Arthur Ness

In 1940 (25 RE), the year he first went to Waterwhistle, he was ten years old. He was a naturally scared child, frightened by just about everything. But over the course of his adventures, Arthur grew stronger and braver.

Evacuation from London

During World War Two, from September 1940 to May 1941, Britain was subjected to sustained bombing from Nazi air forces. This was known as The Blitz. To protect young lives, thousands of children were evacuated from various cities to live with strangers in the countryside. Arthur was one such child.

In December 1940, Arthur arrived at the Nottinghamshire village of Waterwhistle. A pair of local land-owners, Lord and Lady Roberts, lived in the village, which was situated near Lowdham. They resided in a very large house which overlooked the village. However, when Arthur arrived, he found no sign of Lord or Lady Roberts. Instead, he found someone called Lady Eris had moved in. This tall, scary woman had Arthur scrubbing floors, doing back-breaking labour in the garden and cleaning the house from top to bottom every day.

Although he hadn't known it at the time, not only was this Arthur's first contact with Waterwhistle, it had also been his first contact with the world of Arilon.

The Silence of Waterwhistle

In the 1940s, people didn't travel around the country as easily as they would in later decades. They also didn't have things like television to be able to see what life was like outside of their own small part of the country. A London-based child of this era would never have seen the countryside before, nor cows and sheep. So being in Waterwhistle was a huge culture shock for Arthur Ness.

The one thing he had heard about villagers, though, was that they were friendly. Strangers would chat to you in the street, something that rarely happened in a big city like London. But Arthur found that this certainly was not the case in Waterwhistle. Nobody spoke to anyone. Nobody spoke at all, except when they absolutely had to. This seemed very strange, even to a newcomer like Arthur.

Eventually, a meeting with a young boy named Sammy told Arthur that Lady Eris was doing something to the village and making everyone scared. Sammy's sister, Teresa, had noticed it and had now disappeared. Sammy was convinced Lady Eris had captured her.

Meeting the Cat

Soon after, Arthur had an even more disturbing encounter. He met a talking cat who was named, simply The Cat. This strange individual told Arthur that Lady Eris was indeed responsible for what was going on in Waterwhistle. There were creatures patrolling the village called Yarnbulls which Lady Eris had placed there. She was casting a spell over the village and he needed Arthur's help to defeat her.

Escape into Arilon

This launched a series of events that eventually led to Arthur and the Cat being chased by Lady Eris and her Yarnbulls into Arilon. There, they teamed up with Teresa Smith (who had undergone her own adventure following her capture).

The adventures they had there were recorded in the Arilon Chronicles (read : Arthur Ness and the Secret of Waterwhistle). 

Arthur's naturally scared disposition would be challenged greatly on that adventure and he would have to make the choice of whether to stay as he was, or step forward and take control, for the sake of his new friends and the village of Waterwhistle.