400 years ago.
The cover has been designed by local printmaker and illustrator Sandy Horsley.
‘This Fearful Thing’ is now available on Amazon as a paperback at £8.99 and Kindle version at £2.99 and also from Southwold Books, Aldeburgh Bookshop, Beccles Books and Browsers Books, Woodbridge and there is lots more information at www.lmwestwriter.co.uk
and Parent in Victorian Norfolk, by Harriet Kettle, looks at the grittier sides of life in Victorian times through the story of a girl who became a rebel against authority. With the death of her mother and her father transported to Australia, Harriet grew up in the workhouse. When older she became a sex worker in Norwich. Getting into trouble she was imprisoned several times before being diagnosed with ‘moral insanity’. Spending periods in both the Norfolk County Lunatic Asylum and Bethlem Hospital in London, she eventually settled down in Toftwood. Disputes let to her assaulting the local schoolmistress and taking her neighbours to court. A survivor, in old age, she died where she had been brought up, in the workhouse.
