The Forest of Dreams

Lesley Weldon has lived in Devon for 52 years and first came here when her husband brought her to meet his uncle and aunt. They fell in love with Dartmoor and moved here shortly after. She lives close to nature, and that was her inspiration for creating the 'Forest of Dreams' stories.

I live in an old miner’s cottage, surrounded by farmland and a large expanse of woodland that runs through stream-filled valleys to the River Tamar. There are various disabilities within my family and these stories came about when my grandchild Millie was born. For various reasons she rapidly became one of the world’s most successful insomniacs and she would come and stay with me so that her mum and dad could have at least one night’s sleep a week. On those sleepless nights we would imagine walking down the garden, up the lane and into the woods - The Magic Forest of Dreams. I would then tell her stories about the animals that lived there, the seasons, things I had done and we had shared, and how we should always be grateful to our loving and abundant Mother Earth. When my eldest grandson was a baby, he did not make eye contact. At that time, I had purple hair and a knitted jacket in rainbow-coloured stripes; both seemed to get his attention and I quickly became known as Grandma Rainbow - and I still am some 18 years later.

All the characters in my stories are my grandchildren, their character names being born out of their particular circumstances. Millie was born on the night of a full moon, hence Millie Moonbeam. Kieran on the other hand arrived on a bright sunny afternoon and became my first Little Ray of Sunshine. As the boys were not so focused on fairies and fantasy as the girls, they all became my Little Rays of Sunshine. Ruby, bless her, is amazing. She has Downs Syndrome and an incredible imagination. She soon became the family’s little star, hence Ruby Star Bright. Then came Elsie, bright as a button, cheeky, mischievous, away with the fairies. Yes, she was definitely our Tinkerbell Fairy. In 2010 I decided to write down some of the stories, so on every dark moon of the year I headed for an unplanned destination to write a story, a total of 13. Later in 2016 I began the illustrations, a project only completed in February 2021.

During a family visit, Fayre came to me, wanting to know why she wasn’t in any of the stories. I explained to her that she hadn’t been born when I wrote them, but Millie now wanted her to be a flower fairy in the Magic Forest of Dreams. Fayre quickly announced that she didn’t want to be a flower fairy, she wanted to be a butterfly! Later that week I spoke to a very distressed six-year-old Elsie, who told me she had used her Tinkerbell magic and turned Fayre into a caterpillar! The fourteenth story was created using Elsie’s plot which included finding the things she needed to make another magic spell to bring Fayre back. That created the ‘small’ complication of fairies and faeries! Fayre means ‘beautiful one’ in old English. It seemed only proper that Fayre should be an old English ‘faerie’. And so it was that Elsie’s Tinkerbell fairy magic brought our reluctant flower ‘faerie’ back as the beautiful ‘Butterfly Faerie’. Sorry folks but that’s how it is!

In creating the paintings, I worked mostly from photographs I had taken in nature and in special places. I also used the children’s artwork, enlarging or reducing their pictures as necessary, to enable me to illustrate two of the stories. It was challenging, but so rewarding and I am really glad I asked them to do the paintings. My friend and musician, Neil H, encouraged me to record the stories in his studio where he added music and sounds. Thus, the CDs were created. Together with his friend Chris the four volumes of the Forest of Dreams became a reality and, since some of the stories go back to the late 1990s, they are a legacy for my wonderfully inspirational grandchildren, and a dream come true for me.

By Lesley Weldon

The Forest of Dreams stories, volumes 1-4 are available to buy at www.neilhofficial.online

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