The Frozen Lake: A gripping novel of family and wartime secrets

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About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

For Tio, who was there

This book is dedicated with love to my uncle,

James Edmondson, whose memories of Westmoreland

winters of long ago and stories of life in the

nineteen-thirties have been a delight and an inspiration

APRIL 1921 (#u906ef3ed-58ed-51c8-b94c-90a7eb3fbb88)

STOP PRESS

Westmoreland man killed in mountaineering accident

Neville Richardson, eldest son of Sir Henry and Lady Richardson of Wyncrag, fell to his death earlier this month, while climbing in the Andes. Aged forty-one, he leaves a wife, Helena, a son and two daughters. Sir Henry’s youngest son, Jack Richardson MC, died in France in 1917.

DECEMBER 1936 (#u906ef3ed-58ed-51c8-b94c-90a7eb3fbb88)

Never does the scenery appear to more advantage as when the lake is covered with transparent ice from end to end, and the glint of sunshine, investing its surface with bright and changeful colours, makes it appear like an opal set in a wreath of virgin white. Towards sunset the snow-clad fells assume every tint the sun can create, from deepest crimson to palest gold. Frost fringes becks and rivers, and the ice patterns windows with its chilly fingers, weaving ethereal cobwebs across hedges and fells. Breath freezes on the air and the black coats of Fell ponies on the hillside are dusted white, manes and eyelashes touched with ice, and icicles tangle the shaggy fleeces of the hardy native sheep while they forage for food beneath the snow.