books > Treasure at the Mill > story

Malcolm Saville usually set his stories in real locations but this book is unusual in that it features real people too.  It was one of only two of his stories that were made in to films.

Below is an extract from the start of the book:

This story starts before breakfast on a sunny morning early in the Easter holidays.  The milkman was whistling cheerfully as he came down the High Street and a ginger cat pushed against his legs as he put two bottles on the doorstep of Mr. Wilson’s.  He looked through the grimy window as he passed and stopped whistling when he saw the man in his dressing-gown sitting at his desk at the back of the shop.

“ Anybody who hasn’t got my job ought to be glad to be in bed at this time of the morning,” he muttered as he went on his way. “ Silly old skinflint ! ”

Mr. Wilson was not a good sleeper and had come down to write some letters.  He hated wasting time which might be turned into money, and although it was not yet seven o’clock he was angry with Mrs. Adams because she was not down and busy with his breakfast.  Andrew Wilson was mean about other people’s food but greedy about his own !  And there we can leave him, in his dingy shop surrounded by piles of old china, pictures, ornaments, oddments and books, and go upstairs to meet John Adams.

John is nearly thirteen.  Not very big but tough enough.  He is keener on exploring and everything in the country than on games, although he is a good cricketer.  He is dark, with untidy hair which never seems to part properly, and has a cheerful grin.  But the grin has not been seen so often lately and it is little wonder that he is unhappy living in such a place and seeing his mother working for a man like Wilson.  The sun on his pillow woke him.  He had been dreaming about the old days before his father had been taken ill and of Colchester where he had lived all his life, but as he opened his eyes he saw the faded blobs of roses on the grimy wallpaper of his attic room and remembered where he was.  He pulled his father’s watch from under the pillow, saw that it was a quarter to eight and realised that his mother hadn’t called him because there was no hurry to catch the bus to school.  He turned on his back and wondered what he could do today.  Best thing, if his mother didn’t want him, would be to go down to the empty mill a mile or more out of Ardham and see how the swans and ducks were getting on with their nests.  This place had been a grand discovery and he hadn’t told his mother about it yet.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to know, but it was exactly the sort of place where it would be wonderful for them to live if only they had enough money.  He had only discovered it a week ago and noticed that it was up for sale, but he felt that if he told her it might make her unhappy.