As a member of the Far Isles who comes of Viking "stock" I feel that I should tell this story in the manner of the Sagas. Many of them go back to the beginning: so shall I.
About 35 years ago four students in America decided to have a medieval tournament in one of their "back-yards". They had such a good time that the decided to do it again the following week. It was from this acorn of a start that the oak we know as the S.C.A. came into being.
One of the S.C.A.'s best recruitment moves was to get a foothold in the American armed forces, and hence the S.C.A. got members world-wide, including Great Britain: from an American point of view, the "Far Isles".
The Far Isles, as a Barony under the leadership of Heloisa Mallett of Wortham, eventually broke away from its parent S.C.A. and hence began to grow on its own merits. This growth was sufficient for the membership to realise that sub-groups would be a good idea.
The Grim was the first sub-group to be chartered by the Baroness, the second - under the leadership of Kate the Unrepentant - was Camber's Well.
At the time a grant of title to a sub-group only need three signatures on its petition. For Camber's Well, these were:
who took the positions of Sheriff, Bailiff and Reeve respectively.
Kate had already been made a Guildmistress of the Guild of Performers and to begin with, she simply used Camber's Well as a home for her Guild since Janet and Andrew were also guild-members.
Things continued in the fashion until Janet & Andrew married in both the medieval and the mundane and their interest in the Far Isles decreased. Therefore at the next Camber's Well A.G.M. the way was clear for two new officers to take up post i.e. Gwyneth Myfanwy of Llangoch became Bailiff and Astrid Stormtongue (that's me!) became Reeve.
Now, if you'll pardon my saying so, Gwyneth and Astrid made a good team - they worked together in the mundane, didn't live very far from each other, and had no problems meeting up with Kate at lunchtimes for what became the monthly council meetings.
To be honest, we didn't have much to go on. Andrew had only published two "Upwellings" (the previous name of "Echoes from the Well": Ed.) and I had copies by I could pretty much take our newsletter wherever I wanted it to go. The Bailiff's job was probably worse since Gwyneth (Chris) was given Camber's Well accounts that (in her words) amounted to a recipe book with numbers.
In spite of this, the three of us got things going. As Reeve I would pretty much guarantee to publish an Upwellings (and Andrew should get the credit for the name) with at least two A4 pages even if it only contained a Sheriff's front page, a Reeve's page and the council minutes.
Our Council meetings were quite short affairs to start with: we all met for lunch on the first Tuesday of each month at a little Greek restaurant and discussed our plans between mouthfuls of moussaka.
The first big event we held was a Winter Revel at St. John's Hall Stratford. I had used this hall before for "Viking banquets" and so was familiar with its facilities. Naturally we roped my mum (Lileth Willbourne of Lincoln) into helping us with the cooking and it was all done in her small kitchen. If I do say so myself, that Revel was a great success: in fact I recall that we were embarrassed about it. In those days, as I understand it, a normal Revel had maybe 20 people attending and might make £20 profit. I was used to doing the food for 125 at a "Viking" do so I thought the 60 bookings I got was a bit poor. On the morning of the Revel I was doing the accounts and the figures indicated that Lileth and Gwyneth should run out and spend some more money on food. This they did, but our menu was already quite heavy and eventually they only managed to spend about £15 on the ingredients to make mincemeat tarts. We still had about £120 profit: embarrassed as we were, this set a lot of precedent.
Things continued in this fashion for a couple of years, we made a nice profit from our annual Revel (gradually we extended this to three Revels and a picnic). Our recruitment increased: Hitch de Hautboy and the Fairbourn family joined in those early days through our new link with St. John's Church and Hall in Leytonstone ('cos Kate had moved nearby) and what assets they turned out to be.
At this point in time, recruitment was on a definite up within the Far Isles. Sufficiently so that eventually the great day came when the Society could declare itself a Principality and hold its first weekend Revel at the Youth Hostel in St. Briavels.
It was about this time that Marcus Keith joined the Society and Camber's Well and he was most helpful in using his Surveyor's skills in checking Briavels out w.r.t. size and suitability. In fact Marcus was also one of the first people to give me a contribution towards the Camber's Well Gift.
For those of you who don't know what the Camber's Well Gift was for that event I'll tell you. I had this idea that we should give our new Princess a treasure chest and we would fill it with all sorts of things that would spill out when it was opened. I can still remember the dimensions of that box: 27" wide by 18" deep and 14" high + the dome on top. Now to get that spillage of contents I mentioned the trick is the get the box made with the lid on and leave the bottom off. You then fix the lid shut (and from that moment on leave it alone) and then fill the box from the bottom up.
So that's what we did. I organised the making of the box in the way we needed it and then about a week before the event Lileth and I filled it up. All the bright, shiny, glittery stuff such as Marcus' bracelet, the silver goblets and other jewellery stuff went into the lid in order for them to be spilled. Then we added all the other contributions. I can't remember them all but they included a large bag of salt and large pack of candles, a couple of cushions to sit on, a bunch of wicker baskets for bread or fruit, a glass jam-pot with a silver lid and spoon in the shape of an apple, a bolt of cloth etc., etc. All of this was packed so as to take up as much room as possible but we still had about a depth of 6" to go when we were finished. But that was OK 'cos it meant that we could put a piece of hardboard across it all and then add loads of scrunched up newspaper as a padding for when the bottom was put on and we (carefully) turned the whole box over.
Those of you who attended the Princess' investiture may still remember the scene of that Court at St. Briavels. We were all crowded into King John's bedchamber with the chest hidden at the back and screened by the bodies of various Camber's Well members who made sure they arrived early in order to stand in just the right place. As the Herald called her forward, Kate the Unrepentant took with her a young page who carried a scroll on a cushion. (Her Grace the Princess thought that the scroll was her prezzy - sneaky huh?)
Kate then briefly explained that the scroll was merely the loyal greeting of her people in Camber's Well, she turned and beckoned at which Marcus and Ian du Bois hoisted the chest above their shoulders and with murmurs of "'scuse me, 'scuse me, coming through" they brought our gift to her Grace's right hand. When, on our urging, the Princess had the box opened and the glittery contents spilled wonderfully to gasps of amazement, I thought "Yes - a result!". It is to my mind the only occasion I have seen the Princess speechless.
Once we became a Principality, Camber's Well went from strength to strength and it wasn’t long before we had reached the necessary 30 members for County status. This meant that we could choose to have a noble rule us and there wasn't much doubt that it would be Kate, who decided that she could no longer be 'the Unrepentant' but would now be known as Katreona Balloil. Oh, what fun we had getting the pronunciation of that one right.
Reaching County status also meant that we could have a go at organising a weekend Revel. Since the Investiture Revel at St. Briavels we had returned annually for Foundation and Independence Revel. Therefore, I thought, it was about time that Camber’s Well did one...
Guess who got to organise the Creation of our new Countess - that's right - me. Naturally I had a few ideas. My first thought was to consult the YHA guide for suitable places in our area AND THEN to ask the young men in the village of Chadwell to go and scout them out. I recall that one place was rejected on the grounds that it was painted pink - I thought that was OK!)
Eventually we settled on Alfriston Youth Hostel and began to organise booking forms, cooks, events planners etc. I recall asking Melusine to organise some regalia for investing our new Countess. I know that Gwynedd and I cooked the breakfasts with Lileth helping when it came to Saturday lunch. I rather think that we had the Fairbournes organising the evening feast.
While I do consider that this Revel followed the usual Camber's Well tradition of being both a success and profitable, I confess I did make a somewhat large mistake. You see, I had gone to the Briavels autocrats to get an idea of quantities for the food (I do love going shopping when you want 200 - yes, 200 sausages, or 5 kilos of Alpen) and generally they were pretty good except for the bread. I bought about 100 large uncut loaves 'cos I was told that was used at Briavels. What I didn't know was that this much bread was used 'cos the meals were often late so everyone ate the bread when they were hungry.
So, at Alfriston, when we served the meals on time and sliced the bread, we only used about 1/3 of that bread - help! What to do with the remainder? Well, everyone who went home got their complimentary loaf, or two, as a souvenir (three if I thought I could get away with it). Ho-hum - I didn't make that mistake again.
I must compliment Melusine on her work with what became known as the Cambers' Well regalia. She found the right people to produce a coronet, a ring, and (if I remember correctly) a cloak, and even better - she did it within budget.
Camber’s Well then had what I call a period of consolidation. We continued to recruit members, largely within the Village of Chadwell and with the passing of time the Far Isles as a whole celebrated its tenth anniversary. Of course all the Society sub-groups decided to gift the society in some manner. Camber's Well was no different, but it was generally thought that we would find it difficult to top the gift that we’d made at the Investiture.
With Kate now Katreona Countess of Camber's Well I had also got a promotion to Sheriff and so the 10-year gift was down to me to organise. With the lack of suggestions coming from our membership I thought that we shouldn't try to compete with our last gift - in fact we should do the complete opposite. And that's what we did (as they say in the sagas). I asked our Bailiff - still Gwynedd (and Hitch de Hautboy was now Reeve) - what our budget was. She said £100. So, instead of a big box, I got a little box and we filled it with 100 £1 coins. Well, we didn't do it quite that easily. I got a small wooden box and Lileth made ten small pouch bags and we put 10 £1 coins in each bag. So, when it Camber's Well's turn to present its gift, ten prominent ladies of Camber's Well each escorted by a prominent gentleman, came forward and emptied their purse into the wooden box. The Society used the money to fund the production, printing and publication of our New Members' Guide.
Time passed, and then it was Camber's Well's turn to celebrate its coming to be a Duchy. We decided to have a weekend Revel once again but did not return to Alfriston: instead we went to Kemsing Youth Hostel. The Camber's Well council decided that we had made enough money to have a subsidised revel - so we did. Even then we came perilously close to making money again - I recall being so desperate to spend my Saturday lunch allocation money that I spent £14 on pot-pourri for the bedrooms.
Indeed we had acquired another sub-group, the people of Endore, and they volunteered to organise the breakfast. They were so determined to spend the allocated money that we were having ten - yes, ten! - things for breakfast. In fact we had a guest: a traveller who was due to run a great race in London asked if we could put him up for the night and for breakfast. Imagine if you will the expression on his face when told his breakfast menu (no cornflakes here!). He immediately offered to pay us more than the £1.50 we asked for. He seemed even more dumbstruck when we replied 'Please don't'.
With the creation of the Duchy, Katreona decided to rename her lands Camcairndryth (and learning to spell that took some time) and I therefore became High Sheriff of Camcairndryth. Nevertheless, a few of us were reluctant to see the name of Camber's Well disappear forever and elected to stay in an area designated as the County of Camber's Well in the Duchy of Camcairndryth. This made Katreona's full title 'The Duchess of Camcairndryth Katreona Balliol Countess of Camber's Well' etc., etc.
I recall that this caused a few constitutional problems e.g. how much money should the 'new' Camber's Well be given from the 'old' Camber’s Well (now Camcairndryth) accounts? What property should the 'new' Camber’s Well retain? There was some confusion and concern about this but a Special General Meeting of the whole populace of Camcairndryth sorted it out rather amicably.
For continuity reasons the 'old' Council was simply elevated to the Duchy Council, hence Camber's Well needed a new Council. We were no longer a large group and volunteers were called for. Marcus Keith volunteered for the post of Sheriff with (I think) Jan of Snaervik as Bailiff and Lady Jane Fairbourne as Reeve.
From our viewpoint things continued in much the same way as they always had. Camber's Wellians continued to Autocrat Revels and enter items in the arts and Sciences competitions etc.
Things began to change again when Her Grace the Duchess Katreona seemed determined to make me the Countess of Camber's Well. At first I resisted quite well saying that my duties as High Sheriff prevented my accepting such an honour. Eventually Katreona solved that problem by removing me from office and then creating me the new Countess of Camber's Well. I already ranked as a Countess in my own right when Her Grace the Princess Heloisa made me a thegn. Hence my title now became Thegn Astrid Stormtongue Countess of Camber's Well.
We also lost Jan when his trading trips became longer and he felt that he could not perform his duties as Bailiff any longer. Gwynedd took over for a while but her family commitments caused her to resign.
When Lady Jane was elevated to the title of Duchess of Camcairndryth we also lost our Reeve.
However it wasn't too bad because Marcus continued in his capacity as Sheriff to take care of any business required. Then last year our fortunes changed again with the election of a completely new Council. Hitch de Hautboy became our Sheriff with William Forecroffte our Bailiff and Sian ferch Rhianneth our Reeve.
At the time of writing and as I bring my reminiscences to a close I'm still Countess of Camber's Well and we're the largest group within the Far Isles so I feel certain that the History of Camber's Well is nowhere near an end but simply starting another chapter. I imagine it will be the deeds of others which fill its pages.
THEGN ASTRID STORMTONGUE COUNTESS CAMBER'S WELL