The Celibate by Michael Arditti

Author:Michael Arditti [Michael Arditti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908129345
Publisher: Arcadia Books Limited
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Two

These are known as the three Plague Cottages and apart from the modern roofs they’re very much as they would have been in 1665. It was in this central one, as you may already have gathered from the plaque, that George Viccars, the first – though by no means the last – of the Eyam victims, died… One word of warning: while these three are undoubtedly authentic, several of the plaques we’ll come across were put up for the Festival of Britain and are based more on tradition than hard fact. Although since we are traditionalists at least as much as historians, I see no reason for that to deter us.

And tradition has it that George Viccars was an itinerant tailor who lodged here with Mary Cooper, the widow of a lead-miner, and her two young sons. One morning in early September 1665 he received a package of material from London – and later, in the parish church, you’ll be able to see what’s reputed to be its original chest. As the fabric was damp, he hung it in front of the fire to dry; at which point his fate and that of the entire village was sealed. In case such rashness seems scarcely credible, try to remember that contemporary communications were extremely basic. He may not even have known of the infection that was ravaging the capital. Nor, since it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that the bubonic bacillus was finally identified, could he have had any inkling of the danger of exposing contaminated cloth to heat.

Besides, the heat may not have been critical, as it’s been shown that plague germs can survive for a considerable length of time even in dry cloth at a moderate temperature. And there’ve been many recorded instances of such delayed effect, most notably in Paris where the discovery of ancient infected bandages in a recently demolished building led to a serious epidemic. Whilst in Eyam itself in the mid-eighteenth century five men, digging up what had once been one of the burial grounds, chanced upon some old linen and immediately fell ill: three of them never to recover.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that the villagers don’t simply take pride in their past but positively identify themselves by it; these three buildings are named Plague Cottages not simply in the way that a pub might be called the Jack the Ripper, in order to tap a market, but rather to keep the memory alive. For they know that they have the contagion to thank for their rich soil of history. It was George Viccars and Thomas and Mary Thorpe and Edward and Jonathan Cooper, all of whose names you can read in front of you, who fertilised their future and, both practically and poetically, enabled these gardens to grow.

But in September 1665 the plague presented a far more desolate picture; and to chart its course, we must first cross the main road.

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