I was standing under the railway bridge that spanned the road that led towards Westbury<\/p>\n
The bridge which was part of the Westbury Avoiding Line had been constructed in 1933 but it looked older and more worn<\/p>\n
I was waiting on the narrow pavement which was opposite the much safer raised pavement<\/p>\n
But nobody took any notice of me<\/p>\n
Which suited my needs<\/p>\n
My grandfather had waited here in 1900 for Mata Hari but she did not keep the appointment<\/p>\n
A woman in a trench coat came up to me<\/p>\n
She was smoking a cigarette<\/p>\n
You are late <\/i><\/p>\n
No I was early <\/i><\/p>\n
I am naked under my coat <\/i><\/p>\n
Female spies usually are <\/i><\/p>\n
I am sorry to hear about your grandmother <\/i><\/p>\n
She made mistakes <\/i><\/p>\n
My grandfather knew her well <\/i><\/p>\n
Too well <\/i><\/p>\n
Have you my orders? <\/i><\/p>\n
Yes <\/i><\/p>\n
The woman in the trench coat undid her belt and let her coat fall to the ground<\/p>\n
As you can see they are tattooed on my back <\/i><\/p>\n
Cunning <\/i><\/p>\n
You have always to be ahead of the game <\/i><\/p>\n
The tattoo was about five hundred words long<\/p>\n
Leeds Castle is not as you might imagine in Yorkshire but some five miles outside of Maidstone in the county of Kent<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The castle gets its name from the village of Leeds which is nearby<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
This ancient village is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 although it was called Esledes at the time<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The name Esledes means in Old English a hillside or a slope<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
It is thought that the name Leeds derived from its location above the River Len which flows\u00a0 into the River Medway<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
There has been a castle on the site since 1119 and in the 13th<\/sup> Century it became one of the favourite residences of King Edward the First<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Three centuries later King Henry the Eighth used Leeds Castle as a residence for Catherine of Aragon and during this time a great deal of change took place at the castle <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The castle saw conflict in 1321 when it was captured by the forces of King Edward the Second<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n King Henry the Eighth\u2019s meeting with King Francis the First of France at The Field of the Cloth of Gold (near Calais) in June 1520 is commemorated in a painting that still hangs in Leeds Castle<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Unlike other castles Leeds Castle survived the English Civil War because its owner at the time a Sir Cheney Culpepper sided with Oliver Cromwell.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n During this period Leeds Castle was used as a prison as well as an arsenal <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The castle had connections with Virginia in the United States and when the Wykeham Martin family (who owned the castle) sold off some of their many estates in the New World this money was used to repair and remodel the castle. This work was completed in 1823 and its Mock Tudor style can still be seen today.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n During World War Two, Leeds Castle was used as a hospital for soldiers from the Commonwealth suffering from burns <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n More recently the castle by the very nature of its defensive position has hosted peace talks designed to resolve conflicts.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n On the 17th<\/sup> July 1978 it hosted the peace talks between Israel and Egypt which preceded the Camp David Accords<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Between 1980 and 2011 Leeds Castle had an aviary which contained over one hundred different species of birds.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Leeds Castle currently has a maze, a golf course and what is the world\u2019s only museum of dog collars Leeds Castle is a Grade 1 Listed Building (1952) and receives over 200,000 visitors each year<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The woman picked her coat up as a London bound train thundered over the bridge<\/p>\n I must leave now as it is dangerous for me to be here <\/i><\/p>\n This is as you know is Area B <\/i><\/p>\n This information is very sensitive <\/i><\/p>\n I am aware of the facts<\/em><\/p>\n The hills stretching from the White Horse towards Westbury are a gigantic space ship <\/i><\/p>\n I know that is why I was keen to meet you<\/em> Do you know that where we are standing is the centre of the universe?<\/i><\/p>\n Yes that is why my grandfather chose this spot <\/i><\/p>\n It was irritating when the avoiding line was built in 1933 But it did not hinder the doors As I said I must leave now as it is dangerous for me to be here <\/i><\/p>\n I have one last question <\/i><\/p>\n Be quick <\/i><\/p>\n You name <\/i><\/p>\n You know it already <\/i><\/p>\n The woman smiled and walked towards the railway station<\/p>\n I looked at the bungalows on the opposite side of the road<\/p>\n Their situation was pleasing to the eye<\/p>\n But I wondered if our meeting had been witnessed<\/p>\n What I did not know was that Mata Hari had kept her appointment with my grandfather in 1900 and was standing naked behind the net curtains of the second\u00a0bungalow<\/p>\n She had recorded my meeting with the woman in the trench coat<\/p>\n My grandfather was strenched out on the bed<\/p>\n He was watching\u00a0Mata Hari<\/p>\n Did it go to plan?<\/em><\/p>\n Yes <\/em><\/p>\n And the woman in the trench coat<\/em><\/p>\n She has already been stopped <\/em><\/p>\n Good<\/em><\/p>\n And what are you going to do with the agent she met?<\/em><\/p>\n That is where you come in my dear <\/em><\/p>\n Seduce him as you seduced me all those years ago <\/em><\/p>\n The security of Area B is in your hands <\/em><\/p>\n It is of the greatest importance that we break the Leeds Castle code<\/em><\/p>\n The future of the universe depends on it as you are well aware<\/em><\/p>\n As Mata Hari moved away from the window the strap of her camera caught the net curtains<\/p>\n It caused them to move and a ripple of energy passed through the universe<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To be continued<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was standing under the railway bridge that spanned the road that led towards Westbury The bridge which was part of the Westbury Avoiding Line had been constructed in 1933 but it looked older and more worn I was waiting on the narrow pavement which was opposite the much safer raised pavement But nobody took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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