It is apparently very simple to record a ghost. The audio is out there; courtesy of our nifty digital recorders which can be left recording for hours on end in pitch-black cellars which have lary case histories. The sounds made beyond our ken are called EVP: and that’s not Executive Vice President, let me tell … Continue reading »
You’d think the spirit world would be camera-shy, wouldn’t you? But no. Given half a chance they’re up there in front of a lens showing their best side. Ghost photos are many and varied and a brief Google search will prove gratifyingly horrifying and disturbing. But most of them are proven to be smoke and … Continue reading »
There’s a little church in a village called Tockenham, Wiltshire, with the strangest stray set into its walls. Dating back to the 13th century, St Giles has all the usual bells, spells and figurines to mark the passing of the centuries. Even the bell – forged sometime in the 1480s is named after “Michael, Governor … Continue reading »
High on a hill overlooking the River Wye, in the Chiltern Hills, sits a village called Penn. It is, and has always been a beautiful spot, with rolling fields and quaint buildings, an a couple of decent pubs – the Crown and the Red Lion – which appeared some time in the sixteenth century and … Continue reading »
This is the third and final part of the Shrewsday traditional ghost story. If you are reading for the first time, you might like to start at the beginning, here, and continue to the middle, here. The old man stared at the contents of his glass. The fire crackled as it had on so many … Continue reading »
This is the second part to this very English Christmas ghost story. To find part one, click here. It was a deeply unsettling incident, but there was so much else which Martin had never experienced that, just for a short while, he could do little else than immerse himself in the exotic world of the … Continue reading »
She watched him striding over the fields, swinging his arms, mouthing the lines he would later write on a page to the morning mist. He was a fit 73 years old: his family had never had worries about his health, and his eccentricities? Well, they were just part of who he was. Amélie watched him … Continue reading »
It’s a strange place, the corner of your eye. Only there, can what is real and what is unreal begin, imperceptibly, to blur. From the corner of your eye, much more is possible than one might have thought. At this time of year, we unpack the old musty ghost stories and air their pages, reading … Continue reading »
Tonight Felix and I were deep into Terry Pratchett’s Mort: my favourite Pratchett book by far. His treatment of Death is so perfect. This is the chap I want to come and collect me when it’s my time: a wry, pragmatic all-knower who speaks in capital letters. The perfect personification for this most final of … Continue reading »
It was a solemn undertaking. Around 400 members of the public trooped around the haunted gallery of Hampton Court Palace, quizzically testing the air to see if they could sense the restless spirit of Catherine Howard. Her screams, it is said, can be heard on the dark English winter nights, echoing across time from the … Continue reading »
