Scary Halloween stories

I've been looking after my nieces over the last two days and they have been telling me scary stories for Halloween.

They told me about trick or treating scary stories and urban myths. When I was young we used to swap stories about how if you went trick or treating and called at a certain house an incredibly scary old lady lived there. She'd give you sweets full of soap or poison. There were also stories about kids being given sweets with blades in them. My eldest niece tells me that now the urban myth is that if you get given a particulate type of lolly it will have drugs in it. The story was quite elaborate with instructions on what stripes on the lolly signified drugs! 

Thankfully the girls know these are just stories but there are also sensible rules to keep safe when trick or treating like going out in big groups supervised by adults and only calling at houses with pumpkins in the front garden. 

We had a lovely 2 days. I brought with me American candy from New York which they loved! 

The Pendle Witches

Today's blog post is a recommendation to watch a BBC TV programme, The Pendle Witch Child  by poet Simon Armitage about the Pendle Witch trial. The programme also features one of my favourite historians, Ronald Hutton. The programme examines the social, religious and political forces that led to the witch trials of the early 1600s. It concentrates on the little girl Jennet who gives evidence in court condemning her own mother and brother as well as other neighbours as witches. The programme shows how the Pendle Witch Trial paved the way for the even more infamous Salem Witch Trials across the Atlantic in America.

The subject matter of the programme is fascinating and disturbing and the setting and filming really set a macabre and spellbinding scene. The Lancashire countryside it's self playing a starring role. But maybe most compelling is Simon Armitage's narration, which is poetic, earthy and incredibly sensitive. I could listen to Simon Armitage read the phone book but I'm not exaggerating in saying he  is completely absorbing. You have 28 days to watch it on the iPlayer and I really can't recommend it enough!

Hampton Court Ghosts

I love Hampton Court, it's an amazing palace to visit. Rich in history, it's association with Henry VIII, it has a maze and is in a stunning setting between the Thames and Bushy Park. It is also famous for being haunted. I had heard tales of the unfortunate Catherine Howard haunting a gallery in Hampton Court. As the 2nd of the beheaded wives of Henry VIII she was bound to have a haunting in her name. I hadn't heard of the other 3 ghost stories shared here on the Hampton Court Blog. They include a ghost named "Skelator" who likes to shut doors. They even have film of him! Check it out!

My short story - Quilt

Today as part of my Halloween blog I am posting a short story I wrote over the summer. It's a quirky, creepy tale. I was thinking of entering it into a competition. I didn't in the end, but I don't think it's a bad short story. Any way here it is and enjoy (I hope)

Quilt

She sits in the hush of the house, nestled amongst it’s soft noises. The distant rhythmic swish and swoosh of laundry churning, the far off rumble of the dish washer. Nearer to her the thin tick and fat tock of the clock in the dining room. Nearer still the shhh of wool as it is unwound from the ball and the tickertytick of her knitting needles. Familiar safe sounds of home. As she knits she always counts yan, tyan, tethera; the old Scots numbers her Gran taught her. And she waits, listening, waiting and listening, hardly patient, always waiting, anticipating, on tenterhooks.

Sometimes she listens to the sounds of the outside, if the window is open. The intricate tapestry of birdsong. To her the birdsong is all bright, light colours. High pitched shades of whites, searing yellows and twinkling silver, unless a wood pigeon joins in, then there are round sounds of purples and blues, like a bruise. The leaves shuffling in the wind are white smoke sound. A distant droning mower in the summer and she longs to hear the thwock, thwock of a tennis ball on racket. There is nowhere for anyone to play tennis here, not even in her neighbour’s garden; the ground is too uneven. She longs to sink her toes into a flat, well maintained lawn, feel the short tickling blades between her toes. She needs her feet on a ground she can trust to hold her up. Round here the ground is tricksy and cunning with tufts and hillocks and holes to sprain your ankles in. She doesn’t trust the land round here. She doesn’t trust much since her sight really began to fade. And so she sits indoors and knits and waits, hardly patient, listening, anticipating, on tenterhooks.

She is waiting for night to come. When she packs up her knitting and her crochet. When she has folded all of the laundry and has emptied the dish washer. When she has eaten a simple and healthy tea. Her waiting is over. She makes her way to the one bedroom annex, which is attached to her cottage. She walks up the stairs to the bedroom. It is a room with twin beds and on one of the beds there is an old fashioned patchwork quilt. She lies on the bed. If it is cold she lies under the quilt. She closes her eyes and the waiting is over.

It’s like experiencing a very short, sharp, jolt - like when you are just falling asleep only to be suddenly shot back awake. Except this short, sharp, shock jolts her somewhere else entirely. In a flurry of colour and sound she finds herself in the most realistic dream. In fact it’s more real than the most vivid of dreams, more detailed than a memory, brighter, louder, larger than real life. Each night it is different. Each vision something new. 

She discovered it by accident not long after moving into the cottage she inherited from her great aunt. Back then she was full of such optimism. She would make the house her little palace. The garden would be her sanctuary. She would walk into the village daily and get involved with local activities. Join a committee, who knows maybe the W.I? It would be marvellous. But after a long couple of weeks sorting through her great aunt’s things came the turn of the annex bedroom. It didn’t look like her aunt had changed a thing in there since she let the place out. It had a chintzy National Trust vibe that tourists seem to love. So she had walked around the room assessing the state of each item, touching them absently and wondering if she could just leave the room as it was? She came to the bed furthest from the door and ran her hand along the old fashioned patchwork quilt.

It had been like a shiver running from her fingertips, branching out and up through every cell in her body. It felt like an electric shock, after which, she was left utterly disorientated. No longer was she standing in the rather fussy, slightly fusty bedroom. She found herself in an incredibly busy street, bustling with people. The noise was such a shock from the quiet of her room. There was a noise of horses hooves. Not just one or two horses, like you might hear on a country lane, but the sound of many hooves. There was also the sound of voices, calling and shouting, and laughing and joking with one another. At the same time the noise hit her ears she was overwhelmed by a stench, so powerful and complex she wasn’t sure she could work out what it was. She identified manure and the smell of horses, that reminded her of being a small child at the riding stables, but there was a smell of fish, of meat roasting, and smoke. There was also the smell of bodies, of people around her, worse than any body odour she had smelt on a hot day on the London Tube. But there were wafts of sweeter smells too, oranges and something like hay. Her hearing and her sense of smell were always stronger than her sight and so she didn’t realise at first that her vision was restored. Yes, really it was restored! She was so overwhelmed. She could see again! She had been living in a world which was slowly blurring and rubbing its self out for so long, sudden sight was a shock. This was partly why she had been so disorientated. There was too much to see, to take in.

There was a wide brown road crawling with many horse drawn carts and a couple of what looked like proper carriages, she could count at least 15 horse drawn vehicles at different stages and directions along the road. She could see far down the road, the trees and a bridge. She could see clearly the people moving about her, their hair, their faces, their eyes! She could see colour so viivid it was like a child’s kaleidoscope.

To the side of her were men and women pushing carts in a hurry to get somewhere. She instinctively knew that it was to market, and she needed to get to market too with her list of things to buy for the cook. What cook? This part, of what became her nightly visions, was the hardest to get used to. She was a person in the crowd now, moving along with the rest towards the market square. She knew she was on an urgent errand and that she was quite young. But she was also aware of who she really was and that she was just borrowing this girl… “Hannah’s” memories. She was experiencing what Hannah had experienced. Her real body was now slumped on the bed on top of the patchwork quilt. But her mind was in 1843 with Hannah on this important errand. She began to panic; this was impossible, this was like some kind of madness and the panic brought her out of the vision.

That had been the first time. She had pulled herself out of Hannah”s memory too quickly and never found out what errand was so urgent. She went on however, over the following days to experience other people’s memories more vivid and intriguing than the first. She also began to get used to the feeling of seeing memories through someone else’s eyes. Eyes that could usually see or at least see more than she now could. Many memories were of Scotland or of the British Isles but others were of far flung places like Japan and India and the Americas. Some were fairly modern in the 20^th century, others were 19^th century. A few seemed even older, in times where she couldn’t place the date from her surroundings and the person who’s memory she was viewing either did not know the exact date or used a system she did not recognise. She never had the same memory twice but occasionally would see different memories from the same person. Often weeks apart. She saw Hannah’s wedding day once, but never glimpsed her again after that. 

She soon became obsessed with the quilt and it’s visions. These glimpses into other lives, other people’s feelings and thoughts, she could not get enough of them. It was better than the most spectacular theatre show or compelling television series. The visions the quilt showed her brought meaning and sustenance to her life. She became addicted to them so quickly and so profoundly she had no time to even think about what was happening to her. She instinctively knew it was the patch work quilt that was feeding her these memories. She began to crave them and would spend days wrapped in the quilt like a junkie, feeding on her drug of choice. She stopped sorting through her great aunts things, she stopped answering the phone or the door, she barely ate or washed. She just lived through other people’s memories. For it soon became obvious that this is what this quilt had done. It had stolen other people’s memories and was now playing them back to her. The cottage had been a holiday let for years. Before that her great aunt had run a hotel in Edinburgh. The quilt, she was sure, had been in a guest room there and then here for all those years. Those who slept under it or near it, would have their memories stolen, or borrowed or just copied. She knew all this just as surely as she knew who the people were in the visions she had. She guessed that the quilt had been in an inn or hotel room of some kind for many years before her aunt’s.

It was nearly 3 weeks after she discovered the quilt when her brother discovered her, curled up “asleep” under it. He had taken one look at her unwashed hair, the general state of the house and had declared her “depressed.” She’d got up on his instruction and had some strong black coffee and looked at her self through the bathroom mirror. She realised how much time had actually past whilst she had been journeying with the quilt through centuries and miles and miles of lives. Her brother gave her a lecture about how taking early retirement was bound to do this to her, that she needed a part time job or more of a hobby than just knitting. She agreed and promised that she was going to join the W.I. She cooked him his favourite stew and he seemed satisfied that she wasn’t suicidal, He said she had just “let herself go” as if this was just what he had expected of his sister and exactly why he had visited unannounced. He left the next day after sleeping in the annex next to the bed with the “memory quilt” on it. He said he had slept well apart form some strange dreams nothing he could recollect. Then he was gone.

She knew he was right. Douglas was always very sensible. It was then that she decided she would only use the quilt once a night. She would get one fix each evening and would live her life normally at all other times. That was how she found herself in that constant state of anticipation for her next fix, for her evening hit of ultra real visions of other people’s lives. The rest of her existence became pale and flimsy, transparent. She would knit all day, listening listlessly to the sounds around her, counting dowm yan, tyan, tethera, anticipating what adventure she would go on later. When she saw such wonders at night how could her own drab little life compare? 

She soon realised that the quilt only snared the most vivid of memories, the most brutal, overwhelming or touching, memories which defined a person. She had been kissed countless times in these visions, made love in the most wonderful ways but she had also witnessed such tremendous grief and fear. She had even once murdered someone in a dark Edinburgh wynd. That memory had been so chilling, so full of hate and disgust she had thrown up afterwards and had vowed to never use the quilt again. But the next night like the ragged and ravaged addict that she had become, she crept back upstairs to it, ashamed but desperate.  

What she had no idea of was that the quilt did not want to hold on to her for much longer. She had lived an interesting life and had experienced many things. Even though she was only in her mid 50s, she had been a journalist for an Edinburgh news paper. She’d travelled the world and covered exciting news stories. Even when her eye sight began to fail the news paper had supported her to stay working. She had been married twice but had never had any children. She had lost her best friend to a car accident in her 20s, Her life had been unusually emotionally rich. The shimmery, spidery thread in the patchwork, snagged all these emotional ups and downs from her life. It had snared her grief, her fear, her excitement and her love whilst it fed her images of other people’s lives. Those visions were to keep her docile and pliant while it probed and plied out fresh memories for its own secret needs. But her mind was running dry and the quilt needed fresh folk to feed from. 

It began to whisper to her whilst she sought out it’s comfort. It began to whisper that she must find it new subjects to draw from. She would have to share the quilt with others if she was still going to be useful. 

She now only uses the quilt once a week (Occasionally she has to wait a fortnight.) She lives for Saturday’s. The day guests staying in the annex have to check out. Guests leave by 10 AM and the next lot arrive at 4pm. The lady from the village who cleans arrives at 12 . So she has a whole 2 hours for just her with the quilt and the memories it has harvested from her guests during that week. Guests who write such lovely things in the visitors books about the cottage and how well they sleep there. How they tell her about the vivid dreams they have. Then when they leave she sees their lives plaid out to her. It’s amazing what these holiday makers have got up to, the indiscretions, the triumphs, the heartbreaks. She’s even had guests return to her cottage and the patchwork quilt. She does not blush when she remembers their most cherished or hidden memories, which she has viewed. She does not blush for the things she has seen them do, heard them think, felt them feel. 

Her voyeurs life is not with out it’s risks, for each beautiful or pleasurable memory there are ones of depravity and despair. Memories to taunt and to possess and to bludgeon any sane mind. Memories that don’t belong to her but seep into her own. So that soon she will not know where her mind ends and this myriad of others begins. 

In the day when her guests are out sight seeing or relaxing in their cosy cottage annex. She sits in silence in the house nestled amongst it soft sounds, her knitting needles clicking, whilst her mind screams and screams and screams. Yet she is constantly ravenous for more.

Black Cat Day

October 27th is national Black Cat Day! It's a day to celebrate black cats. The Cats" Protection League say it takes them a week longer to re-home a black cat than it does other cats. There have been a few theories to why black cats are harder to re-home ranging from some people foolishly think black cats are bad luck, to speculation that black cats don't photograph as well and people only want pets they can take nice pictures of to put on social media!

Well that last one is stupid as I have included here 3 pictures I took of my black cat Rookie and she photographed beautifully!  

Rookie was a rescue cat from the Cats Protection League and and older lady when I got her, as she was age 11. She lived for another 8 very happy years! 

So what of this persistent belief that black cats bring bad luck? I was brought up to think it was lucky if a black cat crossed your path, not unlucky. The black cat has many folklore associations including:

In  Scotland it was thought that a black cat entering your house brought prosperity!

In fact in most of Britain and in Japan black cats were / are seen as lucky.

But at odds with that belief in Britain and Europe black cats were also associated with bad luck, bad omens and witches. To the extent that cats and in particular black ones were persecuted along with many women and men during the middle ages and into the 17th Century as witches. In Europe black cats were often burned in baskets as witch hunters claimed they were the vehicle of the devil. There were many superstitions that evil spirits or witches could transform themselves into black cats.. So along with those poor men and women killed accused of witchcraft, many cats were also slaughtered. However there is little evidence that these mass cat burnings happened in Britain it was mainly a European phenomenon. 

It is said that a black cat could be saved from burning if it had a white mark somewhere on it's body. These were called angel marks. That is why to this day completely black cats are incredibly rare. Most black cats will have a white fleck somewhere on their coat often close to their throat. As these white flecked cats survived and their all black relatives were killed, genetics took their course and the white flecks were passed on.

Apparently many ships cats were black as they were considered lucky.

So it seems that the black cat has a history of mixed associations with good and bad luck. As well as my Rookie I also had a lovely black cat called Mr Shoo. Both cats were part siamese and loved to talk. I love black cats and truly believe like all cats, they bring great happiness to any home, but maybe black cats bring an extra bit of happiness! 

There have been some famous black cats in history and one of my favourites is Samuel Johnson's black cat Hodge. There is a statue of Hodge near Dr Johnson's house. Below is an extract from Boswell's life of Samuel Johnson about Johnson's love for Hodge:

Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, "Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;" and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed."

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. "Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats." And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, "But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot."

Black Shuck the demon hound of East Anglia

Today's blog is about the story of Black Shuck (Old Shuck) the legendary East Anglian spirit dog. The tales of Black Shuck are told around the East Anglian counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex although I have found mention of a Black Shuck story as far west as Bedfordshire, where I live. 

Black Shuck is a large black hound whose sightings were associated with bad luck but also in some cases good luck. Shuck is described as being an exceptionally large dog with shaggy black fur. He has large red glowing eyes often described as being as large as saucers. He is often pictured baring his fang like teeth. He is said to howl as well as bark. Tales of Black Shuck date back centuries and were collected together in the 18th and 19th Century when there was a real interest in folklore and tales of the paranormal. The stories about Black Shuck take a number of themes which I will explore below.

A photo of Venta Icenorum in Norfolk - the Roman city of the Iceni, the tribe Boudicca lead. It is found in the heart of Black Shuck country - taken on family visit in January 2012

Possibly the most notorious mention of Black Shuck is the tale of the demon hound of Bungay. It is told that on 4th August 1577 the church of St Mary in Bungay was struck by lightening during a storm. Members of the congregation reported that as the lightening struck a black hell hound appeared and ran in a crazed frenzy about the church attacking parishioners, in some reports killing two. Then the black dog ran off to the church at Blythburgh (about 12 miles away) where it is said that the black hound attacked and killed more people and left scorch marks on the church door. The town of Bungay has adopted a black dog as it's town emblem!

St Edmunds Church at Venta Iceenorum - January 2012

The earliest mention of Black hell hounds in East Anglia is found in the Chronicle of Peterborough (part of the Anglo Saxon Chronicles.) The tale recorded in 1127 says that Monks and the Abbot of Peterborough Abbey witnessed a strange and frightening hunt taking place in the deer park in Peterborough. The huntsmen were huge and rode large black horses. They were accompanied by wild black dogs of an enormous size with red glowing saucer eyes. The hunt was witnessed by many witnesses and made its way from Peterborough deer park and woodland towards Stamford.

River Tas - January 2012

East Anglia still has many wild and desolate places. With it's flat relentless landscape often including marsh and water meadow there is a kind of eeriness to the landscape you don't find elsewhere in the British Isles. The coastline is eroding, and particularly in the past it would have been hard for even locals to navigate through what may appear like flat, uninterrupted land which in reality can hide treacherous marsh land, water ditches or flooded fields. It's a place where water and land mix and mingle, a quality the old Celtic tribes were fascinated with. Many offerings have been found in the rivers and marshland of East Anglia.

I wrote a poem about this landscape back in 2013 when I was doing the challenge to write a poem every day:

A land sodden, submerged

The boundary between earth and water blurred

Trees emerge from the sky's reflection

Islands of mud break up rippling fields

There's an unnerving, unravelling of reality

In this quivering world of water 

Where our ancestors would give up offerings

Swords and precious jewels, cast into rivers

That swelled and sought out land 

Where the two realms link

And can be reached 

Where spirits of earth and water mix. 

This landscape lends it's self well to tales of big black hounds roaming, whether as a lesson to make sure children were home before dark or didn't stray too far, or simply as the backdrop to tales to thrill each other on a dark night.

Walberswick beach Suffolk - January 2012

It was said that if you saw black shuck whilst out walking this was a portent of your own death or the demise of someone close to you. So understandably many feared the sight of Black Shuck. At the coast however many said that seeing Black Shuck foretold a bad storm and boats would not set out after a sighting of the hound.

Later in the tales of Black Shuck during Victorian and more modern times sightings of Black Shuck did not spell doom. In fact a number of women travelling alone claimed that Black Shuck had saved them form getting lost or had scared off men attempting to attack them. I like this side of Black Shuck. I think he may be misunderstood! He warns sailors not to go out to sea and helps lone women in distress. I think Shuck is mellowing in his old age.

Looking across the north sea - January 2012

You can read a beautifully atmospheric blog post about a modern search for Black Shuck here by James Thurgill who has a really interesting blog.

Jack O'Lantern

I set myself a challenge to grow my own Pumpkins for Halloween this year. 

So back in February I planted some pumpkin seeds which eventually became these seedlings! 

From the seedlings I picked two strong plants which by June were flowering! 

Then 2 female flowers developed lovely pumpkins. They needed a bit of help from me transplanting male pollen on to the female flower but it worked and that's the main thing! I had to get a huge pot to grow the pumpkins in and transfer it to the flower border to give them room! 

But it was worth it as from the tiny seeds we got 2 big pumpkins which today we carved! Jase had got me a pumpkin carving knife last year and we made quick work of it!  We had one each. 

Jase went for a cat design I went for a more traditional Jack O'Lantern. 

So why do we have Jack O'Lanterns at Halloween? It appears from reading around that carving root vegetables and veg like turnips, potatoes and beets has been popular for some time. Though the carved turnips of Olden days Ireland are really quite scary as this picture from the Museum of Ireland shows: 

Carving turnips at Halloween seems to have been popular in the British Isles from at least the 18th Century though it may well have gone on before that. Written records of carved Jack O'Lanterns start in the late 18th and early 19th century when there was a real craze for recording folk lore and traditions. 

The pumpkin being native to America was adopted by European settlers who realised carving a pumpkin was a whole lot more fun and colourful than carving a turnip. (Though Baldrick from Blackadder would disagree.) Then pumpkin carving got introduced to the UK via America. But it's clear that although pumpkins aren't native to the British Isles the tradition of Jack O'Lanterns certainly started here. 

Why are they called Jack O'Lanterns though? Well like a Will O'The Wisp the name was used for flames of marsh gas seen above peat bogs or marshes particularly in places like East Anglia and Ireland. But why Jack? Well they're named after a character who appears in many folk tales as Stingy Jack and although there are many versions of his story the key theme is that Jack, a drunkard and trouble maker, out of some petty meanness or gambling trouble, ends up tricking the devil and imprisons him. He eventually lets the devil go with a promise that the devil will not take his soul. So when naughty Jack dies he is too bad to go to heaven but the devil keeps his word and won't let him into hell either. So Jack's soul wanders lost and in darkness until the devil gives him an ember in a turnip head with a carved out face on it, to light his way. Jack is doomed to wander like this for eternity!

It was thought that making a Jack O'Lantern would ward off evil or they could be used to scare folk into thinking Stingy Jack's lost soul was abroad. 

Photo of pumpkins at Kings Cross last year

Finally a poem I wrote last year: 

Heavy 

Curved belly fruit.

I knock 

And you answer 

A hollow echo, 

That means you are ripe,

For the carving,

For the scooping,

For the slashing of facial features,  

Burning you from the inside

To illuminate these grinning holes.

Halloween pumpkin 

You do not deserve this! 

Mundane hauntings

Today I am going to share a ghost story with probably one of the most mundane settings in the whole of the UK. It will be of no surprise to anyone who lives in Biggleswade to discover that the town holds that accolade of most mundane setting for a haunting. Yes, in Biggleswade we can boast a haunted pub (probably more than one.) a haunted bridge, known as murder bridge, and a headless horseman. But Biggleswade also boats the bone chillingly scary, wait for it, haunted Pound Stretcher! Yes on the high street there is a rather ordinary and slightly shabby Pound Stretcher shop selling cheap cleaning products, fizzy drinks, pet supplies, plastic garden tat and other odds and ends. This pound stretcher, however is haunted.

The staff have called their ghost Aggie and she apparently shows stock on to the floor, messed about with the lights in the mens toilets and clatters about making a racket! Spooky! You can read all about Biggleswade's ghosts here and here.

But whether you believe in ghosts or not I think the sharing of ghost stories, urban myths and folklore is interesting in of its self. I love the way different cultures have different takes on similar folklore and urban myths. Each emphasising unique anxieties within their own culture or society. Just as over time the folk tales and urban myths evolve within a society. I'm glad we have a tradition of sharing spooky stories on dark, stormy nights. Such a tradition brought us Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. If I get time I may dedicate a blog post to the urban myths and ghost stories of Japan; now there's a country with some seriously freaky stories!

October colour, vivid imagination and poetry

As promised here are a selection of photos I took whilst out walking near to my house of the autumn colours. There seem to be a lot of yellows this year. You can see all of the photographs here on my flickr page. You can compare the pictures I took this year to ones I took on the same walk exactly a year ago here. There did seem to be more oranges and reds on show last year at this time. I think next week will be the real show stopper of a week for colour, as long as we don't have any high winds to blow away the leaves! 

The woodland I walk through is called the Millennium wood and was only planted a few decades ago. I am so glad that it was planted because now 15 years into this millennia it is looking stunning! As I walked yesterday afternoon I was passed by very few people in the woods, I had passed a few dog walkers on the path to the woodland but once in the woods it was just me. I could hear squirrels scampering in the trees but none would actually pose for a photo! There was lovely bird song from the mournful robin and thrush. It was a lovely magical half hour.

I have always liked to think of the trees as being alive like the Ents are in the Lord of the Rings. Usually they are sleepy, content to just watch the world go by. But at this time of year I imagine the trees having one last lease of energy before the go into hibernation for the winter. The bright colours are their party gear. I imagine the trees dancing, their scarlet and fiery leaves like wild costumes and hair streaming behind them as they dance! I do have a rather active imagination. There was one beautiful tree near to my flat in Catford and every autumn I waited for it to be transformed. It's leaves would turn a coppery orange, contrasting with it's almost black bark. I would imagine it as a witch come to life as a tree, full of energy and power. Her branches like fingers waiting to snare unsuspecting people as they walked below her! I loved that witch tree. It stood outside the news agents next to the Chinese take away, quite mundane but extraordinary.

Talking of the landscape transformed made me think of this poem I wrote on the train to Inverness in 2013.

Highland Goddess

I spring from mountain side to mountain side

My feet are bare, my ankles ringed with bells,

I dance to the bang of a tambourine, 

Pushing aside, with my hands, the clouds.

Agile giant dressed in deepest green

Hair like autumn leaves,

The sun slants like a disco beam

Illuminates my limbs,

I cavort with grace and strength

Swirling and swooping 

Rising and stooping, 

Shaping the seasons, moulding their mood.

Once you have seen me dance 

You will be filled with joy,

And like the girl in those red shoes

Or the children seeing that pied piper pipe,

You will have to follow me, 

You will have to dance like me,

The kaleidoscopic rainbow maker 

The Goddess sized booty shaker! 

On finding that poem I also stumbled across this one written at the same time:

Soft sigh of green

Rain drops on leaves

The shiver and quiver

Of trees in this weather

A silk wash world

Colours bleeding and seeping

Of sea scape and hillside

Forest and farm land

Ringing with rain

And brimming with life. 

Cute alert!!!!

Later I'll be sharing some photos I took yesterday if autumn colour locally but none are as sweet as the photos of cute animals enjoying Autumn here  I guarantee it will be the best thing you look at today!

Loch Ness - mystery and place where dreams come true

This blog post is dedicated to my best friend Lorraine Cran and her son Ben as well as her Auntie Kay and Uncle Jackie 

Picture of Loch Ness at Dores in 2012

The Loch Ness Monster Story

Before I tell my story of Loch Ness and cover the bit about dreams coming true, I thought I'd do a quick summary of the Loch Ness monster story.

So we have all heard of Loch Ness haven't we and most importantly we've all heard of Nessie, the monster who lurks beneath the Loch's deep dark water? Loch Ness is so deep it contains more fresh water than all of the lakes of England and Wales combined! The water is exceptionally murky due to the high peat content. Loch Ness lies close to Inverness in the highlands of Scotland and their have been legends swirling around it for over 1500 years.

Picture of Loch Ness from 2006

The myths of a monster were started by St Columba - well by the monk who wrote the Life of St Columba about a century after he died. Now St Columba travelled the length of Britain as many Celtic places have claims to him including Cornwall, Wales and the highlands and islands of Scotland. It is claimed he was visiting the Picts near what is now Inverness and he found them with a fisherman who had recently died. The locals claimed the fisherman had been mauled by a water monster. However, this happened in the river Ness not the Loch. Any way St Columba made one of his side kicks swim into the river and when the water monster duly appeared, the St showed the monster the cross and forbade it from doing any harm. The water monster obliged and fled in terror and naturally the Picts declared it a miracle and converted to Christianity. A legend was born. Now if you can read latin you can read the actual source document from the late 7th or early 8th Century, which has been put online here. You've got to love the internet and Wikipedia for alerting me to the fact that this manuscript held in a Swiss library is now online!

Tree on bank of Loch Ness 2006

I read about the St Columba story whilst visiting Urquhart Castle near Drumnadrochit earlier this year with my friend Lorraine and her son Ben. Urquhart Castle is fascinating in its self, perched on the edge of Loch Ness ever watchful. I wonder if the walls of the castle could talk whether they'd spin yarns about the times they had seen Nessie? The day I visited Urquhart Castle it was sunny and the Loch's dark mirror like waters reflected that deep blue back at us.

Urquhart castle 2015

About 3 weeks before Lorraine, Ben and I visited Urquhart castle some tourists from the Philippines  shot video there, which claims to be of Nessie or at least a strange whirl pool like ripple effect you sometimes see when a large fish or animal is about to emerge from water. You can read about their encounter and see the video here. I particularly like the fact that their local guide was waiting in the car whilst they looked around and then took the footage, because of course he'd seen it all before! Naturally he is a believer and has his own Nessie sighting story. You find very few locals who aren't believers in my experience. Yes, cynics say, well it's in the locals interest to perpetuate the myth; it brings in tourists! But once you've been to the Loch there is no denying that it is not only stunningly beautiful but also incredibly eery.

Of course there was a long gap between St Colunba's initial sighting and the modern Nessie myth as we know it.

Loch Ness from Urquhart castle, the same day as above but cloud cover changes the surface to a silvery shimmer within seconds 2015

Glimpsing the Loch through Urquhart Castle ruins 2015

Although there is an account of a Victorian seeing a strange creature in the Loch, there is little information before then about any other sightings. It's important to bear in mind that Loch Ness is incredibly remote especially so before the 20th Century. A study of Scottish folklore relating to kelpie and other water creatures showed that Loch Ness was the most mentioned setting for such stories. Modern eye witness account don't begin in earnest until 1933 that coincides with the road being built along side the Loch, which opened up the area for business and crucially tourism. The first reported sighting of Nessie in 1933 was by tourists and Nessie wasn't in the water at all at first, they saw her moving across the road and into the Loch! Then a motorcyclist blamed crashing his bike, later in 33, on seeing the monster also.

Later in the 1930s came the famous "surgeon's photos" in the 1970s the most famous of the two pictures was declared a hoax. However interest in Nessie in the 1930s was strong enough that the Chief Constable for Invernesshire police wrote in 1938 that he was genuinely concerned about hunters killing Nessie!

Over the following decades right up until this year there have been more sightings, more dodgy photography, more shaky films, more confirmed hoaxes, more genuinely intriguing stories but nothing definitive. There is even a theory that Nessie is now dead.

You can read a summary of sightings, photos and films of Nessie on Wikipedia or far more in-depth information on this blog all about Nessie 

Loch Ness Tree 2012

My Loch Ness Story 

I always wanted to visit Loch Ness, I liked the idea of there being some large prehistoric aquatic creature living there. Then in 1992 I watched a TV programme about Loch Ness featuring a man who had given up his job and had gone to live on the banks of Loch Ness in a library van. He now dedicated his life to making clay Nessie models and to searching for the Loch Ness Monster. I have a feeling I watched the TV programme before starting university and the spirit of this man living in his mobile library van stuck with me. I love the romantic notion of leaving it all behind and escaping to a simpler way of life. I know in reality I'd get sick of the cold and I'd get bored but still I saw it as a really hopeful story. To the extent that 5 years later I got the opportunity to visit Loch Ness and I immediately thought of this man.

Loch Ness and Sky 2012

At the time I was staying with my friend Lorraine at her Auntie Kay's house. We talked about visiting Loch Ness and I told them about the library van man, not only did they know who I meant but that night there was a repeat of the programme about him! So we drove over to Dores, where he was pitched up with his van, and there he was still living his dream as a Nessie hunter and selling his models. I still have the model of Nessie I bought from him on the window sill in my study.

Anyway the man with the library van (I'm not sure if he still has it) is called Steve Feltham. You can read a great article about him (originally in the Guardian) here on the Dores website. Steve has a website too with lots of info on it and even a facebook group! I really recommend you read the article linked to above as it is a very inspiring read for anyone who wants to pursue a creative dream or is just tired of the rat race.

Loch Ness and Trees 2012

Since 1997 I have visited Loch Ness many times, usually with my friend Lorraine and I never tire of its ever changing beauty and its mystery. Loch Ness truly is enchanting whether we ever find out what is lurking beneath its surface or not. Sometimes I wonder if the mystery is better than finding out it's all been hoaxes and otter sightings!

Loch Ness and wooden Nessie 2012 

Halloween mystery series - The Mull Air Mystery

I have decided to try to post some different things on my blog in the run up to Hallowe'en which all have a mysterious, spooky or autumn theme. My first post, I should have posted yesterday, is about a 40 year mystery I heard about for the first time last night when watching a BBC 2 programme about the Scottish Islands. There was a couple of minutes devoted to the disappearance of Peter Gibbs from the island of Mull on Christmas Eve 1975. The short piece piqued my interest and I discovered a recent radio 4 programme also dedicated to the mystery.

The bare bones of the story are that Peter Gibbs a world war 2 fighter pilot decided to take a light plane out for a circuit of an airfield on Mull on Christmas Eve, never to be seen alive again. The air field is unique in that it is attached to a hotel and many people drinking in the bar, witnessed Peter setting off and there was an extensive search for him when he didn't return from what should have been a short trip. Four months later his body was found on a hillside by a shepherd, his body showing no obvious signs of injury that you'd expect from a plane crash. The plane has never officially been found although a similar one has been found in the Loch at Mull.

The Radio 4 programme is part of a series presented by Steve Punt called Punt PI. Those of a certain age (like me) will fondly remember Steve Punt as being part of the Mary Whitehouse Experience comedy line up along with Hugh Denis, Rob Newman and David Baddiel. Talking of which, only a few minutes ago I was talking to my Mum about handbags and we still refer to bag worn across the body as a "milky milky bag" because of the Hugh Dennis character Mr Strange or Milky Milky in the Mary Whitehouse Experience. I can never wear my bag like that - not after  at age 17 a boy in Doncaster shouted "Milky Milky" at me for wearing my handbag across my body! Thanks Mary Whitehouse Experience!

Any way back to the Mull Air Mystery, the Steve Punt programme is actually very good once you get used to Punt's whimsical style. I particularly like the interviews with old locals who spin yarns about farmer suddenly remembering that they heard a plane fly over their house all those years ago! Steve Punt even speaks to the police pathologist who covered the case and Gibbs' son. There are no satisfactory answers to the mystery at the end of the programme. So you can make your own mind up about it.

Any way that's my first mystery for my little series running up to Halloween. I'm definitely also going to cover the Loch Ness Monster, Black Shuck the demon hound, the haunted pound shop in Biggleswade (ha ha), The history of Halloween, Pumpkin growing lore, a seasonal recipe and I may even post a spooky short story I've written!