A group of friends decide to go camping during the Easter holidays. Peter, the eldest of the Furness family, takes charge. The rest of the group consists of Peter's sister Margery and brother Robin, their cousin Anne and friends Bron and Joe. They set up camp on the top of a Shropshire Iron Age fort called Nordy Bank. Bron, normally a quiet girl, starts to act strangely, as though she were a different person, and the sudden appearance of a runaway army dog makes them all uneasy. En route by train to the National Canine Defence League's reform school to be re-trained, the young, partially deaf, alsatian is angry and confused. When the train makes an un-scheduled stop at Ludlow station the dog grasps an opportunity to escape. His muzzle, however, is a considerable hindrance and so it is a tired, hungry and potentially dangerous dog that is lurking near to the children's camp. After a possible sighting, Bron is alone and scared when the dog makes its move. It is this "wolf", however, that helps Bron to shake off her new aggressive personality as she tries to try to find a way to help the animal.
Aged 15, Peter lives at Bromfield with his sister, Margery, brother Robin and his mother and father (who is a medical doctor). The family had only lived there for a year, having moved from Canterbury.
Sister to Peter and Robin.
Aged 10 and very much treated as the junior member of the family.
Bron has lived in a small flat in Ludlow for a year and is a friend of Margery's. An only child she has to move house frequently because of her father's job.
Cousin of Peter and Margery who lives in Bristol.
Lives on a farm near Church Stretton. Peter's friend from school and the same age.
Sheena Porter has used real places as the setting for this story. Nordy Bank is an Iron Age fort close to the Brown Clee and Titterstone Clee hills in Shropshire. The picturesque village of Clee St. Margaret, where the children get their supplies, sits at its foot and really does have a river running down the street.
While at Bromfield, another real place, Peter asks the advice of Mr. Norton, "our fossil man" (Chapter 8.). John Norton M.B.E. (1924-2002) was, in fact, the curator of Ludlow Museum for over thirty years from 1959 until his retirement and was a renowned expert on fossils.
Page created 14 September 2003 and last
updated 14 September 2003
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