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Post by dem bones on Dec 15, 2017 21:35:15 GMT
Broomhill, Strathspey Railway, December 2017: Photo: Shrink ProofMiddle of the month, time for our annual Christmas thread. Many thanks to Shrink Proof for sending this wonderfully atmospheric photograph and for permission to quote from his email. The original idea was to attach a vintage supernatural short to compliment it, but on reflection, Maurice Level's The 10.50 Express didn't seem appropriate - no ghost. Can anyone can suggest an alternative?
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 16, 2017 14:44:19 GMT
Broomhill, Strathspey Railway, December 2017: Photo: Shrink ProofWhat a marvellous photograph. For an instant I thought the guard was Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, rushing to engage a 'special' in order to pursue some cunning criminal mastermind across cities and continents. And congratulations to Shrink Proof on qualifying as signalman. I shall resist the urge to cry 'Hello! Below there!' Alas the steam train stories that pop into my mind - apart from the Dickens classic, of course - are all more recent, via L.T.C. Rolt, or Jeremy Dyson - Bound South in his collection The Cranes That Build The Cranes involves a story told on a moving train - Chris Priestley's Tales of Terror From The Tunnel's Mouth, or an excellent radio drama from a few years back called Fridays When It Rains by Nick Warburton - 'A girl on a late night train journey meets a man with a strange tale to tell.' The girl was played by Lyndsey Marshal, the man with the story by Clive Swift, an old hand in the ghost story stakes. And, as Clive Swift has now been invoked, and as it's Christmas time, when one looks back on Christmas presents of Christmases past... Oh, what a Christmas it was when this was unwrapped below the tree! Upon perusing this most curious book, you might imagine my chagrin at discovering that some prior browser had, in an unusually large hand, and dug into the paper in a way which must have broken the pen that wrote them, filled in the crossword puzzle, in all cases whether up or down with the same repeated words... 'I must be firm'. Most confounding, but what was to follow was even more perplexing. You see, that was the Christmas when a large stray cat came to stay, for though we never glimpsed so much as a hair or whisker of it, it nearly caused many a nasty tumble on the stairs. (I certainly never saw the cat myself, only felt its coarse fur as it darted past and occasionally heard it hissing and mewling on the landing. In fact, only one house guest claimed to have seen it, and he could have sworn, he said, though it sounded foolish, that, stray cat or not, it had more than four legs...)Then there were the paper crowns in the crackers that made one guest turn pale and leave suddenly, mumbling about something he had to put back. And the children who turned up to sing Christmas carols... at least I think they had wanted to sing, as the boy had a musical instrument that played a strange tune. They looked so pale and famished in the cold I ran to the kitchen to fetch them warm mince pies, but by the time I got back, avoiding tripping on that cat, they had gone. And they'd looked so hungry, I imagined you could even see their ribs poking through their chests. We all rather lost heart after that visit, and our moods were far from lifted when that smell came, like chemicals or decay, and we found the snow outside the house churned up grey with traces of dark slime. And who would have thought a Christmas tree could have been infested with spiders of such an unusual size? (Was this, I now ask myself, connected with the strange insertion I found between the leaves of the book? I took it at first for some form of lace when I opened the pages and found it nestling there, but it proved, instead, to be nothing more or less than a mass of cobwebs. And, from the way it stirred and shifted, not quite uninhabited.)Yes, that was a Christmas unlike any other. It had all seemed so normal until I unwrapped this present. And I never even found out who sent it; the message under my name on the label looked like no writing I'd ever seen before, or since. And try as I might, I never saw another copy of this annual. Almost as if it had never existed until the day it turned up in my life. But now my original copy has turned up again from who knows where, and I foresee it being a Christmas to remember again this year! (And now I hear a cat scratching at the door. Rather, I assume it is a cat, for though I live quite alone without company or pets, when I opened the door to either beckon it in or shoo it away, I felt sure that something did enter, and that there is now company of sorts...)
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 17, 2017 21:53:38 GMT
What a marvellous photograph. For an instant I thought the guard was Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, rushing to engage a 'special' in order to pursue some cunning criminal mastermind across cites and continents. And congratulations to Shrink Proof on qualifying as signalman. I shall resist the urge to cry 'Hello! Below there!' Alas the steam train stories that pop into my mind - apart from the Dickens classic, of course - are all more recent, via L.T.C. Rolt, or Jeremy Dyson - Bound South in his collection The Cranes That Build The Cranes involves a story told on a moving train - Chris Priestley's Tales of Terror From The Tunnel's Mouth, or an excellent radio drama from a few years back called Fridays When It Rains by Nick Warburton - 'A girl on a late night train journey meets a man with a strange tale to tell.' The girl was played by Lyndsey Marshal, the man with the story by Clive Swift, an old hand in the ghost story stakes. Thanks for that. There are loads of railway-related ghost stories - so much of the strange world of the railway system lends itself to weirdness, the old steam railway particularly - as discussed in this thread. The Dickens one has aged very well I think and it's crossed my mind when in alone in the dimly-lit box at dusk with snow, smoke and steam whirling round.... Robert Aickman's "The Trains" scores highly for all round bizareness and John Gaskin's "Addendum to a Confession" (all happening over a number of night shifts in a fog and snow bound station in the 1950s) would be entirely appropriate as a "modern" addition to the Ghost Story at Christmas" series of TV films. Meanwhile, here's wishing all the inmates of this particular institution a thoroughly cool Yule. Wassail!
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 20, 2017 11:45:47 GMT
I see the Ghost Story For Christmas Annual has long had its admirers. A certain Dr. Black was impressed to discover an edition in the archives of Barchester Cathedral... And the good Doctor, it seems, was not the only antiquarian to take an interest in the book's most singular contents... Elsewhere, on the subject of great horror stories involving trains, I read a particularly chilling example of the form last night. Steve Duffy's brilliant Ash-Tree Press collection, The Night Comes On, has long been a favourite of mine. I also bought the eBook edition some years ago, despite being an avowed fan of the printed page, as it has four additional stories, though only got round to reading these this week. The final tale, Off the Tracks, tells of how the narrator and his regular travelling companion became aware of the odd little door and window among the soot-stained bricks of the railway cuttings in which their train regularly came to a halt, some workmen's shelter or other, perhaps, and how they attracted the attention of the dimly seen inhabitants of the room beyond. Brrrr...
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 24, 2017 19:07:04 GMT
Just in time for Christmas, a quartet of Spine Chillers has surfaced, courtesy of a certain Dr John Rant (Deceased). The Yellow Cat by Michael Joseph, as told by John Woodvine... www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkI4dfPmpmcThe Music on the Hill by Saki, told by Jonathan Pryce... www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzwpr5xSubwThe Treasure in the Forest by H.G. Wells, and told by Freddie Jones... www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kLRCmL5Zj0The Devil's Ape by Barnard Stacey, told by John Woodvine... www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvef9Cf5Z58The three M.R. James episodes, with Michael Bryant as narrator, are already on DVD, courtesy of the BFI, but I keep hoping the series as a whole will get a release, one fine day. Until then, there's much to enjoy from the excellent Woodvine, Pryce and Jones at the links above. And while we're at it, might as well have a bit more Saki with a Late Night Story from Tom Baker... www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBK4umFQBvkMerry Christmas to all you fabulous Vault-dwelling fiends and friends!
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Post by dem bones on Dec 24, 2017 22:37:49 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Dec 25, 2017 8:08:39 GMT
Given that BBC4 are repeating the classic dramatisation of "The Signalman" (filmed on the Severn Valley Railway btw) on Xmas Eve, it seems quite appropriate. Happy Christmas, Dr. Proof. Was thinking of you alone in that box as I watched this last night. I'll bet there's more than one railway-related ghost story has crept through your mind when you're on duty. No steam train, but highly recommend for the End of the line thread (must update) is Mike Chinn's The Mercy Seat from Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions. It did my head in.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Dec 25, 2017 8:40:58 GMT
The original idea was to attach a vintage supernatural short to compliment it, but on reflection, Maurice Level's The 10.50 Express didn't seem appropriate - no ghost. Can anyone can suggest an alternative? Amelia Edwards's "The Four-Fifteen Express"?
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 25, 2017 9:29:44 GMT
Given that BBC4 are repeating the classic dramatisation of "The Signalman" (filmed on the Severn Valley Railway btw) on Xmas Eve, it seems quite appropriate. Happy Christmas, Dr. Proof. Was thinking of you alone in that box as I watched this last night. I'll bet there's more than one railway-related ghost story has crept through your mind when you're on duty. No steam train, but highly recommend for the End of the line thread (must update) is Mike Chinn's The Mercy Seat from Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions. It did my head in. I'll have to check that one out, thanks. Yes, it can be very lonely in a signalbox, even in the 21st century. God alone knows what it was like in Victorian or Edwardian times in places like the high Pennines or the wilds of Scotland on a winter's night when you had the only building (or light or warmth) for miles in any direction, the only human contact was a train clanking through every hour or so, and then you heard a knock at the door.... A thoroughly weird Christmas to you all (Merry Hell??) with plenty of crackers and lots of stuffing...
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 19, 2020 17:11:37 GMT
Broomhill, Strathspey Railway, December 2017: Photo: Shrink ProofWhat a marvellous photograph. For an instant I thought the guard was Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, rushing to engage a 'special' in order to pursue some cunning criminal mastermind across cities and continents. And congratulations to Shrink Proof on qualifying as signalman. I shall resist the urge to cry 'Hello! Below there!' Alas the steam train stories that pop into my mind - apart from the Dickens classic, of course - are all more recent, via L.T.C. Rolt, or Jeremy Dyson - Bound South in his collection The Cranes That Build The Cranes involves a story told on a moving train - Chris Priestley's Tales of Terror From The Tunnel's Mouth, or an excellent radio drama from a few years back called Fridays When It Rains by Nick Warburton - 'A girl on a late night train journey meets a man with a strange tale to tell.' The girl was played by Lyndsey Marshal, the man with the story by Clive Swift, an old hand in the ghost story stakes. And, as Clive Swift has now been invoked, and as it's Christmas time, when one looks back on Christmas presents of Christmases past... Oh, what a Christmas it was when this was unwrapped below the tree! Upon perusing this most curious book, you might imagine my chagrin at discovering that some prior browser had, in an unusually large hand, and dug into the paper in a way which must have broken the pen that wrote them, filled in the crossword puzzle, in all cases whether up or down with the same repeated words... 'I must be firm'. Most confounding, but what was to follow was even more perplexing. You see, that was the Christmas when a large stray cat came to stay, for though we never glimpsed so much as a hair or whisker of it, it nearly caused many a nasty tumble on the stairs. (I certainly never saw the cat myself, only felt its coarse fur as it darted past and occasionally heard it hissing and mewling on the landing. In fact, only one house guest claimed to have seen it, and he could have sworn, he said, though it sounded foolish, that, stray cat or not, it had more than four legs...)Then there were the paper crowns in the crackers that made one guest turn pale and leave suddenly, mumbling about something he had to put back. And the children who turned up to sing Christmas carols... at least I think they had wanted to sing, as the boy had a musical instrument that played a strange tune. They looked so pale and famished in the cold I ran to the kitchen to fetch them warm mince pies, but by the time I got back, avoiding tripping on that cat, they had gone. And they'd looked so hungry, I imagined you could even see their ribs poking through their chests. We all rather lost heart after that visit, and our moods were far from lifted when that smell came, like chemicals or decay, and we found the snow outside the house churned up grey with traces of dark slime. And who would have thought a Christmas tree could have been infested with spiders of such an unusual size? (Was this, I now ask myself, connected with the strange insertion I found between the leaves of the book? I took it at first for some form of lace when I opened the pages and found it nestling there, but it proved, instead, to be nothing more or less than a mass of cobwebs. And, from the way it stirred and shifted, not quite uninhabited.)Yes, that was a Christmas unlike any other. It had all seemed so normal until I unwrapped this present. And I never even found out who sent it; the message under my name on the label looked like no writing I'd ever seen before, or since. And try as I might, I never saw another copy of this annual. Almost as if it had never existed until the day it turned up in my life. But now my original copy has turned up again from who knows where, and I foresee it being a Christmas to remember again this year! (And now I hear a cat scratching at the door. Rather, I assume it is a cat, for though I live quite alone without company or pets, when I opened the door to either beckon it in or shoo it away, I felt sure that something did enter, and that there is now company of sorts...)'a mass of cobwebs'? That's the name of the 1959 BBC Radio version of 'The Tractate Middoth' currently available on Radio 4 Extra. I found the acting to be a bit stately. Maybe someone will review it for Ghosts & Scholars. Hmmm?
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 19, 2020 18:19:13 GMT
'a mass of cobwebs'? That's the name of the 1959 BBC Radio version of 'The Tractate Middoth' currently available on Radio 4 Extra. I found the acting to be a bit stately. Maybe someone will review it for Ghosts & Scholars. Hmmm? I had heard that one before, but listened again on BBC Sounds last night. Apart from enjoying hearing the marvellous Sheila Keith, I have to agree, it was all a bit too genteel and lacking in atmosphere for my liking.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 19, 2020 21:50:10 GMT
'a mass of cobwebs'? That's the name of the 1959 BBC Radio version of 'The Tractate Middoth' currently available on Radio 4 Extra. I found the acting to be a bit stately. Maybe someone will review it for Ghosts & Scholars. Hmmm? I had heard that one before, but listened again on BBC Sounds last night. Apart from enjoying hearing the marvellous Sheila Keith, I have to agree, it was all a bit too genteel and lacking in atmosphere for my liking. You're the wrong Lurker! It's the Lurker at the Threshold I'm looking for!
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