The Elf of East Hampton Bridge

September 30, 2021 Michael

Alt title - Farmour than I will ever be

-this is in very early draft mode-

The story is set in a small fishing in England during World War Two. The village is on the northern part of England on the eastern coast not too far from Scotland. The village has been there for hundreds of years and for the most part hasn’t ever changed. Almost as if time forgot it.

Main characters:

Andrew Wellington a village ‘reclaimer’ and factory bookkeeper who also plays Farmour the Elf and is the same actor that plays Andrew Wellington; David Burrows an American tv star who is completely out of place playing an English character.

Elizabeth Milford a local village resident that longs for a life outside of East Hampton bridge. The actress that plays Elizabeth is named Laura Cook.

Sydney Smyth, the granddaughter of Andrew who is in possession of all of Andrews journals. She is only part of the movie narrative. She has a thing for American actor playing her grandfather. Ultimately she is the only one that knows what really happened to Andrew and Elizabeth and has never told anyone.

Oscar black is the one male friend Elizabeth has that hasn’t gone off to war that she feels confident enough to talk with. He knows he will be drafted and sent off any day so he never really forms a relationship with her. They have known each other for many years. Oscar is uncomplicated and does what he is told without question. He is a simple and kid person.

Location:

The small village of East Hampton by the bridge has a few hundred residents and is been somewhat lost with all that is going on in England during the war. This was once a weekend getaway for well to do Londoners but that ended with World War Two.

All the residents are very English and generally very stoic. Modem time:

Andrew, Elizabeth and all the actual characters in the village have long since passed on in some form or another. The begging of this story is the three main actors talking about the story for the movie they just ended up filming. So the main part of the story isn’t the movie being filmed it’s flashbacks to what the actual people were doing. So the interaction with people exists on a few levels. The actors talking about the characters, the movie of the actors telling the story, the actual story and then the stories that Andrew is telling Elizabeth.

Backstory:

Each day most of the able bodied men that have not shipped off to war and many of the women make the two mile long walk to the factory where they make some (never discussed) item for the war effort. The reason this item is never discussed is that it doesn’t matter, much like their small village, but everyone feels obligated to help and without any tourists there isn’t really anything else they can do. It’s as though the village is stuck in time and never seems to age.

On a very few occasions someone drives through the village on their way to Scotland. And that’s about the extent of anything different that ever happens.

Andrew is the main character and his story and the actor that plays him exist on a few different literary levels. This will be explained later as it is initially rather confusing.

Andrew is officially a bookkeeper at the factory. He isn’t well liked because most of the people in the village think he gets special favors because he appears to only work half days. The locals claim that all Andrew knows how to do is charts and graphs (inside joke).

Andrew wears a white suit that is never dirty. This is by design from the town council to keep his true job hidden. In reality Andrew is the bookkeeper, But he works half days because he is a ‘reclaimer’.

A reclaimer is a person that has to scan the ocean shore; specifically the waterway under the bridge where special nets have been set up to catch debris from ships that have been destroyed or sunk at sea.

Most of the village thinks he stares off into the ocean because he is lazy but it’s really to see what is floating in. Andrew never talks about this to anyone. He does keep a journal of everything he finds as required by the village council.

Every few days he (or one of the other very few remaining reclaimers) see debris floating in or caught in the net and have to take off their white suits and fish out what the ocean has brought up from the sunken ships. A few times a month this means he has to dredge up the dead bodies he finds and hide them from everyone in the village so the locals don’t get to depressed from the reality of the war.

This has a devastating impact on Andrew and all of the Reclaimers. So much so that many of them quit their job and volunteer to go to war instead.

The village council is made up of men too old to go to war or injured from World War One.

They know Andrew is loyal to the country, the crown and the village. They have falsified his medical records so he doesn’t get drafted. Andrew isn’t made aware of this until later and feels torn on what to do. He lives a very lonely life as no one wants to associate with their perception of him being lazy or avoiding the draft.

The things that are reclaimed are usually of no value and are burned in a perpetual fire in the pub that the village council meets. Most of the locals think this is arrogance on the part of the council and don’t understand how devastating it is for the council and Andrew.

When things are reclaimed that can be identified the council sends them back to the family of the victims. Andrew also has to package up and ship the personal effects all over England which makes people believe he has been hoarding wealth from everyone else. Everything that is usable but can’t be identified is sold at the council store to the locals. Realistically, it is given away because the people have somewhat no possessions and no money to begin with.

Andrew specifically reads as many books as he can because it’s his only escape from the horror of being a reclaimer. Andrew at one point picked up an old pipe (think Sherlock Holmes), but he never smokes it. He just carries it around as a prop. Most people misunderstand this.

Elizabeth is younger, blonde and quite good looking. Her father is off to war along with her two brothers. She hasn’t heard from them in a long time and has no way to contact them. Her mother passed away long ago and we don’t really hear much about her. Elizabeth’s only friend is Oscar Black The two of them tend to walk to the factory together often and on occasion chat about things to keep their mind off the depressing nature of their existence.

Elizabeth used to read a lot and has very fond memories of her father telling her stories. She loved the adventure stories and things like Dickens (and fantasy stories, i just can’t think of any at the moment for that period of time, but think Tolkien). She wants to be swept off of her feet and fall in love but has given up since so many men are lost or gone to war. She really doesn’t notice Andrew and if she does she kind of joins the village in ignoring him.

One day after a long shift Elizabeth is walking home and sees Andrew staring out into the ocean at sunset. Out of somewhat spite she stops and asks him in a rather condescending tone what he is doing. Andrew knows he cannot tell her what he really does as a reclaimer so he tells her he is studying the strategy of the submarine maneuvers off of the coast.

She stops not expecting that answer and says where are they. Andrew is taken aback and says, ‘well you can’t actually see them until you are well trained’. She laughs and says ‘what is the name of the submarine you are looking at now’. Andrew replies, ‘well none other than the greatest ship in her majesty’s fleet the HMS Wellington’. Elizabeth lets out a genuine laugh and realizes after a little more chat that Andrew isn’t the bad guy everyone says he is and that he is both funny and creative.

They meet a few more times on the bridge and have some idle conversations. She starts warming up to Andrew because he makes up these stories for her every day and she needs / longs for the escape. Andrew also begins to warm up because he is finally talking with someone else. We also find out that Andrew has made sure to be on the bridge on days when he knows Elizabeth is going to walk by. He has been doing this for months if not longer.

At one point we find out Andrew ‘reclaimed’ an old steamer trunk full of books and at night be dries them out and reads them before giving them to the village council to sell or for them to read. This is important later to know that the village council reads a lot and most of them are amateur writers. They two need an escape from the depression of war. We also find out Andrew can recite the passages from almost any book he has ever read.

One day as Elizabeth approaches the bridge to speak with Andrew another reclaimer is coming out of the water with some very grim findings; the body of a sailor lost at sea. Andrew doesn’t want her to see this for many reasons.

He motions her to hide beneath the bridge wall for a moment and to be silent. He needs to buy some time. So he makes up a story on the fly.

He tells her she most swear secrecy and take an oath of silence to never tell anyone what he is about to say. She agrees.

During this time we see the other reclaimer come out of the water and put a body into a cart and cover it up then he gets dressed in his white suit that is very wet and starts to walk to the village. The other reclaimer is also as equally disliked, but we never meet him.

It’s late enough in the day that we can’t really see a good vision of the reclaimer that just got out of the water. Andrew and Elizabeth get up in time to see this shape walk towards the village.

Andrew tells Elizabeth that is ‘Farmour’ the Elf. He is a prince from a magical kingdom that takes the form of a human to search for treasures.

Elizabeth gives him a strange look and says prove it. Andrew says he can prove it, because Farmour will give him a special hand signal to say he has risen from the elven kingdom to go get a pint at the pub.

The truth is the hand signal is to tell Andrew that the other reclaimer found a body and he needed to dispose of it.

Elizabeth kind of believes Andrew but demands she tell him more of Farmour since she is now sworn to secrecy.

Andrew says he will, but he must tell the council first to prepare the best pint of ale for Farmour as he rarely comes up from the elven kingdoms. Andrew leaves for the night and Elizabeth is finally seen with a smile. We get a strong sense that Elizabeth is becoming happy.

Going forward each day or as often as possible Andrew and Elizabeth meet at the bridge so she can listen to stories of Farmour. They start to warm up to each other as time passes. It is also becoming summer and our normally dark and dreary village is lighting up.

Elizabeth initially only wears dark clothes and has a drab demeanor. As time passes her colors get lighter and her face gets brighter.

Andrew finally starts to feel a little bit alive and not the pariah that he is made out to be.

He begins writing down new stories for Elizabeth each night to tell her the next day. He has to be careful as to never let her see what he really does.

Much later in the story we find out that Andrew wrote four journals. Three of which are Farmour the Elf stories and one of which is the actual inventory of all the things he reclaimed.

This plays out in the end when the actor that plays both Farmour and Andrew is given the never read before, fourth journal and understands the true nature of his character.

Assuming this is a movie, it’s exists on a few levels:

1 - The actors talking about the people they are playing and we find out the actor playing Andrew and Farmour falls in love with the grand daughter of the actual Elizabeth. But never tells the grand daughter about the true nature of the fourth journal.

2 - The story of Andrew and Elizabeth and the village

3 - And the story of Farmour the elf and his adventures acted out from the stories that Andrew made up.

4 - Farmour is an eccentric elf that falls in love with a human woman. He battles with the village council in a fun game of literary quotes while drinking in the pub. This is really a story about Andrew dealing with the village council that he makes into a fantasy to tell Elizabeth stories.

5 - Finally there is a story of Elizabeth pretending that Farmour is sweeping her off her feet until she realizes that she is in love with Andrew.

Remember, Farmour is fictional and he represents a lot of what Andrew wants to be; which is fun, adventurous, creative and ultimately wanted by the village.

In one of the stories that Andrew tells Elizabeth, Farmour goes to the goblin kingdom to bargain for some treasure. The goblins have this game called ‘devil dice’. Six goblins sit at a table and the king is at the head. Each goblin to his left competed with each other to see who can challenge the king. This challenge only happens once a year on the longest day of the year.

Each goblin rolls two six sided dice. The winner says a quote from a book. If the opponent guesses the book he has to reply back with a quote from that same character. If the opponent thinks the first goblin is lying he calls him out. The other goblin then has to prove the quote is real or he loses. If the quote isn’t real, the challenging goblin wins. This goes around until there is one goblin left with the king.

Keep in mind this is based on the actual village council and their sitting around reading books and telling stories while drinking beer (or ale). Andrew loves the stories and loves to talk about books he has read; mostly because no one will talk to him as a ‘reclaimer’.

In the Farmour story one of the tricks of the game is for the king to get all the goblins drunk before anyone can challenge him.

Andrew tells the story about how Farmour figured out to get all the goblins drunk before the king so he could challenge the king and win. Which of course he does. And then he picks the kings daughter as his prize.

This is to illustrate that Andrew wants to be with Elizabeth and he doesn’t know how to tell her this.

Andrew also has stories he tells Elizabeth about adventures he goes on with Farmour. The point being is he wants to make Elizabeth believe he is adventurous and fun so she doesn’t see him as a lazy bookkeeper at factory, and to hide the fact that he is a reclaimer.

There are a lot more stories about Farmour and Andrew has them written in his three journals.

Farmour is kind of a cross between Loki and Thor. He loves to play tricks and outsmart people, not really for the treasure, more for the bragging rights. One rumor is he was kicked out of the elven kingdom for falling in love with a human and he had to bring back the greatest treasure ever to be found to earn his right back into the elven kingdom.

The sappy part of this is that the elven king is teaching a lesson to Farmour that the greatest treasure is true love and that once you have that it doesn’t matter where you live.

This is to parallel with Andrew and his situation.

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Things I have to wrap up:

The actors and their story (how they go there, and most importantly what they think about the story)