Alison Prince – Haunted Children

[cauldronbrewer]

Alison Prince – Haunted Children (Methuen, 1982; Magnet, 1984)

(Cover is uncredited; interior illustrations by Michael Bragg)

Bodger
The Haunted Cow
Kirsty
The Station-Master
The Suit of Armour
Timmy
The Last Trick
The Baby-Sitter
Hetty's Rat

I fell in love with Alison Prince’s work after discovering her talent for turning out dark little masterpieces about youthful protagonists being driven to madness. Having read four of her stories—“The Loony” in Ramsey Campbell’s Uncanny Banquet as well as “The Baby-Sitter,” “Can’t Help Laughing” and (my personal favorite) “The Servant” in Mary Danby’s The Green Ghost and Other Stories—I decided it was high time to read one of her collections. I’ll share my thoughts on Haunted Children after I’m finished reading it (which won’t be long—I have one story to go).

[cauldronbrewer]

It turns out that not every Prince story features a child driven to insanity. Although part of me is disappointed that Haunted Children includes some lighter stories, I'm also impressed by the author's range.

The book begins with the lighter material.

Bodger
When Martin and his family move to a new house, he discovers a ghost that messes up everything it does and makes everyone around it do the same. Martin's parents swiftly decide to move, but Martin wants to bring Bodger along.

The Haunted Cow
Malachi gets quite a deal on a milk cow: not only does he manage to buy it for a bargain price when its keeper drops dead during an auction, he also gains the assistance of the keeper's helpful ghost.

Kirsty
Christine, who needs four teeth pulled, is terrified of her impending visit to the dentist. Under the ether she finds herself transported to the past, where she meets a ghost who was even more afraid of the dentist than her (and for good reason).

The Station-Master
While waiting for a train, Emma starts practicing her violin. The music draws the attention of the kindly station master, who borrows the instrument to play some beautiful music. After ending with a mournful tune, he leaves--and Emma realizes that she has missed her train. That may not be such a bad thing, however . . .

The Suit of Armour
Laura is so frightened by the suit of armor in her family's vacation lodging that she tries to avoid going up the staircase past it. As it so happens, she has the right idea.

[dem]

thank you so much for giving us the lowdown, CB. Can see what you mean about the stories (so far) being lighter in touch than we've come to expect/ demand, but then i have to keep reminding myself that the woman who wrote The Looney was also responsible for scripting the BBC's gentle and fondly remembered children's TV classic, Trumpton! i already like the sound of these, particularly Kirsty and The Suit Of Armour, and i gather from the above that things are about to take a turn for the darker.

[cauldronbrewer]

Jul 4, 2012 23:21:35 GMT dem said:

thank you so much for giving us the lowdown, CB.

Prince is one of those authors I never would have discovered without the Vault, so thank you! (and Mr. Campbell as well; his outstanding Uncanny Banquet gave me my first encounter with her work).

Jul 4, 2012 23:21:35 GMT dem said:

Can see what you mean about the stories (so far) being lighter in touch than we've come to expect/ demand, but then i have to keep reminding myself that the woman who wrote The Looney was also responsible for scripting the BBC's gentle and fondly remembered children's TV classic, Trumpton!

She's quite the skilled writer. I may prefer the darker stories, but the lighter one are excellent for what they are.

Jul 4, 2012 23:21:35 GMT dem said:

i already like the sound of these, particularly Kirsty and The Suit Of Armour, and i gather from the above that things are about to take a turn for the darker.

Those two are my favorites among the first five. From there, the stories grow progressively darker:

Timmy
Three-year-old Anthony has an imaginary playmate named Timmy. This fact upsets his mother a great deal, for reasons unknown to Anthony. Eventually Timmy announces that he's leaving but will come back "different."

The Last Trick
Poor Edward is having a rotten birthday party because his mother made the mistake of inviting Mark and Kevin, the two bullies who have been tormenting him at school. When the hapless magician hired as party entertainment begins his act, the bullies begin heckling him instead. The Magical Morgo keels over dead from a heart attack, and then things get strange. The bullies undergo a bizarre balloon-related experience when they tamper with Morgo's case. Later, a much more capable magician pays them a visit.

The Baby-Sitter
Mr. Pope, a gardener-turned-babysitter, tells young Nigel about his own experience being baby-sat by a man with a glass eye. This charming fellow would take out the eye and place it on Pope's mantelpiece to watch over him at bedtime. One day, the story goes, Pope's friend made the mistake of hiding the eye.

I'll save the final story for later--that one deserves its own post.

[cauldronbrewer]

As I was reading Haunted Children, I wondered whether Prince was saving her best, darkest material for last. I was right. The book's final story ranks up there with "The Loony," "The Servant," and "Can't Help Laughing."

Hetty's Rat
Hetty's science teacher, Miss Bronson, loves talking about the Great Plague. She even makes the students draw Plague-themed pictures:

Most of the children settled for drawings of people in bed or holding their tummies to show that they were ill. Some of the boys went in for piles of corpses . . . But Hetty drew a rat. As Jimmy had said, it was as big as a rabbit, its back touching the top of the paper. It was very black, with evil, scratchy little feet and a long, thin, scaly tail. It had a pointed face with sharp teeth sticking out and tiny eyes so packed with menace that even to circle them with her pencil made Hetty feel afraid.

Indeed, Hetty's rat is so evil-looking that it haunts her dreams. She wakes up screaming, afraid the rat is trying to get inside her window. Her parents eventually take her to a psychiatrist, who suggests buying her a cute, friendly white rat as a pet. At first, Hetty won't even touch it, but after a while she warms up to it and brings it into her room.

Ah, but it turns out that the white rat also seems terrified of something trying to get into the room. And then Hetty discovers that it has mysteriously become pregnant. What will the baby rats look like, and will seeing them be enough to drive Hetty over the edge?

[dem]

CB, from the table of contents quoted from world book catalogue on The Green Ghost thread, it looks as if there may be an extra story, Responsibility in the Methuen hardcover?

I just read Lilies, a tale of witchcraft in the Welsh countryside, from The Ghost Within collection (Egmont 1989), in Robert Westall's Ghost Stories, and .... it's a strange one. Young Sarah Malloy liberates dead lilies from the churchyard for her mother to rebury in the garden, each flower given a little plastic flag bearing the names on the grave it was taken from. The fiery Reverend Evans won't be tolerating any of this Pagan blasphemy and attacks Mrs. Malloy's shrine with a spade. A scuffle ensues, the clergyman cracks his head on the wall and the lilies help dispose of the corpse. Rev. Evans may not have been a model priest but as fertilizer, he's a revelation. Mrs. Malloy insists that, when she dies, Sarah must likewise dispose of her in the flower bed. Come the sad occasion, Sarah follows her instructions. And that's when the villagers and some nice men in white coats pay a visit.

[cauldronbrewer]

Jul 6, 2012 17:23:43 GMT dem said:

CB, from the table of contents quoted from world book catalogue on The Green Ghost thread, it looks as if there may be an extra story, Responsibility in the Methuen hardcover?

It seems that was my mistake--I misread the online card catalogue entry and accidentally created a nonexistent Alison Prince story. I hope that no Prince fanatics out there have gone insane trying to track down a copy of it.

Jul 6, 2012 17:23:43 GMT dem said:

I just read Lilies, a tale of witchcraft in the Welsh countryside from The Ghost Within collection (Egmont 1989), in Robert Westall's Ghost Stories, and .... it's a strange one.

That looks like a solid collection. A few of the stories are overly familiar, but I haven't read "Lillies" or the stories by Philippa "The Shadow Cage" Pearce or Joyce "The Women in the Green Dress" Marsh. Another one to add to the list . . .

Jul 6, 2012 17:23:43 GMT dem said:

And that's when the villagers and some nice men in white coats pay a visit.

The men in white coats are never far off when Prince is at work, eh?

[cauldronbrewer]

Alison Prince – The Ghost Within (Methuen, 1984)

The Lilies
Herb
The Fire Escape
Photographs
The Fen Tiger
Dundee Cake
The Pin
The Glass Game

Just arrived today from across the Atlantic. I know "The Lilies" from Robert Westall's Ghost Stories, but the rest are new to me.

[cauldronbrewer]

Alison Prince – A Haunting Refrain (Methuen, 1988)

Caroline Binch (illustrates "The Sea-Dog")

The Black Dress
Judgment Day
The Housekeeper
The Feather
The Sea-Dog
Fire, Fire
Josef's Carol

The tone of this book, Prince's third collection of supernatural stories, is different from that of her first two. Many of the stories focus on children coming to terms with mortality. All of them feature music in some way.

One interesting bit from the inside jacket: "Alison Prince lives on the Isle of Arran, a setting which has been the inspiration for some of the stories in A Haunting Refrain."

[cauldronbrewer]

Reading Prince's "Mother's Day" in The 16th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories inspired me to round out this thread with a list of her uncollected stories:

Can't Help Laughing (14th Armada Ghost Book, ed. Mary Danby)
Mother's Day (16th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, ed. Mary Danby)
The Chicken (Nightmares, ed. Mary Danby)
The Servant (15th Armada Ghost Book, ed. Mary Danby)
The Looney (Nightmares 2, ed. Mary Danby)
Nathan's True Self (Cold Feet, ed. Jean Richardson)
The Charmer (Beware! Beware!, ed. Jean Richardson)
The Water-Mill (The Young Oxford Book of Nightmares, ed. Dennis Pepper)

Some cut-and-paste story notes:

Can’t Help Laughing
Any little thing sets Sophie into giggles, which annoys her teacher, Miss Webb, to no end. Seeing her as a like-minded spirit, a ghost with a grudge against Miss Webb does its best to crack up Sophie. It succeeds—first in one sense, and then in another.

The Chicken
As V2 rockets rain down on London, a young girl witnesses two bloody beheadings. First, she watches her creepy neighbor wring the head of a chicken right off. Next, she sees a bird of a different feather decapitated.

The Servant
Young Ginny thinks that her mother bosses her around like a servant. After a bicycling mishap, however, she falls under the spell of a mysterious old woman and discovers what life as a servant was really like in the old days. Can Ginny break the spell? She’s trapped in an Alison Prince story, so don’t count on it. With a bit of license, one could call this tale a children’s version of Karl Edward Wager’s “The River of Night’s Dreaming.”

Nathan's True Self
A mini-epic involving two young hoodlums, a school production of Macbeth, and a mother-and-daughter team who play the "glass game" (better known in these parts as a Ouija Board). It has an impressively gory conclusion.

And two more from Dem on other threads:

Sept 27, 2012 6:32:21 GMT dem said:

Alison Prince - Mother's Day: How nice of Irma to sacrifice her Sunday and accompany Tom on a visit to the Nursing home to see his twisted old mum. He hopes she'll not be bored but, far from it. The experience proves a real eye-opener.

Jun 30, 2008 11:12:59 GMT dem said:

Alison Prince - The Loony: Cathy and her parents move into Blackstone Villa, once the home/ prison of a violent madwoman who starved to death when her carer, Mrs. Knarr, did a runner. Cathy is given the room where the wretched woman lived and died. Her recurring nightmares suggest that history is about to be repeated.

I've read both "The Charmer" and "The Water-Mill" but haven't gotten around to writing them up.

If I missed any stories, I'd be happy to hear about it.