Seven Ancient Wonders: Remarkable People Surviving the War - Each in Their Own Way

By Wilma Hayes

These magnificent structures have fascinated me for years. Whether real or mythical doesn't matter; it is the romance of them that I wanted to write about here.

The stories are all individual, but have a common theme in World War 2. In addition to the stories, I gave myself the challenge of finding different methods of writing the tales. The subjects are not as light as some of the other Sevens, but all deal with love in one way or another.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu is a mathematically precise construction, so the story concerns an old-fashioned mathematician chosen to work at Bletchley Park decoding enemy radio transmissions. A new colleague is a woman with very different skills. Reports and transcripts are used here to tell the story.

The Temple of Artemis is still visible as ruins near Ephesus in Turkey. Its everlasting theme is renewal and a priest at a prisoner of war camp in Britain faces the prisoners’ renewal and his own. This story is written in conventional dialogue and narrative style including the priest's prayers.

The Pharos Lighthouse commanded a position at Alexandria and its fire gave warning to shipping in the Mediterranean. The main character here is an actor and so the story is written as a play in which he is drawn into something well beyond what he was prepared to do and his use of fire is novel.

The Colossus of Rhodes was built from weapons left after a massive battle. Here we meet a man involved in great battles in difficult circumstances and from his diaries and letters we see how he changes as his war progresses.

Halicarnassus contained a mausoleum built by the goddess Artemis. This story is told through photographs in an album. The narrator is an undertaker from a small midlands town. He has a very personal tale to tell.

The Statue of Zeus represents athletes and the Olympic Games, so naturally the story is told by an athlete, but an angry and disappointed one.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon may or may not have existed but their fame is with us still. Naturally we meet a gardener - a landscape gardener who uncovers a love story. His story is told via old and modern methods: e-mails, memos, fax and text messages as well as letters, archives and newspaper articles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilma Hayes
• Release date: Aug 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780995787063

Wilma Hayes

'The Welsh Marches is an evocative place. Full of mystery, history, and tiny old houses, it leads easily into Wales - a perfect place to write and to set romantic novels with mysteries and crimes embedded in them.'This is how Wilma summarises the inspiration for her four novels in the Welsh Marches series and the forty-nine short stories which follow and make up Sevens, Stories to Commute By.Luckily for her, she was able to escape to this scenic area and begin to write. It is not a gift that many people are given, but with a tiny cottage of her own, an accompanying cottage garden and a husband who is handy with a computer and a coffee pot, the opportunity was too good to ignore.

Book preview

SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERS OF THE WORLD

by Wilma Hayes

A short novella about remarkable people surviving the war - each in their own way.

SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERS OF THE WORLD

by Wilma Hayes

Published by Wilma Hayes at Smashwords

Copyright 2019

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Kinds of Seven

Whoever thought that writing forty-nine short stories was a good idea needs to lie down in a dark room for a short while until it passes. That would be me, and I didn’t.

Seven is a lovely number and when I began these it seemed like an achievable task. The first little novella was quite good fun. I think you can see how it progressed from there and soon seven little novellas with seven chapters or stories each became the goal. It was a long slog.

The stories or chapters are all of similar length and I thought that they would make nice stories for a commute taking 10 to 15 minutes each, so 2 in a 20 or 30 minute commute and so on. Or a short or longer tea break if you prefer! Naturally everyone reads at different rates, so these times are my best guess.

Some of the stories in each set are like chapters in a book, in that one logically follows the other; some are quite individual tales but with commonality. None of them follow the Seven theme too strictly, but stories are like that; they wander off piste from time to time.

Naturally, I like some stories better than others and I am sure you will too. But I hope that they will help your commute to work or give you a few minutes for a cuppa.

See www.wilmahayes.co.uk for more information about me or other books.

Wilma Hayes

SEVEN ANCIENT WONDERS OF THE WORLD

These magnificent structures have fascinated me for years. Whether real or mythical doesn't matter; it is the romance of them that I wanted to write about here.

The stories are all individual, but have a common theme in World War 2. In addition to the stories, I gave myself the challenge of finding different methods of writing the tales. The subjects are not as light as some of the other Sevens, but all deal with love in one way or another. Each is written in a different format, not easily done in e-book publishing! I apologize if they don't work well on your device. Please let me know.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu is a mathematically precise construction, so the story concerns an old-fashioned mathematician selected to work at Bletchley Park decoding enemy radio transmissions. A new colleague is a woman with very different skills. Shift End Reports from the two of them are used here to tell the story.

The Temple of Artemis is still visible as ruins near Ephesus in Turkey. Its everlasting theme is renewal and a priest at a prisoner of war camp in Britain faces the prisoners’ renewal and his own. This story is written in conventional dialogue and narrative style including the priest's prayers.

The Pharos Lighthouse commanded a position at Alexandria and its fire gave warning to shipping in the Mediterranean. The main character here is an actor and so the story is written as a play in which he is drawn into something well above what he was prepared to do.

The Colossus of Rhodes was built from weapons left after a massive battle. Here we meet a man involved in a great number of battles and from his diaries and letters we see how he changes as his war progresses.

Halicarnassus contained a mausoleum built by the goddess Artemis This story is told through photographs in an album. The narrator is an undertaker from a small midlands town. He has a very personal tale to tell.

The Statue of Zeus represents athletes and the Olympic Games, so naturally the story is told by an athlete, but an angry and disappointed one.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon may or may not have existed but their fame is with us still. Naturally we meet a gardener - a landscape gardener who uncovers a love story. His story is told via old and modern methods: e-mails, memos, fax and text messages as well as letters, archives and newspaper articles.

Wilma Hayes

Table of Contents

Great Pyramid of Khufu - the Mathematician's Story

The Temple of Artemis - the Priest's Story

Pharos Lighthouse - the Actor's Story

The Colossus of Rhodes - the Soldier's Story

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus - the Undertaker's Story

The Statue of Zeus - the Athlete's Story

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon - the Gardeners Story

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The Mathematician’s Story – Shift End Reports

The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza in Egypt is a four-sided mathematically precise construction made of stone blocks and oriented to the exact points of the compass. Built as a tomb around 2500 BC it was created to protect the remains of the Pharaoh Khufu. No doubt in the beginning it contained treasures to ease his way into the next life, but it shows no evidence of them today. It was seen and recorded by Alexander the Great on his campaigns and Napoleon centuries later.

The work done at Bletchley Park in World War II is now known. For many years no one knew of the amazing work done there to decrypt coded radio messages. Some of the finest mathematical and analytical minds, translators and technological developers worked here. It was here that machines known as bombes were used to speed up the decoding possibilities and where the first programmable electronic computers in the world were created.

Bletchley Park, Dr M Hinksman to Lt Col Ferguson Hut 4: Room 10: date 29.9.41 Shift End Report

Introduced to Miss Violet Kingsland. Am told she is my new translator. Why is she assigned to me? What skills does she have that I need?

No significant errors in her translations done today, but expect greater speed in future.

Miss Violet Kingsland to Lt Col Ferguson Hut 4: Room 10: date 29.5.41 Shift End Report

I found small table to work on in corner between a cipher clerk and a table of index cards in a large room near Dr Hinksman’s desk. Everyone in the room worked with singular focus and ignored me, which I did not mind. I had little to do until a runner brought me a stack of messages from the decoders in all types of hand writings. They are called crypts and are brief and succinct, but made little sense. Even after translating them and reading them several times, I could understand little.

Eventually, I sensed a young woman watching me and I smiled at her. She spoke to me during the lunch break and assumed I was a novice translator like her. Her name is Eve. So, I was able to engage her pity and a bit of help and support in use of military German. Sometimes characters are missing or words are incorrect on the messages and we must use our best judgement she says.

She told me what the various header lines represented and how to look for map references and so on. She had no reason to distrust me and every reason to assume I was going to be doing the same work as she.

I will be calmer tomorrow and able to concentrate. It is very busy here and that surprises me. Everyone works at what they are given and concentrates intently, but it is an art to be able to do so with so many people rushing in and out and the noise of teleprinters and telephones.

Dr M