Andrew MacKenzie - A Gallery Of Ghosts

[dem bones]

Andrew MacKenzie (ed.) - A Gallery Of Ghosts: An Anthology Of Reported Experience (Arthur Baker, 1972)

Craig Dodd

.
Andrew MacKenzie - Foreword

Andrew MacKenzie - Dialogue with Rosalind Heywood (Vice President of the Society For Psychical Research)
Margaret Murray - What I Believe about Ghosts
Pamela Frankau - A Ghost Seen in a Mirror
John Masters - The Ghosts of India
Ngaio Marsh - The Boy with the Flowers
W. H. Hudson - Faces in the Wind
Maurice Collis - The Guardian of the Treasure
Alice Pollock - Pictures in the Crystal
George Russell (A.E.) - Vision in a Ruined Chapel
C. G. Jung - The Walkers by the Tower
Augustus Hare - The Dream House
Cesare Lombroso - The Bottle-Breaking Case
A. R. G. Owen - The Sauchie Poltergeist
Frank Podmore - The Worksop Case
Sabine Baring-Gould - The Haunting of Lew House
Osbert Sitwell - A Family Ghost
L. A. G. Strong - The Return
Harold Owen - The Apparition in my Cabin
The Earl of Balfour and J. G. Piddington - The Ghost of Grandfather Bull
John Bjorkhem - Did Harry Price Return?

Blurb:
Ghost stories are not confined to the pages of fiction, to collections of folk tales and legends, or, on a more serious level, to the publications of the Society for Psychical Research and similar organizations. They may be found in such unlikely places as the sober biographies and autobiographies from which Andrew MacKenzie, a member of the Council of the Society for Psychical Research and author of Apparitions and Ghosts, has compiled his fascinating anthology.

These ghost stories are all the more enthralling because they are taken from the personal experience of such well-known writers as Osbert Sitwell, C. G. Jung, L. A. G. Strong, Sabine Baring-Gould, Ngaio Marsh, Maurice Collins, John Masters and Pamela Frankau. Andrew MacKenzie's book contains literally dozens of ghost stories, including some hitherto unpublished ones from his own collection. In the dialogue with the author which opens the book Rosalind Heywood, the well-known writer on psychical research, relates her own experiences with ghosts. These, along with the other stories in this astounding collection, are guaranteed to intrigue and provoke speculation on the entire field of paranormal experience.

Authentic ghost stories told without embellishment rarely come across well when pitted against their more glamorous fictional counterparts. Who wants to read about some-one's granddad suddenly appearing in his favourite armchair then vanishing without so much as torching the house while the family are asleep. let alone stabbing a hapless antiquarian in the eye with a knitting needle? It's unfair, but normally, I'd not have given Mr. McKenzie's book a second glance were it not for the many illustrious names among the contributors: L. A. G. "Breakdown" Strong; the ever-mischievous Augustus "The Vampire Of Croglin Grange" Hare: Sabine Baring-Gould of the wretched Dead Finger, Harry "Borley Rectory" Price's ghost ...

From memory, the stories and extracts are, for the most part, the usual unspectacular anecdotes of the you-had-to-be-there variety, but the line-up marks this as a glam-era precursor of Stephen Jones' wonderful Dancing With The Dark.

[dem bones]

Pamela Frankau - A Ghost Seen in a Mirror: "A humped white shape, like a dwarf. It scuttled straight to the middle of the landing and then it wasn't there."

As seen by the novelist at Claremont School. Eastbourne, when she was ten years old. Editor MacKenzie appends several reports of phantoms reflected in a looking glass although otherwise invisible. Also Stanley Lupino is visited by the winking ghost of Dan Leno in a Drury Lane dressing room.

Maurice Collis - The Guardians of the Treasure: .... is the ghost of an old woman. As was the custom in Upper Burma, the King had this unfortunate person buried alive so her spirit may turn away looters.

John Masters - The Ghosts of India: Phantoms of Brits murdered during the Mutiny of 1857 and a ghostly nurse in Clomnel, Tipperary (of "witch-burning" repute).

Ngaio Marsh - The Boy with the Flowers: Author claims her mother was blessed/ cursed with the second sight, and cites three examples of her precognitive powers; a premonition of Uncle Reggie's death and two insignificant episodes involving a boy having his tonsils out and a second carrying a bunch of geraniums.

W. H. Hudson - Faces in the Wind: One autumn evening on a London street, author encounters the disembodied face of a fourteen-year-old girl of his acquaintance fluttering in the breeze. Two years later, a similar episode on the Cornish coast, this time involving floating features of woman of mature years. Author convinced both were cases of troubled females reaching out to him telepathically.

Osbert Sitwell - A Family Ghost: How the ghost of the author's great-great-grandfather. Sir Sitwell Sitwell, took one last look around Renishaw before surrendering to burial. Account has ring of "authenticity" about it in that, even at little over four pages, it is really really boring.

Augustus Hare - The Dream House: Mrs. Butler nightly dreams of the most beautiful house in the world." on leaving Ireland, she and her husband view properties in England, eventually settling in Hampshire - in the exact replica of her dream house. On enquiring why the price is so reasonable, the estate agent informs her: "The fact is the house has a great reputation for being haunted, but you, madam, need be under no apprehensions, for you are yourself the ghost!"

[dem bones]

Cesare Lombroso - The Bottle-Breaking Case:

On the 16th November (1900) in Turin, Via Bava, No. 6, in a little inn kept by a man named Fumero, there began to be heard in the day time, but to a greater extent at night, a series of strange noises. In seeking out the cause, it was found that full or empty wine bottles had been broken in the wine cellar. More frequently they would descend from their places and roll along the floor, heaping themselves against the closed door in such a way as to obstruct the entrance when it was opened. In the sleeping chamber on the upper floor (which communicated by a staircase with the servants‘ room near the small public room of the inn) garments were twisted up, and some of them transported themselves downstairs into the room beneath. Two chairs in coming down were broken. Copper utensils which had been hung upon the walls of the servants’ dining room fell to the floor and slid over long reaches of the room, sometimes getting broken. A spectator put his hat on the bed of the upper chamber; it disappeared and was later found in the filth-heap of the courtyard below.

Careful examination failed to disclose any normal cause for these performances No help could be got from either the police or the priest. Nay, when the latter was performing his office, a huge bottle full of wine was broken at his very feet. A vase of flowers that had been brought into the inn descended safely on to a table from the moulding above the door, where it had been placed. Two large bottles of rosolio, which they were distilling, were broken in broad daylight. Five or six times, even in the presence of the police, a little staircase ladder, which leaned against the wall at one side of the main room of the inn, was slowly lowered to the floor, yet without hurting anyone. A gun went across the room and was found on the floor in the opposite corner. Two bottles came down from a high shelf with some force. They were not broken, but they bruised the elbow of a porter, giving him a slight ‘black-and-blue spot’.

The people kept crowding in to see, and the police during their investigations gave the Fumero family to understand that they suspected them of simulating, so that the poor creatures decided to suffer the annoyance in silence. They even gave out that it had ceased (after an imaginary visit from me), so as to escape at least the guying, if not the damage. I began attentively to study the case ....

.

At last a phantom worthy of our mettle. Abrupt termination of haunting has depressing air of finality about it - the vandalism ceased on the dismissal of a thirteen year old waiter - but, even so, Peter Haining might have included this in Poltergeist without fear of dissatisfied customers.

A. R. G. Owen - The Sauchie Poltergeist: Levitating furniture, slithering bedlinen, an airborne shaving brush and a haunted hot water bottle. Focal point of these phenomena, Virginia, an eleven-year-old uprooted from her home in Donegal to live with relatives in the Scottish lowlands. Events - which occurred over the winter of 1960-61 - witnessed by five independent professionals of good standing. I'm all for a bit of a scare, but this is going too far! It's like something out of Carrie!

John Björkhem - Did Harry Price Return?: More to the point, if so, why should he choose to appear to an impoverished, emaciated night-watchman in Malmo? Perhaps Price himself supplied the answer during one of many exchanges with patient 'Osten Erson': "To give science something to think about."