Mused over whether to share this #story, which isn't really mine. But it was shared with me, and it's publicly available, so I think it's okay.
Back in the summer, at this place, Carrawburgh Fort on #HadriansWall, after a day of storytelling nearby, I met a woman. We talked about #stories, and I told her about the nearby Coventina's Well (unmarked and extraordinary, but a different story). I know a good story, she told me. Look it up. The Wild Child of Crackpot Hall. That's my mum, she said. 1/
2/
Well, I did look it up.
In the 30s, two women, both writers, took a holiday up Swaledale. Near an old farm called Crackpot Hall, they met a wandering, barefoot child. She seemed at one with the moors, her language unintelligible, but they apparently got her name: Alice. They wrote about her in their travel book, and she captured the popular (literate, middle/upper class) imagination as a feral child. The Wild Child of Crackpot Hall. No more was known.
3/3
Until 2015, when the BBC tracked Alice down. She had not been wild or feral, just the child of the farmer at Crackpot Hall, who roamed the moors freely. Her 'unintelligible' language was old Dales dialect. The family had left Crackpot Hall shortly after the visit of the writers' visit.
The BBC spoke to Alice - and her daughter, presumably the woman I met.
A random encounter with the daughter of the wild child of Crackpot Hall, on the wild moors of Northumberland.
Kimberly Eaton
Northumbrian Stories
Sue