Jack: A Strange Tale Involving a Beanstalk and Other Essentials.

By John Alan Wiltshire

Um... isn't Jack and the Beanstalk moral misdirection for children about what it means to be British? Isn't there another tale to be told about the treasures that the British gave to the whole world in the 19th century when the fairy tale first became popular?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9780992672102

Book preview

TruthZyme Publications

4 St Bridgets Brae

Dalgety Bay

Dunfermline

Fife

Scotland

KY11 9LT

Website: www.truthzyme.org.uk

eMail: [e-mail]

Phone: [phone]

Mobile: [phone]

Copyright John Alan Wiltshire. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by TruthZyme Publications September 2013

ISBN 978-0-9926721-0-2

CGI Illustrations by Tele-Sums Ltd.

Maps by Courtesy of Cassini Publishing Ltd.

I. K. Brunel's design sketch by Courtesy of the Brunel Institute - a collaboration of the ss Great Britain Trust and the University of Bristol.

Monkey Island pictures by Courtesy of Monkey Island Hotel.

Copper Horse photograph by Courtesy of Robert Deakin.

The No Free Lunch quotation from the book No Free Lunch by William Dembski by Courtesy of Rowman Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

The time has come, the Walrus said.

For what? asked the Carpenter.

For a re-write of JACK and the BEANSTALK, came the reply.

Why’s that? inquired the Timber Technician.

The traditional story is moral misdirection about what it means to be British, intoned the wise one talking through his teeth without lying. Consider the formula of the traditional plot, continued the amphibious one without fibbing or pausing for breath. Our Hero is tricked into swapping cow for beans. Beans provide stalk as means to explore strange and exotic lands. Hero finds treasure in said lands. Hero steals said treasure and sets off home with the spoils. rightful owner of treasure wants it back and gives chase. Hero’s mother chops down stalk and rightful owner is killed. All live happily ever after.

I see what you mean about moral misdirection, said the would-be wood worker. The Hero is a thief and his mother is a murderer. But, in a sense, isn’t that what the British Empire did in the 19th century when the fairytale first became popular? inquired the plain-speaking man of the plane.

Yes, replied the tusked one, but there’s another tale to be told about the 19th Century in which Britain gives treasures of immense value to the whole world."

Does this new plot also have a formula? asked the crafty craftsman.

Indeed it does, said the flipper flipper without being flippant. It’s for adults young and old who heard the traditional version as children and who now realise that many of the greatest treasures are not made of jewels or precious metals.

Can you give me an outline of the plot?

Yes, of course, here’s the synopsis.

Synopsis

The year is 1837 and the location is the Thames-side Hamlet of Bray just up-river from the historic town of Windsor in England.

Two exceptionally bright teenagers, Jack and Jill, meet up with a distinguished scientist and a famous engineer. The engineer challenges them with a puzzle and they are able to find the solution. They then turn the tables and challenge the distinguished adults with an imaginative puzzle of their own involving a beanstalk and what can be found at the top of it. This gives the scientist and the engineer a hill of their own to climb as they all have imaginative fun exploring the upper slopes of Mount Improbable.

The story is an easygoing mix of ingredients: fiction, history, science, engineering, fantasy, puzzles and philosophy wrapped up in a detective story with a twist, in the twist, in the tail, of the tale. All the loose ends come together to deliver a coherent and profound moral that may surprise the reader as the true nature of the treasure is revealed.

The Crafty Craftsman said, Very well then, in accordance with my usual systematic methods, I’ll start at the beginning, proceed to the middle, and then progress from there to the end. This seemed to be a reasonable thing for the Carpenter to say, so he said it.

No, said the Walrus.

Why not? asked the Carpenter.

Because that’s so ordinary, and this is not an ordinary story.

The Carpenter was not convinced, Hmm... they all say that. So how is this story different?

The Walrus paused for a moment and then said, Well, to find that out, you will need to read it.

In what order?

Start in the middle, then proceed to the beginning, then go to the end, replied the Walrus.

Won’t that be rather confusing?

No.

Why not?

Because the story is presented that way to make it easy, explained the Walrus.

Why? asked the Carpenter with a puzzled frown.

Because the story unfolds better that way.

But how will the reader know who all the characters are? said the Carpenter, having spotted an obvious problem.

By reading other books before they read this one.

Which other books?

If you read this one, then you will know that.

Isn’t that a bit ‘Chicken and Egg’?

Yes, but how the ‘Chicken and Egg’ problem was solved is revealed in this book.

I’ll just skip to the end then and read that bit.

Hmm... that might not work, mused the Walrus, the solution emerges from the cumulative understanding of something truly profound.

So this isn’t a children’s story then?

Parts of it are. The modern concept of story telling uses a technique called ‘multi-threading’. Some of the threads are remarkably child friendly, but other, parallel threads, have a deeper significance in a wider context that only an adult can understand.

Sounds complicated.

Yes, but there is an underlying principle at work here: childhood stories with moral imperatives should not be in contradiction with adult standards. They should be complementary so that the child can grow into the moral framework and eventually find wisdom in much-loved stories from their childhood.

How foolish of me not to have thought of that! exclaimed the Carpenter. So the magic beans, the Beanstalk and the Giant still figure in this version then?

Indeed they do but, what they represent is subject to subtle variations between the threads.

Hmm... I’ll give all this some careful thought. But let it begin.

Um... no, let it middle. See you later.

The Middle

The scene is near the middle of

Middle England,

just to the left of the Prime Meridian.

The year is 1837,

just before the middle of

the nineteenth century.

The Gentleman Returns

Jack could see that the Captain was excited and that the excitement had been triggered by the letter he was holding. The excitement was infectious, and when the Captain exclaimed, It’s from the Gentleman! Jack was eager to know the details, and the Captain was eager to provide them. This he did in a tumbling profusion.

The letter explained that the Gentleman had now returned to England from his five-year-long voyage around the world. On the first outgoing leg, he had been accompanied by, and had befriended, the Captain. There was a typically modest implication that, as a result of the voyage, the Gentleman had achieved fame in learned circles and a substantial income as a result of the publication of an account of his adventure. This good fortune had led the Gentleman to invest in a daring new business enterprise, which involved a major engineering activity just up river from Bray in Maidenhead. Because of this interest, the Gentleman had befriended the engineer in charge of the project, and they were due to visit the site for a review by the board of directors of the company engaged in the enterprise. Knowing that the Captain lived nearby, the Gentleman had suggested that they should meet up and renew their friendship. As the Gentleman said at the end of his short note, A lot of water has passed under the bridge since we last met, and I would like to invite you to the forthcoming ‘Ceremony of the Perambulating Tulip’ that is to take place on Monkey Island.

The Captain explained, That’s the Gentleman in his typically mysterious and cryptic mode. He packed that last sentence with hints about the nature, extent, and content of the visit. It is intended to ignite my interest, and then fire my imagination in a quest to decode its meaning. Of course, once the Captain explained this, Jack’s imagination was also ignited.

Jack had lived by this stretch of the river all his life and had often crossed the many arches of the bridge in Maidenhead that carried the main road across the river Thames on its long, winding journey from London to Bath. He admired the skill of the engineers who had built the bridge, and the Captain told him that after many delays caused by ice, frost and flooding, it finally opened to carry traffic in the year of 1777. It was even older than the Captain was.

Jack was a talented artist and he pictured the bridge as a surefooted, plodding structure, taking seven carefully measured steps across the waters of the Thames. He smiled to himself when he realised he could easily remember these numbers if he described the bridge as The 7 from 1777. The Captain had explained the keystone principle that had been well known to the Romans, and when he painted the structure, Jack liked to make the keystones even more prominent than they were on the real bridge where they could be seen clearly.

The Captain had explained how the earlier wooden bridges had fallen into disrepair and been swept away in the floods. This reversion to Roman bridge-building techniques had delivered a welcome sturdiness, Everyone could see that the structure was easily capable of supporting itself together with any number of stagecoaches and heavily loaded wagons without any danger of collapse, even when the river was in full flood. Once the keystone principle was understood, the strength of the structure could easily be appreciated, and as the Captain said, If it looks right and it feels right, then it probably is right. The bridge certainly looked the part.

In terms of supporting the loads of transport and commerce, even at times when the river was angry, the general solidity and sturdiness of the bridge was reassuring for those dependent upon it. It was clearly capable of carrying much higher levels of traffic than what currently trundled across it, even at the busiest of times. So the Captain concluded that, in the context of clues regarding the nature of the engineering enterprise, the reference to a bridge in the Gentleman’s letter was probably a red herring, and the real item of interest was the much more mysterious ‘Ceremony of the Perambulating Tulip’.

Jack was not so sure because he knew that there was a problem. The bridge was a barrier to the sailing barges that plied up and down the Thames from the great Port of London. Because of the highly cautious and conservative design, the arches were too small to allow the barges to pass through, so their cargo had to be off-loaded onto smaller craft for transportation up the higher reaches of the river. Consequently, a complex infrastructure had evolved just downstream of the bridge to cater for this constraint on the smooth flowing of the ever growing volume of traffic in a nation at the centre of a worldwide empire. However, Jack’s attention was quickly diverted from that by the Captain’s fascinating theory regarding the mysterious tulip.

The Captain had, on many occasions, told stories about how the Gentleman’s extraordinary knowledge of botany and biology had impressed him. In his regular visits to the Pineapple Alehouse, he often entertained strangers with his story about the origin of that name and how he had seen pineapples growing in great profusion in South America. He also told stories about insect-eating plants with large jaws that closed around unsuspecting insects, trapping them to be digested by excreted juices. Jack had never met anyone who had for one moment supposed that there was any truth at all in this obviously wild imaginative tale told by an old salt. However, in a rare serious moment, the Captain had assured him that such plants did exist, and that one day the Gentleman might bring one back to cultivate in England.

Now the boot was on the other foot. Was this talk of a perambulating tulip another startling find in the remote jungles of some corner of the world, or did the Gentleman have his tongue firmly in his cheek; knowing full well how to wind the ever jovial Captain in the general direction of up?

Jack could see these dimensions very clearly, and they all acted to add to the excitement.

The Gentleman had included a return address in his note, and the Captain quickly responded by volunteering to help with the appropriate arrangements on Monkey Island. He also responded in kind by finishing on a cryptic note, signalling that the hints about bridges and perambulating plants had been noticed, understood, and fully taken on board.

A second letter from the Gentleman was eagerly awaited, in which the Gentleman graciously accepted the Captain’s offer of help, adding that the Ceremony of the Perambulating Tulip would, weather permitting, be best facilitated by an associated picnic. This was because the exact timing of the ceremony would probably remain uncertain until the afternoon of the prescribed date, so a leisurely and entertaining way of wiling away a few hours would be most welcome.

Jack, who had never seen a five-pound note before, examined it with interest as the Captain explained that the Gentleman had included it to cover the cost of arranging the picnic, and that he would cover any additional necessary expenditures. This second letter also provided details of who would be attending the ceremony. The Gentleman would be there of course, together with his young thirteen-year-old niece Jill, who had a lively and intelligent mind. Because of the uncertainty regarding the duration of the event, the Gentleman had asked if the Captain knew of a young person, perhaps slightly older than Jill but with a similar character, who would enjoy meeting and entertaining her. The adults in the party would while away the hours with stories of adventures overseas, the reason for the visit to the Bray area, and of course the mystery of the Ceremony of the Perambulating Tulip.

Having read this part of the letter aloud, the Captain looked vacantly into the space above his head and said, Now I wonder, who I could get to come along to keep Jill company for a whole afternoon? A single short word appeared immediately in Jack’s mind to be followed, rather languidly, by a longer but highly appropriate word. The first word was Me! and the second one was Please! and of course, the Captain knew they would be there.

Knowing full well how to wind Jack up, the Captain continued explaining the details of another person who would be attending the picnic. The letter explained that the ceremony was of great interest to the engineer in charge of the proposed development in Maidenhead. As far as the Captain could see from the letter, the engineer seemed to prefer to be known, not by his name, but by his initials: IKB.

The letter went on to state that the visiting party would travel the short distance from Maidenhead to Bray in a carriage starting out at about nine in the morning. They would dismount from the carriage in Bray for a brief visit to St Michael’s church and the vicarage. The Gentleman had an interest in history, and IKB liked to examine the details of any mechanism he encountered. He also fully appreciated that church bells were an ideal way of signalling the success of his engineering enterprises in an elaborate opening ceremony, so a visit to the belfry would be in order if it could be arranged. The party would then like to walk along the river towpath and meet the Captain and his young friend for a tour around his water mill.

The Gentleman also expressed an interest in Pigeonhill Eyot, saying that he had recently taken up pigeon breeding and wondered if there was a history of it on that island. The party would then continue along the towpath to Monkey Island for the picnic and the Ceremony of the Perambulating Tulip.

Jack knew he was being wound up, so he waited patiently but grinned expectantly at the Captain, who chose his moment to confirm that he would indeed invite Jack to join the party. At that point, Jack emitted a yelp of pleasure at the thought.

Meeting at the Mill

Jack’s sharp eyes spotted them approaching in the distance. He could distinguish a young girl, who must be Jill, walking in front of two older gentlemen. As they came closer to the mill, Jack could see that the man nearest to the river, and the shorter of the two, was wearing a large top hat, and had what appeared to be a scroll under his arm. When they reached the weir, they stopped and watched the water cascade to the lower level. The man in the hat pointed; he seemed to be explaining to the girl what the weir was for. Then they walked up the path next to the channel leading to where Jack and the Captain were waiting near the large waterwheel of the mill.

The Captain moved forward, and Jack eased back, appreciating the imminence of an emotional reunion between the two seafaring friends. Jack and the others watched as the Captain and the very distinguished-looking Gentleman embraced each other, expressing obvious pleasure at the encounter. While this was taking place, Jack caught Jill’s eye and felt an immediate empathy with her as she smiled back at him. He could tell by her expression that she knew how he fitted into the arrangements for the day. Glances exchanged with the other man made clear that formal introductions would not be necessary once the Captain and the Gentleman had surfaced from the reverie of their reunion.

And you must be Jack. The Captain told me a lot about you in his letter, and I’m sure that you and Jill will have a lot to talk about while we wait for the ceremony. Please call me Uncle Charles, as Jill does, and my friend here likes to be called IKB.

As if responding to hearing his name, IKB looked straight at Jack and said, with a wry smile, Ten horsepower.

This set Jack’s mind racing. He much appreciated knowing how he should address these two distinguished men, but he had planned to use just that question as the first thing he would say when called upon to speak. He could no longer do that, and although he was familiar with the concepts: ten, horse, and power, he had never heard them spoken in