Fred Urquhart - Seven Ghosts In Search

[dem]

Fred Urquhart - Seven Ghosts In Search (William Kimber, 1983)

ionicus

Author's Note

Seven Ghosts In Search
The Saracen's Stick
Weep No More, My Lady
Witch's Kitchen
What's A Few More Deaths Between Friends?
The Lady Of Sweetheart Abbey
Cleopatra Had Nothing On
Water Water Wallflower
Proud Lady In A Cage

Blurb:

In this entertaining collection of ghost stories the inimitable Fred Urquhart takes us into the highly organised spirit world where even ghosts have their feelings and their rights.

Many of the ghosts are Celtic, their stories inspired by incidents from Scottish history: the Lady Of Sweetheart Abbey and proud lady in a cage; other extravaganzas in his usual vigorous style, such as his novella of the dreadful doings of the Countess of Torryburn and her black slave Lilywhite. Long dead. Long buried. Or were they?

My first taste of Fred Urquhart (1912-1995) and ... there's something of the R. Chetwynd-Hayes about his ghost stories which can only be a good and bad thing. Several of them feature the centuries old spooks of female Scottish Aristocrats and their feisty maids let loose on the permissive society, a "socialist" world they disapprove of with passion. Perhaps I'm doing the author a disservice, but he seems to adopt what we might call the Dennis Wheatley approach - you get the strong impression that the likes of Countess Torryburn and the sparring pair in Weep No More, My Lady are convenient mouthpieces for his own prejudices (legion on the strength of this collection - hippies, West Indians and the Welfare state come in for the worst of it). I'm really not up to doing my usual anti-review thing just now. I'm not even up to stringing two coherent sentences together, but if there's one story of Urquhart's for horror heads to seek out, try Proud Lady In A Cage, more about which at a later date ......

[carolinec]

Hey, does anyone know anything about this cover artist "ionicus"? As soon as I saw this cover, and before I'd noticed the name, I realised I had one similar - on R Chetwynd Hayes' Ghosts From The Mists of Time (also Wm Kimber, publisher). Sure enough, when I checked, it's the same person - but who the heck is/was he or she? I love this artwork - simplistic, but very effective.

[dem]

As luck would have it, a very informative post from Steve on the old board:

ionicus

[Johnlprobert]

I love the Ionicus covers as well, and I've spent far too much money acquiring Kimber books just for his wraparound illustrations. The weird thing is, some of them aren't even very good - his pictures of racing cars for RCH's Tales from the Dark Land (I think) are particularly pathetic. But he had this thing for twisted branches and bleak landscapes that is supremely creepy.

[carolinec]

Ah well, reading those posts on the old board, it looks like it's just you and me who like them, John! I think there's something a bit "LS Lowry" about his work - and I love Lowry! But you're right, those racing cars are awful. I do love his creepy scenes though.
;D

[dem]

Jan 7, 2009 11:47:36 GMT Johnlprobert said:

The weird thing is, some of them aren't even very good - his pictures of racing cars for RCH's Tales from the Dark Land (I think) are particularly pathetic. But he had this thing for twisted branches and bleak landscapes that is supremely creepy.

Totally agree. Tales From The Dark Land is dead ropey (he never really seemed to be at his best with RCH). Another that really put me off was his abomination for Peter Haining's Christmas Spirits which I could never get on with. But his work has grown on me over the years and the Urquhart is very pretty. Perhaps the time has come to give ionicus another thread?

[Johnlprobert]

Perhaps the time has come to give ionicus another thread?

Could be. His covers for Amy Myers' After Midnight series for Kimber are really quite good, especially Vols 2 & 3.

Poor old RCH got quite a bad deal with covers - after Kimber he got Cher on the cover of Curse of the Snake God & the most God-awful shit vampire bat on Looking for Something to Suck & Other Stories.

I think there's something a bit "LS Lowry" about his work - and I love Lowry!

Nicely put Caroline! There is something inordinately simplistic about his stuff, but with an undercurrent of menace. If you told me they'd be done by a child and were meant to be happy pictures that would be truly disturbing

[pulphack]

i know i said it on the old board, but it's worth repating that his Penguin covers for PG Wodehouse titles in the seventies are lovely - very old school, almost pre-WWII cartoon in style and composition, and very suited to the material. unlike his horror stuff... some of them are nice but they're so apposite that you wonder what the art editor at William Kimber was thinking!

[dem]

I'll have a search about for some covers to kick off an ionicus gallery, unless somebody else fancies a go? My theory as to why Kimber used him is to emphasise that they were publishing Ghost stories as opposed to the frightfully vulgar Horror and his restrained, chocolate-box style fitted the bill admirably.

Back to Mr. Urquhart and, as mentioned, one story stood out for me because, while it has all of his hallmarks, it's actually horrible as opposed to (in most cases) very mildly spooky.

Proud Lady In A Cage: "Many atrocities had taken place in the Castle. One was the hanging from the walls in July 1306 of a cage imprisoning Isabella, the beautiful young Countess of Buchan. The punishment had been ordered by King Edward I of England because the Countess, acting as the representative of her brother, the Earl of Fife, who was Edward's prisoner at the time, had crowned Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland at Scone. The Countess had been kept in this cage for four years ...."

Bella Logan, 22, works on the enquiry desk at the swish new branch of Woolworths in Berwick. She is practical to a fault, unimaginative, and even after a Saturday night out at The Kelpie, absolutely refuses to succumb to the advances of her intended, Rod Wishart. Unbeknown to her, she is also the modern day reincarnation of Isabella, the Countess of Buchan, who endured the barbaric punishment described above, and of late Bella has been suffering vivid waking nightmares in which she is suspended in the cage for the amusement of a gloating, foul-mouthed crowd of harridans. Two of her chief tormentors bear an uncanny resemblance to the ghastly Mrs. Cessford and her snickering son, Zander, regular customers at Woolworth's and the twin banes of her life. Matters move speedily toward a supremely grim conclusion when the unctuous Mrs. Cessford requests Bella's help after she's been caught shoplifting ....

Perhaps some stuff on the other stories later. Anyone read him?

[Craig Herbertson]

Interesting Dem. I read the tale of poor Isabella and did a bit of research on it. Nothing is known of her final fate. She as released apparently but after seven years what was left of her mind? No historical records exist of the aftermath of her release. There were also two other women who that nasty git Edward messed about with. A sister and a cousin. But the cousin got left off with being imprisoned by a bunch of people who detested her and made her life miserable. Edward allowed this privilege because he needed the political alliance of one of her relatives.

I wrote a song aout the poor girl called Mad Lizzie which is on my Tom'sspace site. Edward doesn't get a good press in it.

[dem]

Urquhart's take is that after the four years in the cage she was removed to a prison "and her end was not known". He's arguably at his best when taking bloody episodes from Scottish history and ghosting them up. Another trait, as mentioned, is setting his Aristo-spooks loose on "the permissive society" .....

Weep No More, My Lady: Lady Kate and her maid Mercy Milligan have been the resident ghosts at the dilapidated house in Abercrombie Terrace for over two-hundred years (it's their duty to reenact their murder by a gent named Hamish MacAlpine once annually), but their way of death is under threat from the crew who've come to demolish the old dump and build "hideous council houses" on the site. As the builders are a motley bunch of long-haired layabouts ("They all make themselves look as near like baboons as they can, so it's hard to tell one frae t'other"), listening to pop music on the abominable "transistor wireless", you truly fear for their lives against this spirited pair, but the author is in gloomy mood and the best Lady Kate and Mercy can hope is that the N.U.B.G. (National Union of British Ghosts) approve their request that they be allowed to haunt Lindenford Manor, Sussex, a former estate of her ladyship's father. But even at Linderford there's no peace for them. Bulldozers and lorries litter the estate, the The Maypole Pub has installed a jukebox, "Blackamoors" and hippies are everywhere, there are yet more of those ghastly council houses in the offing ......

Seven Ghosts In Search: The ghost of Dame Ellen Terry entertains both herself and the visitors to the museum honouring her memory by appearing before them in a variety of costumes and reciting speeches from some of her best loved roles. Part biography, part tribute, Urquhart gently vents his spleen on the less refined of the tourists who turn up in bathing suits and eat chips.

Cleopatra Had Nothing On: Hollywood Director Gus Von Valdron finds himself in Hell where he gets to meet several infamous faces from history - including God - many of whom he casts in his version of the book of Genesis. Mildly amusing but ends on hugely irritating "I woke up and it was all a dream" note, so small wonder to find it wisely tucked away toward back of book.

Before I even attempt to tackle the novella, if ever, here's the inside cover photo of Fred, and another of Kimber regular Peter Haining.

[Craig Herbertson]

'"Let her be closely confined in an abode of stone and iron made in the shape of a cross, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air at Berwick, that both in life and after her death, she may be a spectacle and eternal reproach to travellers."

She was imprisoned so for four years, after which she entered a convent. Her eventual fate is uncertain, it has been suggested that she may have returned to Scotland as part of the exchange of prisoners after the Battle of Bannockburn, but there is no clear evidence for this.

Mary Bruce was treated in a similar fashion at Roxburgh Castle.'

That's the wikipedia take. I read seven years some time ago. You can see that it was intended to be one of those horrible mediaeval cages where the corpse would finally be stuck on view. However, I also read that there was an entrance to an indoor privy and there were attendants. She was nineteen at the time. Her husband, the git, offered to kill her immediately. Edwards orders have been preserved.

Its pretty clear that she would have been mentally under the weather after this hence the title of my song 'Mad Lizzie'

There is no doubt Edward was an utter bastard as he also ordered that the woman folk of the 'rebels', including the noble Isabel, were fair game for rape and murder which was contrary to all known moral laws at the time particular from a head of the Christian church. Edwards claim to Scotland was utterly illegitimate and based merely on the same policy he adopted to Wales - kill everything that opposes me and make brutal examples of those defending their freedom. (The welsh king got hung drawn and quartered.)

You might have guessed by now I HAVE A THING ABOUT EDWARD. I just really hate that bastard Edward...and am entirely happy to have blackened his name as much as possible in a folk song.

[dem]

The Saracen's Stick: As featured in Denys Val Baker's Haunted Travellers anthology. Poetic justice - if a long time coming - in the ruins of the Saracen Castle, Beirut.

Eleven-year-old Cameron Locherbie and the ghost of his ancestor, Simon, who died in slavery during the Crusades, join forces to destroy touchy feely "Fat Turk" Sulieman Hikmet, millionaire and child molester, who is incapable of keeping his thin, gold-topped cane to himself when "pretty boys" are around. Fair play to Mr. Urquhart: I found this a particularly uncomfortable read, not least when Simon relates the circumstances surrounding his thwarted escape from the Emir Sulieman in 1213.