Frobisher’s Field

by Chris Sutherland

Frobisher’s Field

Introduction

It’s 1986 and the peasants are revolting in the sleepy East Anglian town of Thricester the ancient seat of the Thrices. A year after the Miner’s strike Residential Social Workers are fighting a bitter rearguard action against an assault on their wages and conditions, battling against a Tory Council led by Lady Judith Carrington of Cairnie Hall.

Fred Penman, one of the ‘Early Birds’ at County Hall, is desperate to muster a side together for the annual grudge cricket match played on the hallowed turf of Frobisher’s Field, where, three hundred and forty one years earlier, a Sergeant at Arms in Cromwell’s New Model Army, (one James Frobisher) was killed in a freak accident by one of his own soldiers and where, it is said, the game of cricket itself originated.

Connor Mitchell is a care leaver and an expert cat burglar with no fear of heights. He decides to exact revenge on the people threatening to close his beloved children’s home, whilst Giles Fordham, one of the strikers, unwittingly falls for the mysterious Georgina Carr who sells fake first editions from her antiquarian bookshop.

Chief Constable Pritchard has just bought a job-lot of riot equipment from the RUC and is desperate to try out his new toys against striking workers whilst receiving reports from his under-cover spy at Strike Headquarters.

Meanwhile a government Inspector, Lionel Blake, is despatched from London to adjudicate on a Planning dispute between Lady Carrington and her arch rival, Charles de Havilland, but no-one can forsee the havoc wreaked by her lascivious daughter, Lavinia, a Glaswegian Punk Rocker by the name of Malkie and ‘Mad Frankie’, a psychotic fast bowler.

Who will prevail – the strikers and their army of supporters, the Four Amigos on the union’s Branch Committee, the Industrialist Charles De Havilland, Lady Judith Carrington (arch Thatcherite and strict disciplinarian), or the town’s notoriously corrupt MP, Gordon Wade-Martins? And what fate befalls the unfortunate ‘Man from the Ministry’ Lionel Julius Blake?

Between pickets, lobbies and demonstrations the scene is set for a final showdown on Frobisher’s Field where three hundred and forty one years ago, Sgt at Arms James Frobisher met with his unfortunate end.