Ghosts at Christmas (7 page)

In 1810 work began on the Taunton and Somerset Hospital, resulting in immense progression being made in regard to the health and care of the people of Taunton and Somerset. From the moment the foundation stone was laid on April 11, the spirit of Henry Transom was laid too. No more accounts of ‘odd
happenings’ were reported at the house in East Street and all fell quiet in Taunton. Henry Transom was evidently so passionate about seeing his much-wanted hospital built that he had to come back from beyond the grave to see it.

During my research into ghosts associated with the festive season, I happened to stumble upon a Christmas Ghost story which has to be one of the most heartbreaking tales I have ever heard and allegedly resulted in one of South Tyneside’s most unhappy ghosts.

A colleague, Violet, recalled a tale that was told to her by her mother, who in turn had the story told to her by her mother. This is how the classic ghost story survives through the years; but having said that, it is also how the ghost story can become distorted and potentially embellished, so we must be careful here.

Dating back at least to the mid-to-late nineteenth century, this tale, which is quite well known by the Westoe folk in South Tyneside, begins one Christmas Eve when a young lady, seemingly a housemaid or a domestic worker, had a ‘night out’.

She worked in one of the ‘big houses’ at Westoe and, it seems, was instructed by her master not to partake in local Christmas festivities. However, these strict instructions were blatantly disregarded by the servant girl and she proceeded to put on her ‘glad rags’ and ‘hit the town’. Like most folk, she wanted to go out and celebrate the festive season with friends. She quietly crept out of her master’s residence and made her way to one of the local inns. Not knowing the exact year, it’s difficult to say just where she may have ended up, but in all probability it would have been the Westoe Tavern, or the now long-demolished Mariner’s Arms. However, she may have journeyed a little farther and downed a few at the Vigilant Inn or the Ship Inn at Harton Village nearby.

After her night out at the inn, she merrily made her way back to her master’s house and tried to gain access. However, she was met by her master who was furious with her. Not only did he seriously reprimand her for refusing to comply with his orders, but he also told the girl never to darken his door again. He closed the door and locked it behind him, leaving her out in the cold. Now she was in big trouble, for not only was the master’s house her place of employment, it was also where she lived.

It was a bitterly cold winter’s night and thick snow had fallen across the land. The servant girl had nowhere to go, so she began banging on the doors and windows of her master’s house, pleading with him to forgive her and let her back in, but he refused. In desperation, she began banging on the doors of the other houses in the neighbourhood, but to no avail. The only thing she was met with was the twitching of the curtains at the windows, and the occasional individual peering from inside the warm and cosy abodes. All she could do now was attempt to find some shelter for
the night. Frantically looking around, she spotted a large hollow tree, so she hurriedly scrambled over to it. As she climbed into the hollow, she sobbed uncontrollably. She curled herself up in a ball, and tried to keep warm. The following morning she was found, still inside the tree, frozen to death. My colleague tells me that the ghost of the young woman has been seen in Westoe village on Christmas Eve, still searching desperately for shelter.

I wanted to know more about this sad tale so I contacted Mike Hallowell; for the last twelve years Mike has penned a weekly spooky column called WraithScape (formerly Bizarre) in the
Shields Gazette
. He was very much intrigued when I asked him about the tale but admitted that he knew nothing about it. However, Mike did make a suggestion. With the information I had collated, he would write the story up in his column and, at the same time, make an appeal to the good folk of Westoe – or anywhere else for that matter – to contact me if they could shed any light upon the tale.

What was the servant’s name? Where exactly did she work? Where was she from? Did she really exist? Could we trace anyone who had actually seen her ghost? The piece went in the paper on Thursday, 28 January 2010 and only one response was received thereafter. In a letter addressed to Mike Hallowell, a lady claimed that 200 yards down the lane that runs next to the Westoe public house stood a tree trunk that had been filled in with black pitch. Rumour had it that someone had been murdered and then stuffed into the hollow tree: she wondered if this was, or could have been, the same girl. The plot, it seems, begins to thicken! Further investigations are being carried out by both Mike and myself in order to try and get to the bottom of the ghost girl of Westoe – watch this space.

Upon perusing the Christmas edition of
Paranormal Magazine
, I discovered an article dedicated to ghostly goings on around Christmas time which had been written and submitted by John Stoker. One story in particular caught my eye and I contacted John to ask him if I could re-print the story – entitled, ‘On Christmas Day in the Morning’ – and he very kindly obliged.

In the days of the slave trade the
Betsy Jane
was returning to England having sold its human cargo and was approaching the Solway Firth. It was Christmas Eve and the crew could hear the church bells on the shore. The captain was now a wealthy man and boasted that the sounds of coins were sweeter than any church bell. His words were cut short by the sound of shattering timbers as the ship hit the Giltstone Rock. The vessel sank within a few minutes with the loss of the entire crew, leaving no sound but the peal of the church bells of Whitehaven. The following
Christmas the
Betsy Jane
was seen again from the shore and has continued her ghostly voyage ever since.

It is said that the Revd Nathaniel Templeman, who was the rector of St Peter’s Church in Dorchester, died in 1813 and his body was subsequently buried in the church itself. By all accounts he was a strict member of the clergy and was known to have kept a close eye on his parishioners.

On Christmas Eve the following year two of the church wardens were in the church preparing it for Christmas and decorating the aisles. When they completed their tasks they decided to have a rest and drink a sly glass or two of the communion wine that was being stored in the vestry. As they got comfortable on the wooden pews, they suddenly felt that they were not alone.

Before they had a chance to get even one mouthful of wine, they were confronted by the ghost of Nathaniel Templeman. He thundered his way down the church aisle, hands raised and a displeasing look upon his face. Although it was clear that the rector was shouting and yelling at the men, no sounds emerged – a bit like watching the television with the volume turned off. One man dropped to his knees and began to pray, and the other just simply passed out. The phantom rector then made his way to the altar before disappearing into thin air.

The rector was obviously very much annoyed with the two wardens for stealing the communion wine. Making the point in the way he did ensured that these two opportunists would think twice before helping themselves to Church property again.

Many years ago, a couple from South Tyneside went to stay with some of their family in South Africa for the Christmas and New Year period. When they got there, they were told a chilling ghost tale which, by all accounts, was true. The story was relayed to the family on Christmas Eve, days after the actual event.

It was their grandchild who told the story. It appears that he had gone to visit a friend whose parents had decided to go out for an evening drive. Left with the house to themselves, like most teenagers, the two friends had plans for an evening of partying.

However, their plans were short-lived because, shortly after the parents had left, they returned home in a very distressed state.
When the boys asked what was wrong, the two adults wasted no time in explaining what had had occurred. They were out driving when they decided to stop somewhere for a bite to eat, and so headed to a pub they knew that sold good food. This pub was ‘out in the sticks’ so to speak, so they were forced to drive down an old, deserted country road.

About halfway down the road the couple noticed a woman standing at the roadside. At this point she must have been about 200ft away. The car approached the woman, who was waving at the car, trying to get them to stop. She looked distressed so the couple pulled over to see if they could help in any way. The husband got out from the car and walked around to the distraught lady. He asked what was wrong but the woman could not speak. He asked again, but still no words came from the lady’s mouth. He asked one final time and, yet again, she uttered no words. She must be in shock, he thought to himself.

Then the woman pointed towards a copse of trees about 50ft away from them. As he looked in the direction she was pointing he noticed something. Upon taking a closer look he was stunned to see the wreckage of a car that had obviously careered off the road and had crashed into the trees. He told the distraught woman not to worry and rushed back to his car to ask his wife to phone for help. When he returned to find the lady, he was dumbfounded to see that she had vanished from the scene altogether. He stopped and thought for a moment, wondering where she could have got to, but then realised that there was no time to lose; if there were injured people in the car they would need medical assistance, and quickly.

He ran as fast as he could towards the car and, as he approached it from the rear, he could see that there were two seriously injured people in the front seat. He dashed around the front to see if they were still alive but both were slumped forwards and obviously dead. He took hold of the man in the driving seat and sat him back to make sure that he
was
deceased. He then turned his attention to the woman in the passenger seat. As he looked
closely at her, he was horrified to see that
she
was the very same woman who had just flagged him down from the roadside moments earlier.

He then heard a faint cry coming from the back of the car and when he looked closer he saw a young baby under the debris. The baby had survived the crash.

The ghost of the recently killed mother, it seems, was still looking after her child – even in death.

This is not the first account of a ghost coming back from the dead to rescue somebody. A similar occurrence happened on the A1 motorway between Morpeth and Berwick-upon-Tweed when the ghost of a back-packer returned from beyond the grave to save the victim of a car crash, a crash that the ghost had inadvertently caused.

On 23 December 1926 two policemen were on foot patrol near St Peter’s Church in Hereford when they both saw something that frightened them half to death. As they were strolling past the church gate they happened to glance inside towards the church door and see a ‘strange, hooded figure dressed in a black cloak’. He drifted silently past the iron railings on the outskirts of the church grounds and disappeared from view.

The two policemen decided to investigate further, just in case it was a burglar, and ventured inside the church grounds. They soon caught sight of the hooded figure once more, but were horrified to then see it drift straight through some locked iron gates and float off towards the porch of the church. Before the two bobbies could react, the figure then floated straight through the locked doors of the church and disappeared from view altogether.

The policemen’s account of the ghost of St Peter’s spread through Hereford quickly and it was not long before others
ventured forth and relayed their own ghost stories; the policemen’s encounter was not the first time the hooded figure had been seen. The father of a former organist at the church admitted that he too, had seen the ghost. He had seen the black hooded figure on a few occasions and on one of those occasions it had floated through the same wooden door. He pointed out that it was always seen in late December too, as that was when he had his sightings of the phantom.

Some folk came forward with ‘identities’ for the hooded spectre. Some said it was Walter de Lacy, who had fallen from the church tower back in the thirteenth century. Others suggested it may be the ghost of a monk who had allegedly been murdered at the altar. The organist’s father claimed to have seen the monk inside the church, again in December.

After a while, the ghost story dissipated and the spectre was seen no more … until eight years later, when he made his appearance again. Several locals had claimed to see the figure around first light, when they were passing the church while on their way to work.

This spate of new ghost sightings brought pandemonium to the town when hundreds of would-be ghost hunters arrived at the churchyard in an effort to see the hooded phantom. On one occasion 200 people turned up in the hope of seeing the ghost. The authorities decided that enough was enough and so, in an
effort to quell the unwanted attention, they declared that a joker had been caught in the act ‘faking the ghost’– it worked. The crowds stopped their vigils and life returned to normal in the village. However, the ghost was not the result of a joker and more sightings occurred … always in December.

To this day the ghost of St Peter’s in Hereford is still said to be seen floating up the path and through the church doors, just like he always has. It seems to me that the ghost of St Peter’s is nothing more that a residual ghost of a former monk or man of the cloth that has simply trodden this path many times when he was alive and continues to do so many years after he died. But why does he haunt so close to Christmas time? One can only wonder.