My parents let me watch it aged 11 – times were different then, no watershed as it were. I got scared, but it sparked an interest in stone circles that I still have today. It was repeated recently on television and I hungrily devoured every episode once again, 40 years after it was first shown. It became the highlight of my TV week; the rhyme came back to me. The finer plot details that I didn’t understand as a child were clearer as an adult.
After I’d watched the last episode of the repeats, it made me think of similar sites local to me in Derbyshire that I’d visited in the past. Nine Ladies in the eighties and Arbor Low in the early noughties. The first as a teenager with my parents, possibly only a few years after originally watching Quatermass, the second one as an adult. I don’t think any photographs of these visits still exist, both would have been taken on film. In the years since I’ve also visited Callanish stone circle on the Isle of Lewis, Stenness in The Orkneys and Stonehenge, of course.
No one can truthfully say why stone circles were built – some are closely aligned to the night sky, perhaps built as early places of worship, possibly even for social gatherings where locals and travellers could meet. Some may have been built for prestige, in the way we strive to own large and expensive houses.
This story is from the October 2020 edition of Derbyshire Life.
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This story is from the October 2020 edition of Derbyshire Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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