More uncanny stories from around the UK
By Richard Holland
Continuing our selection from a book of ‘Uncanny Stories’ published in the 1920s:
GLOUCESTERSHIRE – Do houses have ghosts? Walking on Stinchcombe Hill in Gloucestershire one day I suddenly saw three gables of a large house over the tops of some trees. I was fairly familiar with the place and was very surprised that I had not seen the house before. On making enquiries, I found there was no house in that position, but there had been a large house there and it had been burnt down years previously. (There are several cases on records of phantom houses being seen and I’ll return to the subject at a later date – Ed.)
BATH – Twenty years ago my mother kept a boarding house in this historic city. Amongst the furniture was a massive mahogany bedstead which had been bought from the previous owner of the house. This bedstead was used in the best bedroom. Imagine my mother’s astonishment when on three different occasions visitors declared they had the bedclothes stripped off from the bed at midnight. I may state that each came from a different county and neither had heard of the happening. One gentleman was quite indignant, saying the next morning: ‘You might tell your visitors to make sure of their room as it is not pleasant to have an intruder taking the clothes off your bed!’ After this my mother sold the bedstead to a dealer for a mere song, and who knows, maybe the ‘ghost’ is even now disturbing somebody’s sweet slumber.
EDGWARE ROAD, London – Some years ago we were living in a flat off the Edgware Road. My little boy, aged six years, and myself were the only occupants of the bedroom, my boy sleeping in a bed beside my own. I woke up one night and saw my mother, who had been dead twenty years, standing at the foot of my bed, dressed as I had last seen her. She did not speak to me, but looked at me very hard and then slowly moved backwards through the folding doors still keeping her eyes fixed on mine. I saw her close the door.
Immediately my boy, who was asleep, sat up in bed and said: ‘Gran’ma’s gone, Mamma,’ and lay back on his pillow. My child’s words astonished me more than my mother’s apparition. It has always been a mystery to me how he knew it was his grandmother I had seen.
LEICESTER, LEICESTERSHIRE - Recently a friend, who is somewhat psychic, awakened in the night to see a faint form standing by her husband, on the other side of the bed. The form moved away, and her husband awoke in great agitation, saying ‘something’ had clutched his wrists. The next day news reached them that a mutual friend had passed away in the night. This friend had had a habit, when she wanted him to do anything for her, of clasping him impulsively by the wrists, and saying: ‘Now you will do this for me, won’t you?’
[SOURCE: 'Uncanny Stories Told By Daily News Readers', 1920s]
© Richard Holland 2008
