‘history is full of tales, and sometimes it takes bravery and pluck to uncover them.’
Bravery and pluck are the lifeblood that abound and flow so thoroughly through Czech siblings Jan and Marie Klesek who, following their father Frantisek, a maths teacher who has got a new job in England, move to a small village. Their arrival in the middle of the night is met by a welcome that is quite literally divest of any warmth and hospitality, a bull charges down the side of the car and the cottage in which they are staying ‘ the curiously named ‘Shoe Cottage’ ‘ is cold, damp and in a state of near dereliction.
Bob Thomson the families new landlord is a seemingly uncaring and miserly individual who has a great nephew, Ross, and a great niece, Kerry, who both become the bane of the Klesek children’s life, taunting, teasing and being malicious to them both. On one such occasion the children take flight and come across a barn where they take shelter from a sudden storm. Lady Beddoes lives in the barn and the two children quickly befriend her.
Marie encounters prejudice and xenophobia in the guise of her new friend, Ashleigh’s mother, Carol Jillson who has a decidedly narrow outlook and small-town mentality when it comes to accepting newcomers, let alone ‘foreigners’.
What Jan and Marie find hidden in a shoe in the chimney of their cottage and that landlord, Bob Thompson, is desperate to gain possession of and thereby conceal, leads to a revelation and through a series of plot twists and turns lead to Lady Beddoe ascending to her rightful position within the village thereby setting about making things right once more! This is a real romp of a read, Jan and Marie make for particularly endearing protagonists whom it is difficult not to feel a joint affinity and affection towards’
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