Syd Moore - Witch Hunt

Later, as I left the borough I’d lived in all my life to venture North for uni, I found that not only being a joke, mentioning my home county often resulted in humiliation and embarrassment. My surname, Asquith, which I thought sounded a little posh, however did little to temper the constant barrage of wisecracks that I faced, as an Essex Girl called Mercedes, and as a consequence I shortened it to Sadie. Most people called me by that name these days, apart from my dad who stubbornly stuck to my full moniker. Anyway, the whole Essex thing was as exasperating as it was formative and as a consequence of this battle I went on into journalism, ‘to get my voice heard without shouting’, as my mum used to put it.

Although I didn’t relate the writing to my county or my gender I kept an edgy, working-class feel to my tirades. Luckily, people liked them and I was able to make a living from my rants.

Returning to my roots, Maggie indulged me and published a series of articles in which I challenged the negative connotations attached to the stereotype of the Essex Girl.

‘Essex isn’t like other counties. Its daughter isn’t like those of Hertfordshire, Herefordshire or Surrey,’ I had written. ‘She isn’t demure, self-effacing or seeking a husband. She’s audacious, loud, drops her vowels and has fun. Like Essex itself, the Girl is unique. It’s about time we showed some filial pride.’

Got a good reception, that one. Circulation went up. Maggie commissioned another one, and another, then another.

In an attempt to trace the etymology of Essex Girl my last feature harked back to the dark days of the witch hunts and examined whether there was a link between Essex’s reputation as ‘Witch County’ and the genesis of Essex Girl. The two areas collided and, after further consideration, I concluded that there was and readers and commentators alike had not stopped filling up the web forum ever since.

Many comments spilt over into other sites, forums, newspapers and magazines. Positive or intensely outraged, Maggie didn’t care how they reacted, just that they did. ‘This is the kind of thing Mercurial needs. It’s getting our name out there into a broader market. We need more, and I’ll up your rate. Just give me something good and meaty,’ she’d said on the phone a couple of weeks back.

So here I was, with something perhaps a little on the sketchy side, but definitely spicy.

Maggie took a tentative swig of her coffee then blew on it. ‘Go on then – spill it. What you got for Mama?’

‘Okay.’ I flicked open my notepad and traced my notes to the relevant entry.

‘I’m delving deeper into the witch hunts. You know this book deal? Well, I’m churning up a lot of good stuff. I think I can funnel some articles over to you.’ I glanced up to catch a reaction. Maggie was nodding, her tongue licking her top lip, so I ploughed on.

‘Why did Essex lose so many women to the witch hunts?’

Maggie snorted. ‘Did we? It’s a long time ago. Some people might say “so what?”’

I leant in to her. ‘Yes, we did. Significantly more. It’s the sheer volume that warrants attention.’

Maggie picked up the biro and took a drag on the end. ‘You didn’t go into that in your last article did you?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it was more about the witches themselves and the qualities they shared with the contemporary Essex Girl …’

Maggie cut in. ‘Yep, yep. They “were poor, dumb and ‘loose’ as in not controlled by, or protected by men”.’ She was quoting my article. I got her point – she knew it back to front. ‘So why exactly did it happen then? To the extent it did here? I assumed that Essex and its inhabitants already had a reputation for being thick, flat and uninteresting?’

I coughed. ‘No, not at all. Up until the witch hunts, Essex was seen as the “English Goshen”.’

‘I last heard that word in Sunday School. Fertile land and Israelites. Now don’t go all religious on me, Sadie. We’re not the Church Times .’

I sighed. I hated having to explain things to her. She had such a high IQ and always made me feel like I was rambling. ‘Goshen also means place of plenty. And that’s a pretty fair description: Essex has an interesting geology. Sits at the southernmost point of the ice sheet that covered the rest of the island. Soil’s full of mineral deposits brought down from up north via the glacier.’

Maggie pulled a face then converted it into a smile. ‘Geology’s a bit of a turn off for our readership …’

I held my hand up. ‘Hang on. Let me get to the point – it was perfect for farming, for cattle, for livestock. It’s surrounded by rivers and the North Sea for fishing. Until the 1600s it was seen as a pretty cool place to be. But after that it changes a bit.’

Maggie’s eyes blinked. ‘Because?’

I cleared my throat. ‘Well, this is where I come in. I think a) because it was quite the revolutionary county in the Civil War. Backed parliament. Wanted reform. Was seen as the “radical” county. And b) because of the extent of the witch hunts.’

‘Which were because?’ She cocked her head to one side and sat back in her chair.

‘Lots of things, I think. One was class aggression – you look at the European witch hunts and they had it in for all different types of people: aristocrats got burnt at the stake and their lands neatly confiscated by the Church. But in the Essex witch hunts the victims are mostly poor. At the same time you’ve got a mini Ice Age, crop failures, Civil War, a general breakdown of law and order. Indictments in Essex were already higher than elsewhere in the country. Then suddenly in 1644 the numbers spike dramatically. It was down to Matthew Hopkins, whose dick must have fallen off or something.’

Maggie raised an eyebrow. ‘Language, darling.’

‘Well, he’s got serious issues with women. Killed more than any of the other Witchfinders put together. Decided to call himself the Witchfinder General and got rid of whole families of,’ I lifted my fingers to draw imaginary quotation marks, ‘“witches” in his brief career from 1644 to 1647. Some sources suggest that he was from Lancashire, others from Essex or Suffolk. That he worked in shipping as a clerk and spent some time in Amsterdam learning his official trade, where he witnessed several witch trials.’

I looked up to catch her expression. ‘And?’ she said, eyebrows furrowed, not giving anything away.

‘So he comes back and starts on Essex Girls in Manningtree. That’s where he was based. There and Mistley. The Thorn Inn is where he had his headquarters.’ I jerked my chair closer to the desk. ‘Killed a good hundred more people than Harold Shipman, who I might add, we can draw comparisons with – he also enjoyed murdering older women living on their own. But, like I said, it’s thought that Hopkins killed more. Possibly making him the number one serial killer of all time. Conservative estimates look to about 350-odd victims. And,’ I drew breath for emphasis, ‘he was only twenty-six or twenty-seven when he snuffed it. That was in 1647. In 1692 you get the Salem witch hunts – and guess where they were?’

Maggie drummed her fingers on the desk. ‘I’d put my money on Salem.’

‘Okay. I didn’t phrase that well. What county do you reckon Salem is in?’

‘It’s in Massachusetts, no?’

‘Yes, that’s the state though. Salem is in Essex County.’

‘That, I didn’t know,’ said Maggie thoughtfully. ‘You have my full attention. What are you thinking?’

‘Not sure yet. I have to do some digging. I’ve got a tingling feeling going on. I think I could come up with something strong. Perhaps, and this is just a perhaps at the moment, it could be part of a bigger series – The Essex Girls’ History of the World.’