The writing of 'The Magic Mauve Mountain.' Charles Roberts

 

          Paul my next door neighbour read my children’s books and liked them, in the July he handed me a small booklet entitled 'The Magic Mauve Mountain' and asked if I could do anything with it.  I read it and thought that it was good, but short and it needed a beginning.  Paul died of cancer in the October and I still hadn’t come up with a beginning.

          The booklet sat on my computer desk for about three years, so that I would see it every-day and I would wrack my brains to try and come up with a beginning to the story.  This was the time when I would walk in the hills above El Rincon, I walked the same way every-day, so every-day I would see the same views, but different wildlife, Ibex, Wild Boar, Fox, Eagle, etc.

          Then one day I was descending the hill between fields of Almond trees when my eyes spotted something on the far side of the Rambla, it was a barranco and about half way up was a stone wall with what looked like a hole in the centre.  I looked away, but returned my sight to the wall and as I drew nearer I could see that it was in fact a bush growing in front of the wall, but a bush of a different colour to the wall so making it look like a hole in the wall.  I must have seen that wall and bush a hundred times and never paid it any notice

          Something clicked in my head and the start of the story began to develop, the hero of the story would be called Oliver, he would be about seven years old and would persuade his mother to let his obnoxious sister take him across the fields to look at the wall in a cutting in the hill he could see from his bedroom window.  Once there he found that behind a bush growing in front of the wall was a hole in the wall which he could crawl through.

          Once through, he found a land of purple plum trees, a golden lake and the Magic Mauve Mountain.  He was stopped from going down into the land by Fairy soldiers wielding tiny bows and arrows and spears.  They take him down to their village and hears their story of the Princess being kidnapped by a Dragon and without her, the golden lake is turning back to clear water and the fish are dying.

          He decides to help them, but doesn’t know how to get to the land of the Dragons.  The Fairies call on the assistance of the Griffon, half eagle and half lion, who lives on the Mountain.  He takes Oliver to the land of the Dragons where Oliver kills the Dragon king and rescues the Fairy princess returning her to the village.  They then escort Oliver out of their land and tell him that he can return whenever he wants.