Michael Morpurgo - Ghostly Haunts

[dem bones]

Michael Morpurgo (ed.) - Ghostly Haunts (Collins/ The National Trust, 1994)

Paul Young

Illustrated by Nilesh Mistry

Michael Morpurgo - Introduction

Ted Hughes - The Deadfall
Berlie Doherty - Hurry, Please
Michael Morpurgo - Silver Ghost
John Quinn - The Rising Stones
Dick King-Smith - Godfrey's Revenge
Anne Merrick - Mirror, Mirror
Joan Aiken - The Thing In Waiting
Alick Rowe - The Dorabella Variation
Terence Blacker - A Lady in Blue, Unidentified
Jamila Gavin - The Demon Drummer

The Authors
The National Trust
National Trust Properties Featured In The Stories


Blurb
Have you ever visited a spooky place and wondered whether the ghosts of the people who lived there still linger around the buildings or the grounds?

This haunting collection of new stories featuring real places eerily captures the atmosphere and history surrounding them, creating a ghostly world that will stay with you long after you've read the last word...

"Michael Morpurgo has persuaded ten contemporary children's authors to produce an attractive variety of ghosts hallmarked by the National Trust." - The Times

"Ghostly Haunts provides a rich and substantial collection of good, classy, classic ghost tales." - TES


A commemorative collection specially commissioned to celebrate the National Trust's centenary, guaranteed to become a classic of its kind.

An inspired idea for a ghost story collection, although "guaranteed to become a classic of its kind" is probably overdoing things. Dick King-Smith's contribution, Godfrey's Revenge, sees the ghost of a headless chicken putting the willies up a farmer but don't get too excited: there's a disappointing absence of blood and talking livestock are just plain irritating outside of Animal Farm. Of perhaps greater appeal to those who haunt this section - it even includes some cute Jamesian-lite touches (Blacker devotes his days to studying the mouldering journal of the Reverend Radcliffe) - is:

Terence Blacker - A Lady in Blue, Unidentified: Challenged by the National Trust to disprove the existence of vampires, Mr. Blacker, a sceptic in matters 'supernatural' sets out for Oxburgh House, Norfolk, reputedly the haunt of amorous blood-sucker Lady Margaret Challoner. The legend goes that Sir Edmund caught his wife "at sport" with the young cook, Joshua Spiers and ran them both through with his sword before hanging himself in the Great Hall as an encore. Upstaging the adults, little Edward Challoner, nine, then drowned himself in the lake.

Oxburgh House is suitably remote. Other than the ever-so-slightly sinister NT caretaker, Gilbert Franck, the only person Blacker sees during his stay is local nanny Miss Preston, a lady in a blue dress, knitting and singing happily to herself in the churchyard. She so resembles the subject of a portrait in the gallery that Blacker suspects he's being hoaxed.

"This is all a stunt, isn't it? The National Trust is so desperate for tourists that it has set up little vampire games to fool writers of its infernal books. It's .... it's a scandal."

A scandal for sure but no stunt. From the humblest volunteer right the way through to their Royal Patron, The National Trust are the undead! The soggy spectre of little Edward tries to warn the author that Franck and Miss Preston mean him no good, but luckily he's too late ...

Nilesh Mistry

[dem bones]

Recent post — Ghosts have no feelings: a collection of Ghost Stories centred on Warwick Castle — by our resident warrior princess prompted another dip into;

Nilesh Mistry (colour illo's are unique to the hard cover edition; paperback has same images in monochrome)

Jamila Gavin - The Demon Drummer: The centuries-old haunting of Mompesson House, Wiltshire, by the ghost of a boy in the King's army. The phantom youth demands the return of a military drum confiscated by the Mompesson's following the Royalists' rout on Salisbury Plain. The family used their influence to have him arrested as an "imposter" and either jailed or transported. Haunting eventually brought to an end by present day lady of the house who, on finding the drum in a long locked room, threw it from the window to the grateful ghost.