In Memoriam Cameron Stokes
Paul (Cameron) Stokes, 1952 – 2014
Groups: Wolves of Andred, Tylwyth Mon
When the Wolves of Andred were resurrected in 1988 by Robin Manser, he decided to announce their arrival to the society by staging a large event near Tonbridge in the summer of 1989, and so it came to pass that a small group found themselves trying to set up a site in a farmer's field at Mabledon near Southborough. The local council had agreed to provide stakes and ropes for the arena, and had delivered a truckload of tree stakes for the job. With the stakes being 5 inches in diameter and the ground being like concrete, they were not having much success in trying to bang them in with a small lump hammer. Then a voice shouted over the fence - "Do you need some help with that?" The owner of the voice was Cameron, a passing landscape gardener in a red pickup truck, who parked up and hopped over the fence with the ideal tool for the job - a post driver which consisted of a 2 foot steel tube capped with a steel plate, and with two handles on the side. A few minutes later when it became apparent that the re-enactors had never used one before and were struggling, he asked them to step aside, and then proceeded to use the drive with one hand to knock in the stakes with two blows each. A job which had looked impossible was done in minutes, and then he asked what we were setting up. Having discovered it was for a battle, he was very interested and promised to return the next day to find out what it was all about.
So began a notable time in The Vikings - Cameron and his wife Lorraine joined the society that day, and quickly learned how to fight, how to make kit for themselves, and joined in wholeheartedly with as many events as they could attend. On one notable occasion they drove from Kent to the north side of Loch Lomond to attend a one day show, purely on the basis of being told about the legendary Drovers Inn that was hosting the event, turning it into a long weekend to fit in some sightseeing and avoid rushing back. They took over the running of the group when Robin stepped down, with Cameron as leader but Lorraine co-ordinating and organising. Cameron was promoted to Jarl in 1993.
Cameron was tall, fair, muscular from his day job, and sported the sort of moustache that made him look like a Saxon noble and so it was no surprise that he was asked to play leaders on the field and in acting skits during major events. This culminated in him playing Harold Godwinson at Hastings in 2000, a role he was seemingly born to step into, and a few years later a market outside of the abbey gates in Battle was reported to have a spectacular bronze statue that everyone was recommended to go and see. This turned out to have been made from a photo of Cameron as Godwinson, and standing at 3 feet high it was a perfect likeness of him in a classic pose of leaning on his dane axe and looking like an inspirational leader.
His strength was renowned, and when he swung the axe it was clear that he could cleave anything in two, but he also had great control and was a respected and effective warrior. That strength also turned out to be useful at other times - filming on the island of Lindisfarne in 1993 for a Cromwell Films documentary about the Vikings, Cameron volunteered to take command of one of the Jorvik longships which the film company had hired for the weekend, as he had some open water sailing experience. Standing at the helm with his hair blowing in the breeze, he looked every inch the fierce raider, and executed the task of steering the ship and co-ordinating the rowers with some ease, even when the film crew left us to row out of the bay into a squall and a headwind with waves breaking over the side of the ship - but being able to do so was solely down to Cameron. We had been asked to row ashore, and jump off the ship and wade up the beach while the film crew captured the whole thing. We duly did it, looking really cool as we did so, and then the film crew asked us to do another hour or two of filming on the beach and in the woods beyond, returning to the ships so that we could load up the "loot" we had found and make our way back out to sea. The sturaesman on each ship remained aboard to keep watch and adjust the anchor rope as needed.
The only problem was that the initial landing had been at low tide, and in the intervening time the anchored ships now seemed a lot further out than expected. Again with the cameras running, we returned to the water and waded out towards the ships, but it quickly became clear that the ankle deep water we landed in was now going to be up to our necks or higher, and there was a risk that we couldn't reach the ships without swimming. The anchors were heavy enough to require 2-3 to lift them out, so we had to get there. The first few people made it to Cameron's ship, but with their feet barely touching the bottom and the top strake of the ship being about 2 feet above them, it was clear that getting in was going to be difficult. Cameron took the weapons and shields from the first two and stowed them safely, then looked down and asked "Do you need help to get in?" - expecting a rope to be lowered, we quickly said yes, but instead Cameron simply leaned over the side and put one arm down the back of the first person, grabbed them by the belt and tunic, and lifted them out of the water. Holding them straight out in front of him, he gave them a little shake to get some of the water out of their woollen clothes, then swung them inboard and deposited them on a bench. Three more followed in the same way, and then we were able to help others aboard - but it took two of us to lift one person, and we could only drag them over the top strake if they kicked and heaved with their arms at the same time.
Cameron's general interest in history was wide ranging, and covered the early Celtic peoples, and the ancient Greeks. When a project was started to reconstruct a Greek trireme, Cameron volunteered to join the crew, and become one of the 160 rowers who took part in one of her voyages.
Cameron and Lorraine had always wanted to live somewhere rural and near the coast, and having visited Anglesey they decided to relocate there permanently. They bought an abandoned Methodist chapel with an attached manse in Llaneilan, and spent several years restoring it and making it habitable. Part of this involved clearing out the old church and the rotten pews - when they discovered that the raked rows of pews were not built on a wooden platform as expected, but were instead sitting on a huge bank of earth, the only way to make the room usable was to remove the bank - all 60 tons or so of it, by hand, in a wheelbarrow small enough to fit through the small door and corridor. There they raised two sons, Ruaridh and Fearghas, and Cameron joined Tich Craddock (who they'd known in their youth from shared time in bike clubs) in open water rowing with a mad bunch of locals to whom the shifting tides of Ynys Mon and the tidal race of the Menai Strait were all part of the fun. He also continued to ride a highly polished Harley throughout.
With the move to Anglesey, the arrival of the boys, and a degree of frustration with some of the politics within the society, they drifted away from the society at the end of 2003, and while they remained active in helping with the Amlwch festival for a number of years their participation remained on the organisational side.
Cameron was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 2013. As his health deteriorated, he was moved into the hospital but spent most of his time there insisting on helping others who "weren't as fit as him". To the end, he was prepared to do anything he could for others.
