Macdebs Resolves
Investigations into the Truth of Tales
This is a bad idea. I told John not to do it but he has anyway.”
Mauve
The tradition with this kind of biography is to put it in the third person, but let’s be honest, the village website has no official biographer – I’m John. I’m new to the village both in that I can only trace my ancestry in this part of the world back to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s invasion of England (1745), and in that I’ve only lived here myself for a decade, moving here from the city when I semi-retired from my day job (I’m a maths teacher).
In the space that used to be filled with detentions, textbooks and marking, I now indulge my interest in history and, particularly, the history of Willerby.
Tolstoy said that history and mathematics are two sides of the same coin, but he was neither – what would he know? In maths there are problems for you to solve – in history there are also problems, but they will never be solved, only resolved. All you can hope for when presented with the evidence of the past is to find an explanation that makes sense of it all – and that’s what I try to do with the legends, folklore and plain storytelling of the village.
If you’re looking for hard-headed scepticism then you’ve come to the wrong place: just as battle plans never survive first contact with the enemy, so blind disbelief never survives long in Willerby – the place really is strange. Instead of debunking the tales, I see it as my role to look into them, find out the details, cross check and resolve some of the inconsistencies.
This corner of the website is a repository for what I’ve unearthed.
You might not believe my resolutions, the evidential history of Willerby – some might say it would be better if you didn’t, if you believed the disclaimer that this is a work of fiction – and it’s true: any similarity to events, places or persons living or dead is purely the result of bloody good research.
I would also add that there is no such thing as the Unofficial Secrets Act, I haven’t signed it, and absolutely nobody in the village has a copy in her dresser.
John Macdebs. February 2026