For many years while the kids were growing up, I would take a couple of days holiday every half term and we would explore. Places like Legoland in Windsor, the Chocolate Factory in Bourneville, and the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham. Brian is skilled at operating any kind of boat, and we have a stack of photos of us punting down the river Cherwell in Oxford and the Cam in Cambridge. They were both a good hour’s drive away, so we’d spend a whole Sunday, taking a picnic lunch. Happy days. We spent many a happy hour strolling along the river Avon in Stratford, window shopping in places we couldn’t really afford, and yummy cream teas. One year we discovered the Christmas shop, which was owned by the same guy we met at its sister shop in Edinburgh.
But without doubt, a very favourite place was the indoor Robin Hood experience in the centre of Nottingham, where we returned on many occasions. In 1999, we’d gone to Sherwood Forest and walked along the trails, tried our hand at archery, and marvelled at the sheer girth of the tree Robin was supposed to have fired his very last arrow, indicating where he’d like to be buried. They also had a bit of a fun fair there, but I’m afraid it paled in comparison to the Tales of Robin Hood in the town centre. I guess the whole attraction started with the Disney version, where Robin and Marian are played by foxes, and all the other characters are animals. Then in 1991, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves came out and, apart from the very dodgy casting ask Kevin Costner in the main role, we loved it to bits and it became one of our regular Friday movies along with the likes of Hook, Mrs Doubtfire, Back to the Future and all the Disney tales.
The whole thing started with a Disney-inspired ride with a commentary telling the tale as your gondola inches past several still tableau. This much-maligned, low-budget version (no Disney imagineering here) featured atmospheric sound and lighting effects, along with smells – mostly rank according to the critics. But to a bunch of kids aged 10 to 15 (in 2003 when my friend Lindsey and her two kids joined our party) it was fascinating, if a little scary for the youngest. At the end of the ride, you were shepherded up to the upstairs where the main dining area showed all the Robin Hood films from Errol Flynn to Kevin Costner, on a loop. As attractions went, it was probably my favourite because they had a bar upstairs so the grown-ups could drink alcohol while they ate, And afterwards as the kids went round the various exhibits, including mediaeval dress up, a tiny cinema with a history reel, quizzes and the very best – they got to play with (extremely blunted) swords, daggers and bows. On the way out, as well as the mickey-mouse wooden bows, the shop had a magnificent display of replica weapons where I bought my first, a dagger-sized a version of Excalibur. Despite the many detractors, we loved it, and returned several times until it closed in 2009.
Although brought up with Warwick Castle gardens backing onto ours (and the peacocks escaping into it), I never visited until I left there. Since then, I’ve been several times – we’d always book early for ticket to Carols at the Castle – usually on the Saturday before Christmas, when we wrapped up warmly, took along a lantern and indulged in yummy hot-dogs, hot mulled wine and roasted chestnuts as we sang along to all the favourites. Dead handy parking the car at my dad’s house, a short walk away. Another memorable trip with Lindsey saw us watching Kevin Hicks, the Warwick Bowman shoot 100 arrows through a piece of rope the size of a man’s head. This woke up the warrior woman within me, and after a pub dinner, Archer had appeared, fully formed in my head. In the next few months, I wrote what became the 13th book in a diverse series from . Years later, when Steph worked in the dungeons, we all went along to see her at work and she was pitch-perfect as the scary almoner, working all the effects to give us the scariest experience. It came in handy when my editor and her husband visited from USA – she got free Merlin passes, and a discount to stay in the newly-minted Knight’s Lodges. Awesome.
