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Post by Swampirella on May 2, 2017 21:04:01 GMT
 I've just enjoyed "Ghosts and Journeys"; here are some details: The Boys' Toilets: Why shouldn't toilets be haunted? We all spend time there, and some (such as Elvis, I believe) die there. The pupils of Spilsby Girls' Grammar school are forced to relocate due to an underground leak in the central heating. Off they go to the abandoned Harvest Road (boys) school, on the wrong side of the tracks in the literal and figurative sense. It's not long before several girls find that the toilets are still occupied by one former pupil. Not a bad story at all. The Bus - Retired teacher Jack gets on the wrong bus, once he finds out it only costs 2p. Of course, it doesn't follow any of the usual routes and takes him on a ride he'll never forget.. The Borgia Mirror - Lady Portia gets a tip from her antique dealer (?) Mr. Lipfriend about a large antique mirror said to belong to the Borgia family. Of course, she has to have it, so goes and buys it right before it's shipped off to the States to another buyer. If anybody can write a good haunted/possessed mirror story, it's Robert Westall. The Girl Who Couldn't Say No - No, not that kind of girl. Should be subtitled "How Joanna Hitchhiked Twice And Ended Up Engaged to The Honorable Frederick Mulberry". A well-written romantic short story, sadly ghost-free. Rosalie - This one's better; new girl Jane is sent to the stockroom for a map, not knowing of course that the ghost of Rosalie Scott lurks there. Journey - After motorcycle accident, Ted "wakes up" dead. He has "no mouth, no hands, no body at all"; he's just a thought bubble. Soon, he discovers more, mostly of dogs, and then Nurse Maureen Kelly, who was apparently murdered while on her way home. An enjoyable, light-hearted story. |
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Post by helrunar on May 3, 2017 1:12:23 GMT
Interesting notes. Thanks, Scarlett. I have never heard of Robert Westall--will have to check further up the thread for details of period, etc.
cheers, H.
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Post by Swampirella on May 3, 2017 1:55:46 GMT
This collection and another I read before it really are intended for a youth audience, and of course are somewhat dated from the time they were written. Very well written but just not the style that I'm going to seek out again, since many stories weren't scary. I read his "Antique Dust" which is a collection for adult readers; good but frankly, not scary enough for me to keep.
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Post by helrunar on May 3, 2017 2:13:43 GMT
Thanks, Scarlett, for those further clarifying notes.
cheers, H.
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Post by Shrink Proof on May 3, 2017 8:55:11 GMT
This collection and another I read before it really are intended for a youth audience, and of course are somewhat dated from the time they were written. Very well written but just not the style that I'm going to seek out again, since many stories weren't scary. I read his "Antique Dust" which is a collection for adult readers; good but frankly, not scary enough for me to keep. Oh. "Antique Dust" awaits reading here at Shrink Towers. That doesn't bode well... |
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Post by Swampirella on May 3, 2017 10:57:42 GMT
Please don't take my word for it; they're definitely well-written. I didn't say they weren't scary, just "not scary enough" Maybe they'll appeal to you more than to me; let me know what you think when you do get around to it.
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Post by Shrink Proof on May 4, 2017 22:26:04 GMT
Please don't take my word for it; they're definitely well-written. I didn't say they weren't scary, just "not scary enough" Maybe they'll appeal to you more than to me; let me know what you think when you do get around to it. Well, probably better to be good but not scary enough rather than the other way round. Will let you know... |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 5, 2019 13:18:43 GMT
Please don't take my word for it; they're definitely well-written. I didn't say they weren't scary, just "not scary enough" Maybe they'll appeal to you more than to me; let me know what you think when you do get around to it. Well, eventually I did get round to it. So, finally, a reply.... Yes, you are right. Not very scary at all (although personally I tend to go for disturbing/unsettling even more than scary - an important distinction IMHO). But Westall could certainly write. And on balance I'd rather read a well-written second division story than a badly-written first division one. So it was worth reading them, though I'm unlikely to re-read them. |
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 5, 2019 13:23:57 GMT
Your last sentence sums up my feeling exactly....
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Post by dem bones on Jan 13, 2023 19:27:01 GMT
Robert Westall - Ghosts And Journeys (Pan Piper, 1989) The Boys' Toilets
The Bus
The Borgia Mirror
The Girl Who Couldn't Say No
Rosalie
Journey Blurb: "She flung herself around wildly, but she was so terrified she ended up cowering down, head on her knees and hands over her ears, like an unborn baby. Silence. Stillness. But she knew that, whatever it was, it was still there."
When everyday things become everyone's nightmares, we move beyond the ordinary and find 6 stories of GHOSTS AND JOURNEYS ... Sean Eckett: When the central heating at Spilsby Girls Grammar packs in before Christmas, staff and pupils are compelled to relocate to the long disused Boy's school of the miserable facilities on Harvest Road. The school was hurriedly shut down at close of the 'fifties following a fatality in the boy's toilets. The victim, young Stebbings, has an outstanding score to settle with the vicious headmaster, Mr. Barnett, aka 'Barney Boko.' The boy's ghost torments three girls in particular to draw attention to a bundle of papers hidden behind the cistern ... A highlight of the Westall-edited Ghost Stories from which are scanned the Sean Eckett illustrations. The Bus: Jack inadvertently boards a very special green single-decker bound for Crosville via various West Midlands and Potteries outposts. Two penny fare, same taciturn driver/ rancid passenger set-up familiar from similar supernatural horror stories, except this bus ferries the dead back to the golden age of their choice, those good old days when everything was so much better ... The Borgia Mirror: "Lady Portia raised her magnificent eyes and looked into the mirror. And, just for an instant, the room reflected was not her own bedroom. But a room panelled to the ceiling in dark wood, with a huge half-tester bed with rich dark-red hangings. There was a hump on the bed. And as the hump heaved rhythmically, she caught sight of the back of a head; with red crinkled hair.
It seemed that Lord Copfield had achieved his heart's desire" Lady Portia is unhappily married to Lord Copfield, a Casanova in horn-rims notorious for bedding his secretaries. She tolerates his infidelity for as long as he is prepared to turn a blind eye to her obsessive acquisition of expensive antiques. This latest piece is quite her favourite; an antique mirror which Mr. Lipfriend insists once graced the Borgia Palace. From the same job lot, a bronze female nude which Lipfield is atypically reluctant to sell, even at an inflated price, though an insanely generous offer ultimately wins the day. To Portia's amazement, her husband, whose private library reveals a morbid obsession with the Black Arts, is infatuated with the mirror as she. Business duties are neglected, the serial rogering of female staff desists, as Copfield lives only to study the glass. What has he seen to so transfix him? Loved this one.  Sean Eckett
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Post by dem bones on Jan 18, 2023 10:11:54 GMT
"When my maternal grandfather proposed to a Tiller Girl, Great-grandmother tried to shoot herself"
The Girl Who Couldn't Say No: Meet Joanna Dalby, tall, awkward sixth form student, out of step with her radical parents, dour Lancaster hometown, and pot smoking, disco dancing contemporaries. An inspired misunderstanding while thumbing a lift leads to fairytale romance with Lord Frederick'Tree'Mulberry, dashing young huntsman, and frightfully good egg, own roller, chauffeur, big country balls, etc. Why can't ALL young people be nice, polite and sensible like Joanna, etc?
Rosalie: When 11-year-old Jane is injured fleeing the ghost in the story, her uncle Geoffrey, a famous author of stories volunteers to investigate. The ghost of Darlow Primary is believed to be that of Rosalie Scott, a former pupil squashed flat by a steam roller (another one). Geoffrey not only locates the real cause for of this apparent epidemic of poltergeist activity, but sets loose a "phantom disembodied hand" on the class bully.
Journey: Near-death experience of Ted the biker following an accident riding home from a night at the Blue Dolphin. As our greasy rocker lies comatose in Cresham General, his astral self befriends several gentle souls among the recently deceased, including a nurse, a hero police Alsatian (with whom he rounds up a pack of like-minded canines), Mrs Teasdale (things were better in her day) and an old man concerned for his own dog's welfare now he's gone.
The Boy's Toilets and The Borgia Mirror far my favourites. Think the others would work better in multiple-author anthologies.
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