Hallowe'en is almost upon us...

[Gareth Hughes]

...and so it is perhaps time for a warning about furnishing fabrics (particularly for Joce, who I know is in raptures of wallpapering and an ecstacy of curtains)

"The Diary of Mr Poynter", by M R James
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/mr/thin/chapter2.html

and should you be on the lookout for some nice pictures to hang against that wallpaper, here's James' "The Mezzotint", nicely done by Robert Powell in 1986
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zom9AH4DSRA

 

[Jon Maine]

Very good............. :shock:

 

[robgil]

kind of off topic but did you know that traditionally turnips were used and not pumpkins? it was the celts who put skeleton lanterns in their windows because they believed that upon this date (the end of the harvest season) spirits of the dead could return and cause harm to the crop stores. apparently they used turnips or rutabaga or yellow turnip. as a kid we would always use turnips as there wasn't a lot of pumpkins grown in ireland at the time.
still , you cannot really do this with a turnip though.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

we used turnips in Lancashire in the 1970s. The smell when the candle was lit was indescribable

 

[JoceAndChris]

What a wonderful writer MR James is- and one I haven't explored at all, thanks Gareth.

I really had considered using old patterns and handpainting or blocking onto lining paper - you've put me off.

Mean of you to frighten me so much before bedtime though, it's scary enough here you know, what with the utter uninhabited blackness outside, the cemetery below, and the wind howling through the sashes.

The other night we both woke up, we were certain had heard a girlish peal of laughter in the house.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I don't mind her laughing, but I wish she wouldn't keep nicking my tools. The other day a roller tray I'd just bought completely vanished. It makes everything take twice as long! :lol:

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Not only a wonderful writer of ghost stories, but a great mediaeval historian, bookworm, connoisseur of PG Wodehouse and cheap detective novels, and member of the SPAB.

Almost all his ghost stories are worth a look, most share a splendid antiquarian taste (the moral of the story is generally "don't interfere", which is a good motto for period properties too), and I'm astonished you've not dipped in before. Now is definitely the time of year to start - they're still available in a very cheap collected edition.

As for the peal of girlish laughter - are you sure it wasn't you?

 

[JoceAndChris]

My schizophrenia must be getting worse. :wink:

I love you passing books on, it's fab! Loved the HB Cresswell too, what an extraordinary concept went into its structure.

Will definitely buy MR James. I really am very ignorant about literature after 1900- Woolf, Forster, Maugham WW1 of course but not much else.

 

[Penners]

I wish she wouldn't keep nicking my tools. The other day a roller tray I'd just bought completely vanished.

This is a serious condition, well-known to the male of the species. It's medical name is turpis strumenti - tool blindness.

I (and most other men) have suffered from it since early adulthood. It manifests itself in the total disappearance of tools that were carefully put down only seconds before. Such tools usually only reappear after a new one has been purchased at considerable expense. Indeed, the higher the cost of the replacement, the more likely is the reappearance of the original.

Seek medical help immediately (but don't expect it to do any good).

 

[Ushy M]

Mean of you to frighten me so much before bedtime though, it's scary enough here you know, what with the utter uninhabited blackness outside, the cemetery below, and the wind howling through the sashes.

The other night we both woke up, we were certain had heard a girlish peal of laughter in the house.

Mmm.. I know what you mean. The gable end of our house in the graveyard and Mr M is convinced he can sometimes hear voices chatting away in the bedroom on that side of the house. And I know this sounds bonkers, but there's a faint "ghostly smell" - of shepherd's pie in there sometimes. Definitely not us - we don't eat meat.... :?

 

[Cloudscape]

The most terrifying thing about Halloween here is the number of small people who come to the door expecting sweets and shouting 'Trickertreet!"

When it comes to kids, they all look the same to me, but I get the sneaking feeling that some of them come to the door more than once... :|

Talking of ghost stories... I've had a couple of spooky experiences in this house.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, come on. Spit them out. Pleeeese.

Like the ghostly shepherd's pie Ushy! You ought to leave one in there, see if it's disappeared in the morning.

As well as tools, my naughty ghost has a fondness for bacon rind and scraps of meat if the dinner plates are left overnight. (it's definitely not my doing Penners!)

 

[Cloudscape]

Nothing untoward here... just the very clear sound of someone walking heavily through the dining room, lifting the latch (cue metallic clinking sounds) of the door way to the hall, opening and closing the door (more latch sounds), thudding up the stairs like a fairy elephant, and along the landing to where I'm standing, passing through me and into another room, then falling silent.

I went outside. :|

 

[JoceAndChris]

How wonderful. - a peaceful ghost then. I am absolutely longing to meet a ghost. Sometimes I think they can't exist, sometimes I'm convinced they do. Particularly when people I know and trust recount a tale seriously, as you have.

I had friends with a cottage in Whittlesey: sensible, calm, ordinary people. They also spoke of soft, light footsteps that went pitter pattering up the path, and the gentle knock on the door, and no one there. Guests spoke of the same thing, even when they hadn't heard the tale. I spent lot of time in that cottage; I never heard it. Maybe my cynicism gets in the way?

 

[Flyfisher]

I'm also rather disappointed that our house has not accumulated any ghosts in nearly 460 years. It may well be that cynicism, or scepticism, gets in the way. The mind works in mysterious ways and while I don't doubt that people have seen and heard things that are absolutely real to them, I find it hard to believe in ghosts as a real phenomenon.

 

[Cloudscape]

I don't believe and I don't not believe (if that makes sense). It didn't really matter during the episode I described. I was in the middle of a tricky bit of DIY, and had just pulled a horrible 4-inch nail out of a nice old beam. I'd only been in the house a week. When I heard someone in the dining room, I stepped out of the front bedroom onto the landing, stopped and listened, because I wasn't expecting anyone - let alone anyone who would just walk into the house.

I didn't move a muscle (or breathe) as the footsteps came up the stairs. I kept expecting to see someone. The whole episode lasted about 40 seconds. All I was thinking was "WTF!!??" (putting it bluntly).

After a while outside, I resumed what I was doing, and nothing else happened.

 

[JoceAndChris]

You were so brave! I'd have passed out with fright. Sometimes I'm so paralysed with fear here by noises I have to hide - and it will turn out to be another bunny in the kitchen or some such thing!

I love these ghost stories! Any more?

 

[Cloudscape]

The dining room (quite big, with the 1860s range in it) and the kitchen (medium size, with an old Rayburn backing onto the range) are connected by a section about 6x8 feet. Early in the year, I spent at least a couple of weeks on my hands and knees in the dining room, working on the range, clearing out old damp ash, dismantling what I could (to get at rust), removing paint from the brickwork either side of the range, blacking the iron and generally getting filthy.

I drink coffee all day, so I'd make fairly regular trips to the kitchen. Where I have the coffee machine, when you turn round, you're staring back towards the dining room. Anyway...

One afternoon, after a lot of hard slog, I made a coffee and turned round drinking it. At the dining-room end of the connecting section was what looked like blue smoke, only in a tall sausage of feint rich blue. As soon as I saw it, it drifted off to the right (in a blur, like smoke blowing away) and disappeared.

It happened again an hour later, but didn't disappear so quickly. It was about 5-6ft tall and about 18in wide. I was able to look directly at it for a second. Then it drifted off.

The third time, it lingered about a second or two longer.

The fourth (and last) time, I quite clearly saw a woman from 3/4 view behind. She was looking towards the range. It was the same blue, but now reorganised into a person. I could see a long skirt, and either long hair or a shawl over her head. I couldn't see her face. Then she drifted, like smoke, to the right and disappeared.

This house (when a business) was run by a woman, at least twice. I felt like I was having my work inspected.

Or maybe I should drink less coffee. :?

I haven't seen anything like that since.

There are other things, like the 'person' who passes the dining room window on their way to the back door. I open the door and no one is there. I always check to see who is in the garden, because one neighbour has the annoying habit of inviting himself into our garden, on the pretext of looking for a cat.

None of this is startling stuff, I know. But you did ask. :wink:

There are local tales of stuff that's a bit more impressive, in the haunting stakes.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Goodness me. :shock: :shock: :shock: That was a brilliant telling of a thoroughly chilling tale!

I'm glad your ghostly visitations appear benign, and how nice it must be for those ghosts (is it a couple? what can you find out? the first story appeared more of a male presence) to have someone in the house who cares so much about preserving the past, and who treasures their work. I like to think that if someone was carefully cleaning up my cornice in a hundred years I too would be moved to make a guest appearance.

It doesn't seem to have put you off living there, good.

 

[Cloudscape]

I've played down the stomping on the stairs, partly because it was a while ago, and partly because I know how reports of these things sound to other people. If you didn't hear it, the idea is silly. My blue lady, similarly, was just something I saw, and I might be mad.

Funny you should mention your cornice... in Manchester, and prior to that in London, I used to hear and see things, particularly when I was engaged in some kind of DIY. I would suddenly get the impression of everyone who'd ever been up a ladder in that spot, or had bent down and fiddled with that piece of skirting. I near fell of a ladder in Manchester when I clearly heard a man's voice say "Done", right next to my ear.

So that confirms it. I am mad. :|