Black Harvest (15 page)

But I still wanted a happy ending. In the classic ghost story, order is restored only when the troubled dead are in some way comforted. This happens in
Black Harvest
and it is the three children who, having suffered with the famine people, resolve their unquiet and give them their rest. That is why my final image is the biblical one of the rainbow, not a weapon of war but a promise of peace.

Black Harvest
was my first published book but, although I have written many since, it is the book with which, to quote Vita Sackville-West, I am “the least dissatisfied”. When I wrote it I knew nothing about rules, about “ideal lengths”, about “levels of vocabulary”. I wrote it in my own way, exactly as it came to me, with an intense, ever-increasing involvement until, in the end, I became my own characters.

The day I finished it I went to visit my next-door neighbour who said, “Goodness, Ann, you’re so pale! You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

I remember my answer as I sank into a chair. “I’ve just finished my book about the Irish Famine. Could I possibly have a cup of tea with you?” Because, you see, it was hard to separate myself from the people who had lived with me so long.

A storyteller’s first aim should surely be to deliver a good read, but I’d like to think
Black Harvest
might also enlarge the sympathies and understanding of those who turn its pages. If it does it will, in its own dark way, have achieved what Robert Frost said a good poem can do, which is to “begin in delight and end in wisdom”.

A
NN
P
ILLING

Ann Pilling was brought up in Warrington, Cheshire, and many of her books are set in the industrial North West. She read English at London University, where she wrote a thesis on C. S. Lewis for the M Phil degree. For some years she taught English in Buckinghamshire, then spent time in America before returning to Oxford, where she now lives. She is married with two sons.

Ann has been writing books for children since 1983. Among her many titles are several novels of contemporary life, including
Vote for Baz, Mother’s Daily Scream
and
Henry’s Leg
, which won the 1986 Guardian Award and was subsequently televised. She has also written several books for younger children, a children’s Bible and two adult novels.
Black Harvest
was her first published book.

Apart from literature, Ann enjoys music, both listening and singing. If she had not become a writer she would have liked to have been a vet—she loves animals, and Arthur, the family cat, has a starring role in one of her most recent books,
The Empty Frame.

The Pit

The Witch of Lagg

The Beggar’s Curse

The Empty Frame

First published in Great Britain by Armada 1983
First published as a Collins Modern Classic 1999

HarperCollins
Children’s Books
is an imprint of
HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd,
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Copyright © Ann Cheetham 1983
Postscript copyright © Ann Pilling 1999

Ann Cheetham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN 9780006754268
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN 9780007392414
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