World-building in RPGs Part Three - Brunnen 1795 (BoL Hack)

My most recent attempt at investing our gang in a detailed setting was the result of a combination of scavenging an older WFRP setting I threw together a few years ago (the threads of which also can be found in Ramsay) and throwing the setting out into our Facebook group page to encourage generation of ideas.

As we had taken on a couple of new players, one only having played D&D and the other a neophyte, I decided to keep things simple from a system persepctive.  I've always been a fan of Simon Washbourne's approach to rules-light RPGs and the system that underpins his best known effort Barbarians of Lemuria in particular lends itself to easy modification, accommodating just about any setting. For reference the original version of those rules is still available for free download here.  If you like what you read please consider investing in the later, more refined edition.

Brunnen - 1795

A star fell from the sky in the east in 1792.  Over the long winter that has followed, the nations of Europe have descended into turmoil. Spies are hunted, noble families cling to power and guard their walls against starving proles, religious orders either ally with corrupt governments or monarchs whilst others rally the peasantry in a move towards conflict, blaming generations of greed and wealth in church and state for the blight and misery of the long winter. Mud mingles with blood, ancient forces are massing, old gods awakening from long slumber to emerge into the dim light and challenge the new.

In 1794, the second year of winter and with famine ravaging the land, The Pogrom of Westphalia saw the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire (the bishops) declare heresy the source of the blight on the land and Lutherans and Calvinists became the targets of the ire of the angry mobs. Tens of thousands were burned, executed, or beaten in the streets of the region's towns and cities.

It is now 1795, the killings have largely subsided and the bishops hold spiritual sway, if not total control of the population centres. 

You are artists, poets, actors, musicians, writers in the Westphalian city of Brunnen.

Since the Pogrom and the investiture of the guardian of the city walls (the infant Baroness Amelie von Gottschalk) into the fold of the Holy Synod of St Ekaterina, your creative arts have been declared a proscribed activity unless specifically sanctioned by the Baroness's steward, Bishop Josef Furcht.

The city guard and watch, under the command of Oberbürgermeister Max Valdemeier, has generally been fairly tolerant of the arts (in fact a couple of sergeants of watch have been known to frequent the Moon and Pfennig, but not so much recently). However the recent death of the Baron (consumption) has left the young Baroness Amelie Von Gottschalk in the thrall of Bishop Josef Furcht, the senior cleric in the city. His grip is tightening and he is becoming more involved in the day to day civil affairs of Brunnen, using the staves and maces of the martial order of the Silent Sisters of St Ekaterina. The Silent Sisters are flagellants that (rumour has it) remove their own tongues to show solidarity with, and devotion to, their patron Saint.
What you hear

The star fell in the east in 1792, ushering in a week long night and, three years later, spring has yet to arrive. The sky is... lower. When the sun does break through it is ill hued. Due to the collapse of many nation states and the closing and barring of city gates against ravening mobs (seeking solace from starvation, murder and worse in the open country) news is parochial and oft contaminated by false rumour and misinformation pedalled by the church in order to maintain control. This allowed for the minds of ordinary city folk to be more susceptible to the twin poisons of fear and hatred. The previously sickly and weakened Holy Roman Empire tacitly allowed, then actively encouraged, the violence that became the Pogrom. Rumours from the east suggest that the peoples of Central Europe may be less lucky. Tales of mass burnings in Warszawa, Odessa an icy wasteland with people frozen in place where they stood, the second and third defenestrations of Prague, scores of children walking into the Oder River in Silesia with hundreds more vanishing in the night.

Voices in the inns and taverns whisper that the great revolutionary army of France, that headed east in the year of the falling star, mostly froze or starved in the wastes. But the remnants, still numbering many tens of thousands, are returning westwards after falling upon their dead comrades for food and now they scourge the lands before them like a pestilence in search of warmer meats.

The Rider

Only last week a rider came from Magdeburg to deliver messages to the Baroness from her cousin. Once laid low by absinthe in the Moon and Pfennig he told tales of glows on the horizon from the razing of the villages along the Elbe. A detachment of mounted jägers sent to reconnoitre failed to return, although one rider did make it back to the gate dead in his saddle, a mess of cuts and with his gizzards tangled in his tack and harness.

All good fodder for the arts.

The rider from Magdeburg, at breakfast and once again in his cups, told of groups of children on the roads always bearing east. Oftimes unaccompanied, but one time following a Gaunt Woman with a red beak and pale eyes, the infants mocked the rider for lacking spirit, or showing compassion when offering them some meagre rations even as their ribs pressed against their skin most apparently and flies fed upon the scurvy sores on their mouths. The Gaunt Woman never spoke, only dragged one foot in front of another in spite of the heavy stones bound to her torn, claw like feet.

The Golden Kugel

By the tannery on Altstrasse is a coaching inn called the Golden Kugel. The landlord, Wolf Ledbetter (cousin to Dirk), has been cultivating mushrooms in his cellars. According to Dirk the cellars reach far down into the foundations of that part of town and Wolf has been spending inordinate lengths of time below ground; far more than would be warranted in the harvesting of fungi. Whilst no one is particularly bronzed these days, Wolf has taken on a particularly sickly pallor, although his girth doesn't seem to be suffering. His forearms are like hams and those infamous knuckles, as walnut-like as ever, remain firmly affixed to hands the span of Michaelmas trenchers.

The Brothel on Rosenstrasse

Connelly, the Englander, hasn't been seen at the Moon and Pfennig for weeks. He came second best to Didier Alencon in a debate regarding the most preeminent schools of poetry in London. After championing the cavalier poets over the metaphysicals he was humiliated by Alencon when challenged to a recitation and found to be unable to enunciate anything at all without sounding like a talentless, monotone mule. Alencon loudly likened him to a simpleton phonetically reading random Latin without a shred of comprehension. Connelly, bested by words and ridiculed roundly by the patronage, sallied forth with fists a-flying yelling his occasional and enigmatic riesling-fuelled war cry 'Victoria Imperatrix'. He succeeded only in stumbling into some candles and igniting his sideburns. He has since retreated to his attic suite at the Brothel on Rosenstrasse where, in between indulging in earthly pleasures, he can be heard hammering and sawing at his latest project.

The (second to) Last House on the Left

It is said that the locals have become to shun the south end of Konigstrasse, particularly the penultimate house, said to be the residence of failed artist Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz. Rumours are abound that the smell of sulphur seeps out of the windows at night and that diabolical mutterings can be heard if close enough to the basement.

Tarman

In the Chapel of St. Januarius, just off Augustusplatz, it is said that housed in the statue of the Holy mother is one of the original silver shekels given to Judas for his betrayal of our Lord. The legend states that it was found in the fields of Akeldama, during the first crusades in 1099 following the siege of Jerusalem. The shekel was found by Benedict of Peterborough, who following the crusades was found wandering near Brunnen, suffering from an unexplained malady that was rotting him from the insides out. Following his death it was said that the flesh fell off him like liquid, leaving bones as black as tar.

The Krank

Hans Krankel, a well-known thief in Brunnen was overheard in the Golden Kugel last week that he had found something of value in the ruins of the old synagogue in the eastern quarter. As well as a few items of real silver he went on to say that he found something in the basement - a full size clay statue with the name of emet hanging upon its neck. In relation to this revelation, it has been suggested that Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th century rabbi of Prague, reportedly smuggled his infamous golem out of the city and into Germany to defend the Jews from the onslaught of antisemitic attacks and pogroms.

Crows

The poem, 'The Malignancy of Crows' by the late Heinrich von Kleist was said to be based on the strange flight patterns of the birds as they flew over Brunnen. Kleist believed that the shapes they formed could be interpreted and decoded, and indeed he kept several sketch books full of the shapes and patterns. Kleist slowly lost his mind, and was often seen shouting at our avian friends, imploring them to share what they knew. Hans Krankel, the well-known fence, is said to have the books in his possession and will sell if the price is right.

Burnings are back and they’re bigger than ever

The people of Weißhafen do not appear satisfied with the relative lull in carnage since the pogrom. They loathe the people of neighbouring town mill-town Arbeitstadt so much they have reported them to the Emperor's papal inquisition several times, swearing that their town leaders are engaged in dark practices with their cousins and in-laws, the remaining woodspeople that cling to survival in the Teutoburgerwald. They came a-cropper this time. Malachai Essendarmer, the infamous Westphalian Witch Burner, is himself from Arbeitstadt. He tortured and burned 173 Weißhafeners including their Bürgermeister and his entire family.

The Moon and Pfennig

Three key questions:

·        This weekend marks three years since the week-long night. Where were you when the star fell?

·        What have you lost during the long winter that followed?

·        On Samstag night, at the Moon and Pfennig, in the shadow of the glassworks, you will debut your composition/creation. What will you perform/display?

Also on Saturday at the Moon and Pfennig: 

·        Klaus Engel's Progressive Oompah Collective perform their sophomore composition: State of Putrefaction

·        Didier Alencon unveils his latest painting, Gustav Contemplates Redemption in direct riposte to Connelly's watercolour, Satan's Mute Flute. Conflict must ensue.

·        Hirsute Gustav has created some more woodcuts. He really likes woodcuts.

World-building in RPGs Part Two - Peronell’s Demesne (Dark Heresy)

Pre-dating the Ramsay game and post-dating my initial failed attempt at rebooting our gaming lives via Call of Cthulhu back in 2010 or 11 (entertaining from a boozy social perspective but disastrous as a game), we had  an all too brief dalliance with Dark Heresy, the first RPG based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Packed with amazing artwork and fluff, as you would expect from that setting, Dark Heresy was based mechanically on the old WFRP rules. As a result the characters, supposedly hotshot agents of the sinister and powerful Inquisition, were useless doughballs that couldn't hit a barn door from three feet with a 10 foot pole with a mirror on the end.  That did not stop us having a little bit of fun with the setting though and, as usual, I eschewed published material in favour of establishing my own setting. As any W40k nerd will no doubt spot, I am not steeped in the lore of the setting, but I do like the imagery and the crazy blend of Name of the Rose, Dune and Moorcock that it posits. I present my brief effort here for your entertainment/scorn (artwork nicked from t'interwebs).

Peronell’s Demesne

815.M41

+++Dark Heresy Game Dossier+++

Peronell’s Demesne - Dateline 815.M41


Calixis Sector

Imperial Tithe world

Overview:

Produces specialist components for the factory worlds and shipyards of the Calixis Sector and as such is an essential resource for the Imperium’s war machine and particularly Battlefleet Calixis. The Battlefleet maintains a high harbour in the system to protect the export routes and, at times of religious festivals like Saint Drusus day, to oversee the stream of pilgrims that visit the world’s shrine city, St Ekaterina. Ekaterina was the peasant girl long held to be responsible for leading the cleansing of the taint of the Ruinous Powers from the population during the Angevin Crusade. Prior to Peronell’s stewardship the noble houses were corrupt and of impure and weak blood. As such they formed a natural opening for the powers of the warp to force entry from the Empyrean and conduct their foul business. Ekaterina led a peasant’s revolt and overthrew the sickness but died in doing so at the hands of a Daemon from the warp whose name has long been banished from scripture. An Adepta Sororitas edict declared Ekaterina a Saint with the support of the Holy Synod of Tarsus but beatification has been denied thus far leaving St Ekaterina’s level of recognition isolated to the Drusus Marches. The case for canonisation is re-raised every generation or so and has been for centuries but for now Peronell’s Demesne is not considered an Imperial Shrine World and does not receive the same level of control from the Ministorum as a result. Nevertheless the annual Feast of Drusus celebrations can expect to attract in the region of a million pilgrims to the city, many from off-world, and both the Ministorum and the Sisters of Battle maintain colleges and libraries in the holy city. Should the case for full canonisation into the Imperial Cult be successfully made then the name of Peronell will disappear from Imperial charts forever, replaced by that of a peasant girl who lived a meagre 19 years. A colossal edifice, the Sepulchre of St Ekaterina, has been carved from the rock face above the plaza which dominates the city. Atop it, carved from natural formations, stands the likeness of Ekaterina in full Battle Sister armour from where she watches the population for signs of taint.

St Ekaterina is Peronell’s Demesne’s second city. The Capital is Falkenberg, seat of the planet’s noble houses, as well as the Planetary Governor Dell Villicus, and the site of the world’s formidable Glassworks and Foundries. The Adeptus Mechanicus maintains a constant presence in the forges and colleges of the capital as the Tech Priests of Mars oversee the production and quality assurance of numerous components including massive lenses destined for the Adeptus Titanicus. Many noble families send sons and daughters to be schooled by Adeptus colleges or the Schola Progenium as tribute to the God Emperor. For six centuries these tributes have been deemed sufficient but due to the increasing population in recent decades Peronell’s first, and thus far only modern Founding* was raised two years ago. The founding’s inauspicious beginnings (the Commissariat ship Gorgoroth, carrying the regiment’s political officers, suffered a warp accident on exit from the Empyrean killing most on board) have contributed to a reputation for ill-luck for the Peronell First. This label as an ‘unfortunate’ regiment has been further compounded by difficulties in their first theatre of action, the Imperial Pacification of 47 Kapella.

There are no other major settlements on a world that is generally hostile to habitation due to its largely mountainous terrain which, though littered with lakes and fens, has an unusually high salt content in its water and soil in most areas, residue of the once great oceans that millennia ago covered two thirds of the surface. The settlements that do exist reach populations of only a few thousands at the most due to the harsh climate and lack of land-tilling opportunities. Most peasants scratch a living keeping wiry livestock or gathering aquatic life in coracles in the fresh water lakes that occupy some higher valleys and gorges in the unforgiving mountain ranges that encircle the great plateau where the bulk of the habitable land is located. This accounts for only a tenth of the planetary surface. 

History: 

Peronell’s Demesne was named for the Imperial Guard Marshall Zif Peronell, saviour of the systems that dot this part of the secure warp route networks connecting the sector capital Scintilla with the forges of the Lathes and Opus Macharius, and the Imperial Shrine Worlds of Sentinel and Maccabeus Quintus. Peronell was granted governorship of this sparsely populated but mineral rich ancient colony following his service under the Lord Militant Drusus himself during the Angevin Crusade of almost 1500 years ago. The world was further settled by the surviving noble houses of this and other systems trampled by the rolling maul between the forces of light and darkness. Peronell governed for 62 years before his death in a warp accident. Since then the position of Governor has been largely an honorary title held by noble families for generations as a reward for good service to the throne. The real administrative power on PD is the Ecclesiarchy on issues of faith and governance and the Adeptus Mechanicus on logistics. Essentially the rule is split down the middle with the Ministorum’s seat in St Ekaterina and the Tech Priests in Falkenberg. Governor Villicus is little more than a figurehead with little real power but a responsibility to represent the noble houses in all dealings with the Imperium and trade with other worlds. The Adeptus Arbites oversee planetary law and order from a distance only concentrating mainly on policing the Imperial Tithe and tackling smuggling operations. This lack of effective governance has contributed to making Peronell’s Demesne a likely home for heresy, sedition and all manner of unsavoury activities. 

The following information is held securely by the clerics of the Sepulchre of St Ekaterina and is only accessible to those with high level (inquisitorial?) clearance:


“There is a surfeit of evidence to suggest that Peronell’s Demesne was settled by human colonists millennia ago and the original colony may even predate the Heresy. The peasantry of the more isolated settlements on the planet display distinct racial features not attributable to the influx of settlers during Peronell’s era. Some brothers have surmised that these ‘indigenes’ are the survivors of a great cataclysm that may have rendered the world largely uninhabitable during the Dark Age of Technology twenty-five millennia ago. This however seems an extreme conclusion when faced with the fact that the Calixis Sector was discovered by the great rogue trader Solomon Haarlock only eleven thousand years ago. Nevertheless, and in spite of censure by the Holy Synod at Tarsus on Scintilla, some brothers have pursued such theories with a passion and have, in the past, involved those from without the Ministorum who sought benefit from such knowledge for reasons known only to themselves and their masters.

In the area known as The Fens there are a number of unusual stone deposits scattered throughout the wetlands. An investigation by Ordo Xenos Inquisitor xxxxxxx of archaeological digs dated 198.M41 uncovered Logician Cult involvement (see Threat Briefing 1.xxxx.xxx.xx##). Further Ministorum and Scholastica investigation concluded stone deposits to be natural detritus from retreat of glaciers in pre-history of world and assertion of Inquisitor xxxxxxx that they are crafted menhirs is without foundation or merit.
+++Heresy+++Inquisitor+++Menhirs+++Logician Cult+++

Gazetteer

Falkenberg

· The Glassworks

The towering edifice of the monumental glassworks dominates the skyline of Falkenberg. The mammoth furnaces and refractories are meticulously overseen by techmagi for any flaws and blessed by administratum clerics to enhance the inert properties of high quality glass components of all sizes, from the humungous dioptric lenses destined for the Titan forges of the Lathes to the bespoke scope faces intricately designed to the specifications demanded by chartist captains and rogue traders. The workings extend deep into the rock foundations of the hills and connect via railway to the Spaceport in the east and the foundries to the west. The southwards slope from the base of the huge walls is the site of the dingy, sprawling workers habs.

· The Foundries

As well as providing the moulds and other equipment for the glassworks the Falkenberg Foundries produce a cornucopia of minor trinkets and implements for export including a range of Munitorum essentials for the Imperial Guard and Battlefleet Calixis. Anything from sextants to shovels are produced in bulk or can be found being traded in the Commercia to prospectors hoping to scratch precious minerals from the river delta beyond the Boondocks. Located on the western edge of Falkenberg the Foundries are linked directly by rail to the mines of the Kilnius Range to the north. To the south the slopes extend down to the delta where centuries of slurry, effluent and slag have polluted the already saline waters that run northwards to the Fens.

· The Spaceport

The constant export of products from the Glassworks and Foundries provides the lifeblood of Peronell’s Demesne and Falkenberg Port is the artery through which the nourishment flows. In ground space alone the berths, warehouses and loading docks account for over a third of Falkenberg’s landmass and the spaceport dominates the bulk of the Falkenberg plateau with the rest of the city extending westward up into the foothills of the Kilnius Range, the exception being the Boondocks to the southwest where the terrain turns marshy and, eventually to wetlands.

· The Commercia

The Commercia is the mercantile heart of Falkenberg and houses the guilds and trading houses that dominate the planetary economy as well as being home to the noble families, including the Governor Villicus whose palatial residence adjoins the Glassworks on the district’s northern limits. The western fringes of the Commercia are the site of the Adeptus Mechanicus collegia and the Administratum offices. The Administratum is a dour, crenellated granite affair that also houses the local branch of the Adeptus Arbites and hosts the local council functions such as the Mercantile Concern, the Council of Arbitration and the Peronell’s Demesne Land Registry. By contrast the colleges of the Tech Priests of Mars are ornate and finely crafted domes of basalt and glass, their beauty defying the populist image of techmagi as half machine themselves. Beyond, and in the shadow of, the glassworks and the Commercia lay the sprawling worker’s habs.

· The Habs

Home to miners, foundry workers, glassworkers and almost all other menial workers in the city, the Habs occupy the lower slopes of the foothills sandwiched between the Foundries to the west and Commercia to the east and sit forever in the shadow of the colossal Glassworks to the north and extend southwards to the sprawling, sewage infested Boondocks. The Habs district is the working muscle of Peronell’s Demesne and, comparatively, allows a reasonable standard of living with schools, clinics and chapels serving the needs of the populace. The markets that form the main social link between the Habs and the Commercia are lively and bustling environments where all classes and professions mix, socialise and trade. Nevertheless the limited diet and inevitably hazardous working conditions in Falkenberg have resulted in poor life expectancy for the average citizen and orphans, gangs and violent crime are commonplace, more so in the darker corners of the Habs and particularly on the southern fringes where the district adjoins the Boondocks.

· The Boondocks

In Falkenberg all of the shit runs downhill and there, at the bottom of the hill, you will find the Boondocks. The majority of the district sits bare metres above the sludge and effluent from the upper city, suspended upon scant foundations of ancient stonework and crafted from lumber that rots rapidly. This decaying and ramshackle timber town is home to the more unfortunate residents of Falkenberg. Those unable to work in the Foundries and Glassworks, those escaping from bondage, the weak, the frail, the predatory and the simply unlucky all settle at the bottom of the heap in the workhouses, brothels and slums from where they can only luck up at the city above them and the spacecraft that go beyond even the highest points of their city. Some residents do hold down jobs, most often working off debts to former masters or merchants on the eastern docks where goods and people are ferried upriver to St Ekaterina or downriver to the sparse settlements of the Southern Reaches. The majority however scrape a living by any means necessary whether by theft, prostitution, murder or worse.

The Mines of the Kilnius Range

Starting a the northern gates of The Foundries a number of snaking passes wind steadily upwards as the land inclines dramatically from foothills to treacherous, mountainous peaks. The barren environment affords life little foothold but in the deep gorges and crevasses toil the men and women of Falkenberg. The range is rich in mineral deposits and has been mined for millennia for its rich seams of essential metals and ores. It is unclear how far back some of the oldest digs date but even now newly dug tunnels from time to time break into ancient galleries. It takes miners of stout heart and mind to breathe such ancient air and not feel the chill touch of the ancients in such aged places. Some surmise that within the tens of thousands of miles of tunnels, of which only a fraction are currently worked, there are old secrets to be found. Some even actively seek such treasures; others have found them and found them not to be treasures at all, but cursed things that cause taint and mutation. All the more reason then to worship Him upon His Golden Throne and seek his protection against the dark things that dwell in the depths of the planet.

The Fens

A vast area of wetlands beginning 130 miles to the north-west of Falkenberg, the Fens are home to a peasantry that survives by scratching an existence from the unforgiving environment and trading blocks of dense high energy peat to the river merchants who supply the industry of Falkenberg and the colleges and chapels of St Ekaterina. Settlements rarely reach population numbers above two hundred and are, for the most part, deeply suspicious of outsiders. The original people of the Fens have a rich folk-lore and mythology revolving around the stones that populate the area and believe that they were placed there by the Emperor himself to ‘gift’ the faithful with good fortune in ill times and to draw a tithe in times of plenty (although few can remember such a time in living memory). Pregnant women will visit the stones at their traditional times of bleeding to offer essence in the belief that not doing so will lead to a build-up of ‘tainted blood’ that will harm their child and lead to defects and misfortune in the child’s later life. Many of the newer generations of Fens-folk, often only a few generations on from Imperial colonists who thought they were buying their way from the crowded hives of Scintilla to a pastoral paradise, have traditionally taken a dim view of such old wives tales. However in recent years this custom has gathered urgency due to an increase in strange, ill-omened or unlucky children dating back some fifteen or more years. Due to the low education levels and intense superstition of these people the phenomenon has not been reported widely and Spayss Bahri has been on the spot to benefit from such unfortunate parents. Bahri runs his Fens operation from an old sky mill in the western reaches of the area where the unfortunate children are corralled before being ‘tested’ for ability and thenceforth shipped onwards either to the Falkenberg workhouse in the case of ungifted children or to the catacombs below St Ekaterina in the case of those ‘awakened’. There they will face an unspeakable fate at the hands of Villicus’s daughter Borgia as they are offered to the gestalt daemon and stitched into its whole.

The Truth of Peronell’s Demesne 

The world is site of an indescribably ancient warp beacon. ‘The Cult’ is feeding child psykers to a bound Daemon, literally stitching them into the bloated ‘body’ of a chaotic, psyker gestalt, the core of which is the cackling daemon, growing increasingly agitated and aroused by the power and suffering of the victims to which it is bound by its insane worshippers. The occurrence of ‘awakened’ humans on PD has historically been incredibly rare with the Black Ships visiting only once or twice per century in the past. This has been changing for the past twenty years, since the gallery was discovered in the Kilnius mines and the stones were reawakened. The standing stones scattered around the world both on the surface and long since buried have slowly been gathering potential and, thanks to the machinations of Bahri and his network, contributing to the rise in birth defects and ‘awakened’ children, particularly amongst the mine workers and Fens-folk. This steady increase is reaching its nadir and will, come the St Drusus Day celebrations, pour over into the Empyrean and provoke a vicious warp storm. The Cult seek communion at all costs with the Ruinous Powers and will gladly see the flesh and minds of millions melt and run into corruption and madness in order to accomplish their goal.

World Building in RPGs Part One - Ramsay 1981 (Unknown Armies)

Around March 2012 I posted on this blog about the perils of gaming in established worlds (e.g. Moorcock's Tragic Millenium Europe) with a group of players that didn't have the investment in that setting that I and my fellow Grognard Loz had.  After a burst of blogging on this platform, that largely took place after I was made redundant and had time on my hands, I went a bit quiet.  

Recently however I discovered the rather fabulous  Grognard Files Podcast (and accompanying blog) and have been shooting the shit about all things RPG on twitter and elsewhere for the last few weeks. As a result I remembered my old blog and decided, as I woke early this morning, to start slapping some of my old homebrew gear on here, starting with the aforementioned, Ramsey Campbell inspired but in the end altogether less serious and ominous, Ramsay setting that I ran a few times using the Unknown Armies system.  

The original plan was a grim, small town, urban decay and filthy horror/supernatural setting, but when we sat down together as a group the whole thing became much more tongue in cheek and warm.  It was the most engaged I'd seen some of our players in buying into the wolrd as, of course, we were all early 80's kids growing up in Thatcher's Britain so everything was familiar, if twisted. I think in the end it may have owed more to The Young Ones than Ramsey Campbell, but we had a lot of fun with it with numerous hoots and painfully side-splitting escapades. In the end my clumsy attempts at 'meta-gaming' (we started the first session with the PCs playing their in-game fantasy RPG Barbarians and Bastilles for an hour before 'the phone rang' and the game proper commenced) ultimately derailed it and it went on my extensive pile of 'fun while it lasted' campaigns that never really achieved their potential.

At some point, if I can make order or sense of some of my session notes, I'll pop them up here as well for posterity.

Ramsay – 1981

It’s 1981 and Ramsay is a small town on the fringes of Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Scotland. Traditionally an industrial town it lacks the charm of its more southerly counterparts and is seldom visited by tourists. The railway station is a terminus. No-one passes through and no-one visits by accident. The huge British Amalgamated Cycle Company factory closed in 1979 and no replacement industry has emerged to reduce the dole queues. The nearest comparable industry was the salt mine and that closed two years earlier. As a result the shops are struggling to cope and many are moving away from the town seeking the bright lights of Workington and Carlisle.

Things are looking up however, Ramsay Town FC after winning promotion to the Alliance Premier League are riding high in 6^th place, the highest league football position the town club has ever ascended to.

Ramsay’s favourite daughter Jay Aston is a member of Buck’s Fizz, the UK’s entry in the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest. Since the local rag, the Ramsay Reporter, ran the story about Aston in January the town has been gripped by Fizz Fever and street parties are planned for the eve of the final.  The town’s cable television company Telefusion is running daily promotions to award seven lucky winners ‘teletext’ televisions on which to watch the final. 

Businesses and local places of interest

Ramsay is home, like any northern town, to a variety of businesses and utilities that breathe life into the community.

Crow Garth Police Station

Ramsay’s ancient police station is built upon the site of the original town gaol and House of Corrections. Although mostly Victorian the earliest site foundations date back to the 10^th century. Eight damp cells in the basement are linked to the magistrate’s court via a three hundred yard tunnel that passes under the market place. The yard still boasts a whipping post and pillory and is home to the town’s old police box.

Rumour has it that a bricked-in passage entrance arch off the magistrate’s tunnel originally ferried prisoners the 7 miles to the first Darkmeir Gaol out past Temphill using a cart and pulley system similar, and possibly connected to, the one used in the salt mine.

Ramsay’s Chief Inspector is Maurice Mason. Despite his surname Chief Inspector Mason is rumoured to be the only police chief in Britain to not actually be a Freemason.

The Copper Hill Estate’s local bobby is P.C. Gerry Tarbottom. Standing 6’3 and weighing 240 lb. the Ramsay bruiser was a schoolmate of Jason and Karl. He plays centre-back for Ramsay Town whenever they need an enforcer.

Saint Wolfric’s Church of the Transfiguration

Reverend Paul (known locally as ‘Magic’ Paul) is a hard-core Star Trek obsessive and the only person in town to regularly petition Yudenow’s Picture Palace to show Star Trek: The Motion Picture again. He plays backgammon with Chief Inspector Mason’s wife every other Saturday night. The Church Hall hosts Cubs on Mondays, Brownies on Tuesday’s, Karate classes on Wednesdays run by Spike Blaine, Scouts on Thursdays. Friday’s Hula Hoop dancing class is currently suspended after little Betty Clutterbuck was blinded in one eye playing with a Trick Stick.

Veni Vidi Video

Veni Vidi Video is co-owned and managed by Terry ‘Tosh’ Wilson. Terry lives in a flat above the store with his Grandma Nerys Wilson. Nerys, his partner in the business, has grown increasingly infirm over recent years and Tosh spends more and more time looking to her needs. He greets suggestions that she go into The Willows contemptuously. His mother died when he was young. His father is an alcoholic and lives in Temphill. Tosh had a child to a girl when they were sixteen, they split up at twenty. Tosh embodies the done too much, much too young kinda thing. His daughter, now 13, lives with the ex.

Tosh used to be Jason, Karl and India’s dealer (pot and occasionally acid). Now they get battered together and watch his latest film acquisitions. Current favourites include Inseminoid, The House on Straw Hill and The Grim Reaper. Looking forward to getting his hands on Horrible.

Cold Print

Cold Print Books is the number one choice for any reader dissatisfied with the shelves of Woolworths and unable to get to the Workington branch of WH Smiths. Occupying both floors of a narrow, damp-ridden town-house off the market square Cold Print has, for years, served an essential niche interest in the town and is regularly frequented by restless intellectuals, bibliophiles and perverts.

Proprietor Harold Kaalms claims, when drunk, to have tattered copies of The Eltdown Shards and The Revelations of Glaaki locked away in his shop but will never, ever share them with any old idiot or narrow minded, ugly freak like you.

Kaalms rents an upstairs room to make a few bob on the side and provides a place of business to Derek Crumbleholme P.I. and his secretary Cody Tarbottom (sister of Gerry).

The Goose

Ramsay’s premier live music venue/night club.

Ramsay Market

Ramsay’s open air market dates back centuries and was the focal point of the original settlement (the date of which is unclear but the Guildhall has a display that reckons it to date back to pre-Roman Britain). Open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays it is a vibrant social focus for the town. Beyond the obligatory fruit & veg and tat other stalls of note include:

·        Clutterbooks

Verdun Clutterbuck and his grandson Clive (Dungeon Master) Clutterbuck operate an expansive stall that includes all forms of literature and hobby related wares. Verdun has been running the stall, in conjunction with his part-time job at Ace Electrics, since being demobbed in 1946 and it has been a focal point for bibliophiles and individuals of eclectic taste ever since. Verdun’s customers tend to favour him over Harold Kaalm’s as he is altogether more sociable and, for those who shun the seedier aspect of Kaalm’s portfolio, Clutterbooks is the acceptable face of fringe literature in the town. This has inevitably led to some animosity from the proprietor of Cold Print over the years. Clive is a rabid consumer of fantasy, weird and science fiction and, as well as writing, editing and distributing his own RPG fanzine Culte des Clive, is the resident Dungeon Master for Copper Hill’s only gaming group. They currently play Barbarians & Bastilles (B&B) every Wednesday evening and all day Sunday.

Note: Verdun is the cousin of Ramsay FC manager Selwyn.

·        Divergence Records

Divergence is the brain child of ‘Electric’ Russell. Few know the true name of Electric Russell, or even whether Russell is his surname or Christian name, but they know his ability to source the most current and ground-breaking independent musical pioneers. Cabaret Voltaire, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk… all introduced to Ramsay by Electric Russell.

Rumour: Electric Russell’s real name is Russell Ross Russell.

The Black Pudding Inn

Several pubs litter the perimeter of the market square but the Black Pudding Inn is, by far, the dirtiest. Despite this, and perhaps because of the Landlord’s lax attitude to all manner of things, it is a popular haunt for a strange cross-section of Ramsay society that can tolerate the grime and sticky carpets for want of cheap, flat and sour beer, dispensed from electric taps by the ‘unfussy’ daughters of the proprietor. It has a killer juke-box however so tends to be popular with grubby bikers and local grebs.

Rumour:

• The pickled eggs in The Black Pudding Inn are pre-war and, if consumed whole without chewing, will make you trip so hard that time flows backwards for 72 seconds every-time you fart the resultant foul egg-gas.

Bigby’s Gripping Flans

Barry Bigby’s bakery, it also sells sausage rolls and a new innovation in Ramsay called cheese straws!

Copper Hill Estate

Having no connection with copper and not being on a hill did nothing to dampen the spirits of the new tenants of Ramsay’s one and only council estate on its grand opening in 1967. On that day Don Estelle provided one of the town’s proudest days as he sang old favourites to the star struck residents long into the evening in the car park of The June Whitfield, the first new public house to open in the town since the short-lived Justice for Turing Memorial Bar opened (and closed) in June 1955.

The intervening years have not been kind to Copper Hill.

The Copper Hill Estate boasts two pubs:

The June Whitfield is the livelier of two pubs on the estate and was the brainchild of Landlady Mary Sparks, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the actual June Whitfield. She and the pub were once the subjects of an article in the Barrow Argus.

The Ship in a Bottle is where Jason works bar for Landlord ‘Greasy’ Eddie Langdale along with Barry ‘Langie’ Langdale, Eddie’s boy. The Ship is the only pub in Ramsay to have an all-male bar staff thanks to Greasy Eddie’s dubious personal hygiene and ‘busy hands’.  Regular patrons include Big Nose Derek, Skinny Bill Otterill and Boz.

The centre of the estate, The Quadrant (known locally as Quaddy, for example ‘I’m off down Quaddy to get some cans of Long Life’) hosts a parade of shops including:

Cerl Up & Die – Proprietor and head stylist Wendy ‘Honey’ Pott failed her CSE English exam but makes up for her astonishing thickness in other ways. In 1976 Wendy won the All Cumbria Hula Hoop Championship and is locally notorious for competing for Workington in the 1974 It’s a Knockout heats after the Ramsay team failed to progress through the preliminaries.

Ken’s Kozy Kafe – The knives and forks are chained to the tables and wiped with a greasy rag after use. It’s grim in general and made more so by the motorcycle gang that are its most regular patrons. Kenneth Leadbetter is the Ken of the title, his daughter Cindy runs with the bikers as a hanger-on.

Gavin’s Goods – The estate mini-mart and off-licence run by Gavin Hogarth is the chief source of sustenance and cheap booze on the estate. Gavin operates a nice little line in bizarre brands and non-specific perishables such as ‘Jardox’, ‘No. 11 Sugar, White 6 oz’ and ‘No. 342 Custard Cream Biscuits Pack of 12’. He also makes his own phenomenally strong and deeply unpleasant cider which he sells in Colliery Bitter bottles. They look like bottles of piss.

The Ramsay Museum of Bicycles and Salt

In truth a converted railway shed this ode to Ramsay’s industrial heritage is as sparse and pointless as the current state of industry.

The Willows Home for the Elderly and Infirm

The premier, and in truth only ‘retirement’ home for those of advanced years but diminished capacity in Ramsay. Presumably named for the two enormous weeping willow trees in the grounds this formerly salubrious country house was once a retreat for those from a wealthy background but prone to a ‘nervous disposition’. Before the war The Willows performed a function as a step-down care facility for wealthier patients released from Follyhill Hospital and post-war was used to rehabilitate traumatised soldiers returned from abroad. It was bought and renovated (cheaply) in 1970 by Paul ‘Shitty’ Wittey and converted for use as a Nursing Home for the elderly.

Rumour:

• The manager of the Willows Home for the Elderly holds swingers parties there four times a year. He also has a room where he sets dementia sufferers to writing. No-one knows what though. 

Pabodie Park

A shit-hole of a park, with dilapidated swings, a small algae-ridden pond & dog shit in the sand pit. There is a Victorian conservatory with ugly fish and a parrot that screeches 'Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li'. The park is named after Professor Frank H Pabodie, an American engineer who spent three years living in Ramsay from 1915-1918 working on pioneering mining equipment, some of which survives to this day in the Ramsay Museum of Bicycles and Salt.

Saint Genevieve’s Hospital/Ramsay Royal Infirmary

In desperate need of renovation and restoration, Ramsay’s run-down hospital has for 40 years stood in partial ruin. In 1941 a lost Heinkel bomber dropped its entire load on Ramsay and, in the process, utterly demolished the majority of the original 1870s Saint Genevieve’s portion of the site. The Ramsay Royal Infirmary portion built in 1911 largely escaped the devastation. Nevertheless 40 patients and nurses lost their lives in the attack and the craters, mud and shattered masonry, although now overgrown, are their only monument. 

Rumour:

• That advert on telly with the dark figure warning kids to stay away from pools of water and bomb-sites was filmed in Ramsay. The bloke who made it drowned round the back of the bombed out half of the Infirmary. 

Ramsay Terminus

The Ramsay Terminus railway station was built in 1896 and runs services to Workington and Whitehaven (via Workington). Since the closure Of B.A.C.C. the line is falling into disrepair and passenger services have been cut back. Since its heyday in the 1920s and 30s when the townsfolk flocked to the seaside attractions of Whitehaven the station has suffered decades of neglect and decay. The Stationmaster, ‘Old Man’ Whateley claims to have worked the platform 7 days a week since 1946 and still terrifies children and animals.

Rumour:

• Old Man Whateley wasn’t born in Ramsay, but worked at the old RNAS Craggythorn base in WW2. What he saw there gave him his nervous tic. At the end of the war he convalesced in The Willows then got posted to the station to monitor ‘comings and goings.’ When the base closed in 1958 he stayed on as Stationmaster but still gets paid by the M.O.D. to ‘keep an eye out.’

Telefusion

Ramsay is the only town in Britain to have an entirely independent cable television company. Telefusion also provides the vast majority of the town’s tellies, mostly on a rental basis (50p slot activated). All the services are piped in to homes via a cable and the channels controlled via a cream box with a dial that goes from A to L, providing the mainstream TV channels and a number of radio stations.

The Telefusion Channel plays advertisements for local businesses, mostly Willis Ludlows, and broadcasts Ramsay Round & About, a local news show, every day at 7pm (immediately following the BBC’s Look North-West).

Rumour:

Telefusion (the town's cable TV and telly rental company) runs an extra channel, but you can only get it if you know someone 'at the top' of the company, and if they supply you with a dial that goes to 'M'.

The Pail of Offal Public House

The Prancing Tony

The Withered Arms

The Ancient Mariner

Named for the first man to have a bar tab in Ramsay this 17^th century Coach House stands on the westerly approach to the town, its rear windows overlooking the Meir. An ancient camphor wood panelled chair called Christian’s Chair after famous Cumbrian Fletcher Christian, stands in a corner between the bar and the dusty, ash and cinder-littered hearth.

The pub is unusual in that it has no sign outside, but a genuine old gibbet.

Ramsay Meir

Although certainly not the largest freshwater lake in the region Ramsay Meir nevertheless covers hundreds of acres and is home to various wildlife, including gypsies and rusty old Long Life cans. A council drive to eradicate fly-tipping has resulted in some improvement to the shoreline closest to the town but it remains a far-off dream that it may one day become an attraction. A rickety and rotten row of moorings provide a haven for a handful of rentable boats but most are in as poor condition as their owner Eric Hardacre, a drunk who rarely ventures more than a few yards from his ramshackle hovel, characterised by its corrugated metal walls, filthy gables and yellowed, nicotine stained net curtains. His wife, Emily Hardacre, is seldom seen and their children long since left the town for the bright lights of Workington and Barrow.

Several small islands litter the Meir, the most prominent of which is Fiddler’s Isle, named for the odd habits of the original owner of the Follyhill Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Archibald Follyhill. Follyhill lived in a forbidding three storey town-house on the upper slopes of the more salubrious end of Ramsay. Follyhill House was bequeathed on the death of his only daughter to the poor, homeless and destitute of Ramsay.

Rumours:

• There's a crashed flying saucer at the bottom of Ramsay Meir. The Meir is the deepest body of water in England so don't try and swim down to it. Someone from your school had a cousin who tried. He washed up a week later in somewhere called Hornsea.
• The meir has a tidal stream.

Follyhill House

Since 1968 this grand Victorian pile has been a haven for Ramsay’s less fortunate individuals including Old Man Trippet, Two-Pence Man and Carla the Plastic Bag Woman. Despite the location Follyhill House is well tolerated by the more affluent neighbourhood in which it is located and, thanks to donations from local families and worthies, the residents are often the best dressed bums and hobos for miles around, if not the cleanest.

Ramsay Town FC

The ‘Velocipedes’ play in the Alliance Premier League at their venerable ground Bernard’s Shay, a Victorian era coliseum of shattered dreams and muddy disappointments.

 Current manager Selwyn Clutterbuck has a fearsome reputation in the dressing room. The team are sworn to secrecy regarding his methods but since taking the helm at Ramsay their rise, whilst not stratospheric, has been impressive.

Rumours:

• A former Ramsay Town player, in conversation with ‘someone you know down the Pail of Offal’, claimed whilst inebriated that he played for Selwyn Clutterbuck’s previous club. At half-time during a crunch match a few years back Selwyn popped one of his eyes out, threw it at the club captain and spoke gibberish to the ceiling. It wasn’t a glass eye either. The team recovered from 3-0 down to win 14-2.
• The first captain of Ramsay Town, Alf Tabworthy, buried the hearts of seven larks under the centre spot. A trilling nettle plant sprouts on every seventh anniversary of his death.
• Every year, during mushroom season, the county’s best mushrooms will sprout in the early morning dew around the North end penalty area at Bernard’s Shay.

Follyhill Hospital

Formerly Follyhill Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Follyhill Hospital now performs the function of Ramsay Borough Asylum. Originally founded in 1883 by Archibald Follyhill the Victorian asylum is set in expansive grounds several miles west of Ramsay. The ‘Criminally Insane’ tag and function was removed shortly after the Great War when scientist and philanthropist Tillinghast McVitie commenced his pioneering experiments in behaviour modification at Darkmeir Prison.

Today Follyhill comprises several wards (Dementia, Continuing Care, Rehab and Acute Admission).  Overall responsibility for patient care falls to Dr xxxxx, who also runs regular outpatient clinics at Saint Genevieve’s.

Other Places Nearby

Bethaven

Beyond the Meir, along the steadily climbing B-road that terminates at RNAS Craggythorn is the small hamlet of Bethaven. Only two roads lead away from the Hamlet apart from the way in, one East (and could barely be called a road), and one North to the old MOD site.

Crakeknott Roman Fort

Reached by a treacherous, stony road leading east from Bethaven the scratchy remains of a Roman frontier fort stand atop a stump of a hill, commanding a view of the Meir and the valley in which Ramsay sits. Despite attempts to excavate over recent decades very little is known about the history of the site other than local hearsay and verbal histories about pagan, unchristian ceremonies conducted by the original builders. Inevitably this grips the imagination of local doom-laden and depressed teenagers.

Rumours:

• Crakeknott Fort was never a fort, but a temple. It has been the site of 17 recorded suicides this century.
• The Diddymen came from Ramsay. Once every four years they return and can be seen wandering around the roman fort outside Bethaven.

RNAS Craggythorn

This former MOD site to the south-east of Ramsay has been closed since 1958.

HMP Darkmeir

The original Darkmeir Prison was a Victorian ‘working’ prison where inmates would engage in hard labour to atone for their sins. During the war it served as a dual training and military prison, and included an adjacent POW camp from which German POWs were supervised conducting all manner of maintenance duties in the town. In 1947 Darkmeir hosted a pioneering social experiment in behaviour modification directed by restless sociologist and biscuit heir Tillinghast McVitie. Now HMP Darkmeir is a category D prison.

Bredhurst Woods

Several miles south of Ramsay lay the hundreds of acres of dense forest known as Bredhurst Woods, thought to date back to the ancient forests that covered Britain during the last Ice Age and mainly comprising of oak, birch and lime trees, some of considerable age. Much of the Ramsay facing forest occupies a vast escarpment that extends as far east as the southern end of RNAS Craggythorn. The forest heights are marked by the folly Bredhurst Pike which, on a clear day, can be seen rising above the trees in the densest and highest point of the canopy. Once past the peak the woods gently run downhill for miles before thinning at the wetlands of the basin occupied by Lower Dryfield. Michelle Duffy and her late father Jim moved into a country pile deep in the woods called, appropriately enough, Crook’s End.

Bredhurst Pike

Crook’s End

Sleath

A few miles into the fringes of the south-eastern quadrant of Bredhurst Woods lays the village of Sleath. Dominated by the village pond and a leaning norman church Sleath is seldom visited by outsiders as the road through it leads nowhere, in fact it runs out a couple of miles further into the woods at an abandoned chalk quarry.

Dirtpot

Donkleywood

Lower Dryfield

Ramsay’s closest contemporary is 15 miles down the road, beyond Bredhurst Woods to the south. Although smaller than Ramsay the occupants have an in-bred arrogance that belies their corduroy teeth and wagging heads. Before their meteoric ascent up the lower leagues Ramsay Town’s chief rivals were Dryfield Athletic and for decades their two meetings per year were the fixtures that lit up the local football calendar, often with petrol. Since Ramsay Town’s hard-won successes the people of Lower Dryfield have festered with envy and take any opportunity they can to crow over any misfortunes Ramsay people may experience. The people there are thick, inbred and their cars do not run on wheels but on bricks. They tend to be ugly, have one arm longer than the other, drink from the fens upon which their shacks are built, lie compulsively about their educational achievements and generally stink of shit. 

Rumour:

• In Lower Dryfield pigeons walk backwards

Temphill

Six miles North-west of Ramsay lays the ancient, stricken town of Temphill. Divided by the same muddy river that feeds Ramsay, the west bank of Temphill is site of the High Street Church, the chief landmark and most prominent feature visible to one approaching from the weathered and unkempt road, lined with leaning, leaf-free trees that reach over the traveller like arthritic fingers.

The black steeple of the church looks down through pallid gravestones upon High Street where stands a leaning porched, peeling bricked, dingy windowed hotel and its neighbours, a group of dilapidated, gabled three-storey houses, one of which has partially collapsed. The lower floor remains intact, a sign in the mud-spattered window marking it as Poole’s General Store.

A skeletal bridge stands opposite spanning the sluggish, brown river. The road it supports leads to the grey warehouses of Bridge Lane before giving way to lanes of tatty dwellings where scattered, unkempt children stare from green stained doorsteps or from where they play in puddles of orange mud on patches of waste ground.

Temphill is seldom visited by accident as it is on the way to precisely nowhere. Yet neighbouring townspeople know it by reputation. Grandmothers scold children by threatening to take them to Temphill to see ‘the things dancing on the graves.’

Rumour: 

• All the people in Temphill were put there as part of a government experiment.

Long time no post - something of an update.

This morning, whilst searching in vain for an old asset register (rock and roll), I came across a blog I wrote in response to being asked by my boss at the then West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit, or WSYBCSU as it was more commonly but hardly less easily pronounceably referred to.  The CSU was one of the many enormous changes implemented by the Tory-Liberal coalition government.  Spin on to the end if you want to know how that worked out.

Job Security is a Redundant Concept?

Or

A bitter pill is still a pill

A Blog Pitch by Andrew Stimpson – Health & Justice Lead WSYBCSU

In 2011 I was made redundant from a post within the NHS.  It was a bewildering and disorientating experience, and the wound was not salved in any way by the earnest, but rather ineffectual consultations that punctuated the process.

The redundancy followed a three year spell working regionally on Offender Health issues, never the most glamorous of fields, but nevertheless extremely rewarding.  Prior to this I had spent six years of my life working in Her Majesty’s Prison Hull, a classic Victorian pile populated by shady reprobates, oddballs and misfits.  It also houses prisoners.  I could classify those six years in a number of different ways but essentially, they were the best six years of my working life.  Quite apart from the social life, which was admittedly fabulous, it afforded me an incredible opportunity after a number of years flirting with other careers and flitting from job to job.

It enabled me to effect real change.

Prison nursing at the time was generally operated ‘in-house’ by Her Majesty’s Prison Service (HMPS) and delivered by a combination of nurses and Health Care Officers (HCOs, some also trained nurses).  It was, in many ways, the nursing equivalent of the Wild West, complete with swaggering cowboys and brawling drunks.  There were also prisoners.

The case is well made today for the prevalence of complex conditions, multiple co-morbidities, mental health and substance misuse issues amongst offenders, and it astonishes me to this day how effectively many of these conditions were managed in an extremely restrictive and poorly equipped environment.  That said, many mistakes were made and many problems existed within the systems of care thanks to outmoded concepts and attitudes amongst the Healthcare Team.  The prison is a demanding, high pressure environment and emotional burnout was a common problem. A stubborn unwillingness to adapt to change in some quarters contributed to low morale and further poor practice,  leading many of the ‘old hands’ to leave the job once the NHS took charge of health provision within the prison and introduced new-fangled concepts like ‘clinical governance’ and ‘hand washing’.

Ironically (perhaps) the HCOs, some of whom had traded in nursing uniforms for prison officer garb, were the most skilled, compassionate and caring individuals in the team.  They were a far cry from the stick wielding ‘prison warder’ image, although they could certainly wield the stick when merited.  Recently NHS England, in response to Francis, unveiled The 6 Cs (http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/6c-a5-leaflet.pdf) in an attempt to educate the nursing profession that it has some obligations to patients.  In my experience these prison officers were as caring, compassionate, competent, communicative, courageous and committed as any clinical practitioner I have ever worked with in my longish career.  They responded extremely well to new ideas and saw myself, and another colleague who arrived at the same time, as a breath of fresh air, which never goes amiss in an establishment that generally smells like a combination of ash trays, teenagers’ trainers and poorly maintained toilets.  Together we instigated a culture of care and recovery that, for a golden 18 months, saw real improvements in a number of areas.

I moved on from HMP Hull in 2008 and took a role with the Yorkshire and Humber Offender Health Team, broadening my experience base and working with police, courts and probation services on responding to the Bradley Consultation, and subsequently implementing the recommendations of the Bradley Report.

The Bradley Report was a useful tool.  It cemented a lot of things that, although we knew already,  gave real drive and impetus to a change movement that was sadly derailed by the wholesale changes instigated when the current government was elected.

Swings and roundabouts.

Following two and a half years in the wilderness I returned to offender health (courtesy of the CSU), now rebadged as Health & Justice (not to be mistaken with the 1969 All-British Wrestling Tag Team Champions).  Unsurprisingly the same issues remain...

• High rates of mental ill-health in offenders
• Variable standards of care in criminal justice settings
• A lack of cohesion in commissioning services for offenders
• Prisons still smell like old cabbages

On a positive note however I have been able to revisit my old stomping ground and conduct meaningful work around health care in prisons.  I have even been able to catch up with old colleagues and bear witness to the tremendous developments that have taken place in HMP Hull’s Healthcare Department in my absence.  Many of those old colleagues remain some of the most skilled and capable carers of people it has ever been my pleasure to witness.  The reasons why that should be the case could be debated at length but, thinking back to those 6Cs, in some ways it appalls me that we need to spell out in massive letters to nurses that they should be caring and compassionate.  In my mind, they are core tenets of the very vocation that prospective nurses seek to undertake, yet often seem more likely to be demonstrated by non-clinicians such as nursing assistants and HCOs, thanks to the relentless procedural and task orientated drift of nursing focus over the years (another debate there perhaps).

Of course there are other reasons why the 6Cs become threatened in practice.  In a prison for example, as in an A&E department on a Saturday night, repeated barrages of verbal abuse and the occasional physical assault tend to sap even the gentlest of spirits.  More broadly however we now occupy a space where nothing is a given and public sector jobs are no longer the sure deal they once were.  It isn’t only the prospect of impending cuts, redundancies and rationalisations that cause considerable anxiety to the work force, but the prospect of next year’s and the year after that and so on.  TUPE issues, relocations, management restructures, downgrading, re-profiling, applying for our own posts... all are possibilities. 

The CSU itself is, like all other providers, a reflection of its work force in macrocosm.  It will effectively be reapplying for its own job, only dozens of times per year, and those of us that occupy the spaces between the machinery are manning treadmills to keep it running. 

Being made redundant once, from a job that would have been described many years ago as ‘safe as a bank’ (pun very much intended), had the unforeseen benefit of making me somewhat philosophical about the prospect of undergoing the same process once again.  Last time my colleagues and I had no power to alter our destiny, and despite being a high performing team we were simply pushed over a cliff. 

This time is different. 

In joining the CSU we all went down the rabbit hole. 

We can choose one of two pills.

Choose wisely.

As it happens it didn't matter which pill we chose.  The CSU model was largely disastrous, with most falling by the wayside or being subsumed into even larger organisations.  In the case of WSYBCSU, it merged with NYHCSU to become YHCS.  None of that matters other than to say it never got any better and ultimately failed, despite the best efforts of us drones, because it was operated by morons.  Reading this back though I can relate to the sense of guarded optimism I felt when writing it, because I still feel that way three or so years on. Now we have a fully blue blooded Tory government, the NHS is collapsing in a mire of willfully created debt and doctors are going on strike, yet the bulk of the rank and file believe in their vocation and in the NHS as a concept.

That's somewhat encouraging I suppose.

2013: The Year I Made Like Peanut Butter, Bacon and Jam*

*I just worked

The last third of 2012 was a proper shitter.  I had finally come to the sad conclusion that my experiment with work as a private consultant and member of CJS Partnership Ltd had largely failed.  As if that wasn't enough, my strike rate with job interviews had hit an all time low, the nadir of which was failing on two occasions to be short-listed for work as a bank nurse, the most basic of all possible roles for a qualified nurse with twenty plus years experience in health care.  Just in case I thought that the dough faced shit-bags in government couldn't vomit on my eiderdown yet again I also discovered that posts extremely similar to the one I was made redundant from in 2011, within my exact specialisation, were being advertised on the NHS jobs site but I, and my former colleagues, were not eligible to apply as we were not 'at-risk' staff within the NHS.  So, being one of the 9000 unfortunates in the NHS who were binned off by Cameron and chums even before they had passed the Health & Social Care bill, we were beyond risk because we'd already been thrown off the fucking cliff.

I hate you Wheatus bongo player

It wasn't only work and money issues that were pissing in my eye at this point in my forty-first year on the planet.  In September I ordered a fairly rare book from America.  It never arrived.  The seller very kindly refunded me several weeks later and I ordered another copy from another seller.  That never arrived either.  Said second seller was very understanding and sent a replacement which finally arrived just before Christmas.  This utter debacle succeeded in elevating postal services up my shit list to just below Daveorge Camosbourne and just above the bongo player from Wheatus.

Ia Ia Cthulhu Phtagn

Fortunately Christmas 2012 was a winner.  My parents and sister came to us for two days (the first time my parents had ever, in their married lifetimes, spent Christmas away from home) and many snowballs and ports and lemonade were consumed and much entertainment was derived from watching The Avengers, John Carter and particularly my sister and Mum getting the hump with my Dad on the afternoon of Christmas Day thanks to his insistence on making The Evil Dead the afternoon matinee.  To be fair they took it all fairly well at first but I suppose evil spirit tree-rapists (or should that be rapist trees) are not the best warm up for the Strictly Christmas Special.  Fortunately lunch was delicious and Doctor Who surprised everyone by being half decent, thereby guaranteeing that the Stimpson family Christmas was a huge success, despite the sad absence of other sister and bundle of joy nephew who spent it elsewhere.  I was sad to miss his second Christmas but, on a positive note, I did manage to initiate him into the cult of Cthulhu, thereby ensuring that, when He rises, the boy will be able to regard Him in all of His majesty and know the truth of our existence (before his sanity is shattered and body morphed to serve His needs).  Unfortunately my partner was back at work on the 27th so the festive season was cut short somewhat.


So 2013 arrived with barely a whimper, as Philippa and I rarely do anything these days for New Year's Eve (as she invariably has to work it).  Things looked up slightly as I had a little bit of work to do, luckily for Phil's bank balance. I met an old colleague from many years' past and discussed possible co-working strategies (and he paid for lunch, huzzah).  Even better I got offered an interview, which I performed well at. The same day I was offered two further interviews and, later in the day, was offered not the job I'd interviewed for, but another which the interviewing manager considered a better fit for my skills and experience.  The next day, 11th January 2013, that book, ordered on September 9th and shipped on the 12th, arrived.  It only took four months.

Swings and roundabouts.  Thank you 2013.

Tome of Salvation