Bethelbourne

I have long been fascinated by the naming of things, as if by naming something, in some way I might come to know it better, even if I have named it myself.
I used to write a lot of short stories, most of them set in fictionalised versions of towns in which I had once lived. They weren't only the same towns with a different name, but more like the nightsides of these towns. The towns as one might have enountered them in dreams, or in half hidden childhood memories.
Worcester bcame Clovelly Heath in my own mythology, and Southhampton became South Underwood. Ickenham became Uxley, whilst Forres became Drumduan and nearby Kinloss became Losskin.
The towns differed from ther real life counterparts too, a parallel geography, similar but not exactly the same. Clovelly Heath cathedral had a cafe in the gardens where its real life counterpart did not. In South Underwood a vast and labyrinthine museum (where people had a habit of vanishing in an interior of endless stairways) stood somewhere near the harbour. The names of these towns were important and until I had their names I didn't feel I could exlore them properly. Sometimes, finding the name of the nightside of the place would come easily, other times it would seem to take months, if at all.
I had long wanted a name for a Worcestershire village based upon Bretforton where my parents briefly lived from 1993 - 1996. A picturesque village, Bretforton, it also had the reputation as one of the most haunted villages in England, whose separate hauntings numbered at least eight or nine, even rivalling the better known Pluckley.

It was October of 2002. I was travelling by coach back from visiting my parents in Cornwall. It was one of those warm and bright Octobers; soft, golden sun and langorously mysterious nights. I was mulling over the ideas of names for this nightside Bretforton, and suddenly it came to me.
Bethelbourne.
Which should have been the end (or the start of it) but somehow wasn't.

(As an aside. The bedsit next door is currently responsible for the most atrocious cacophony I think I have ever had the misfortune to hear. A dreadful and chaotic mess of out of tune vocals and guitars - maybe even ukeleles - not to mention bongos. I'm not entirely sure what they are doing, or think they are doing, but it is really puttng me off my writing. Awful, shallow, and not to put too fine a point on it, crap).

The name 'Bethelbourne' seemed somehow too perfect to be used, and as the years have gone by, my reactions to the name have somehow changed. For some reason, I began to associate the name, or word 'Bethelbourne' with a very singular image; that of a group of poeple gathered in the countryside, perhaps autumn, perhaps winter, but certainly early morning. They are grouped around, or under, a great and dead tree. There is some kind of explosion connected with this image, perhaps itself conected with the tree. Perhaps the tree is lightning struck... or maybe a region of the earth itself has combusted. I am not sure. I am sure of the emotional resonance with this image thogh, and that is a feeling of euphoria or trumph.
I don't know where the image or the associated emotional respnse comes from. The nearest parallel I can find is those recurring dreams I have of sunlit and flooded landscapes, often hilly, mountainous areas. Sometimes I am trying to find this landscape again after losing it, and fail to do so. The feelings of these dreams are one of triumph, joy and nostalgia. A stange and inexplicable perfection.

I don't often think of 'Bethelbourne', the word or the place it might or might not represent, as if thnking about it will rob it of its power and resonance. Even the speaking of the word seems an act of magic(k), awakening echoes I can't quite place, as if it is a sigil denoting something I don't yet know.
Bethelbourne is a song that runs bright and clear through my head with all the power of a word, or perhaps a name, that I can't quite remember, remaining tantalisingly just out of reach.

(And as an aside, the dreadful cacophony next door continues...)