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Post by dem on Sept 18, 2019 10:56:48 GMT
Mary Danby [ed.] - Armada Ghost 15 (1983) Philip Sidney Jennings - Run for Your Life
Rita Morris - Hallowe'en
Jan Mark - Who's a Pretty Boy, Then?
August Derleth - The Patchwork Quilt
Tony Richards - The Sound of Sirens
Sydney J. Bounds - Spirit of the Trail
Catherine Storr - Christmas in the Rectory
Alison Prince - The Servant
Alan W. Lear - Whoever Heard of a Haunted Lift?
Mary Danby - Mr. Jones Blurb: Illustrated by Josh Kirby
Haunting tales of shivery dread ... to read before the sun goes down.
Phantom footsteps in a locked room ....
The sinister secret of a shallow grave ....
A spooky churchyard on Hallowe'en ....
Death-cold hands to tuck you in at night ....
Ten bony fingers of fear - all beckoning you into eerie darkness ....Final volume in the series. Six of the ten stories would return in the compilation, The Green Ghost & Others (Armada, 1989). Luftwaffe over London .... Halloween in the graveyard .... Last night Marc Bolan saved my life ... Tony Richards - The Sound of Sirens: Vauxhall, South London. 'Eighties boy Robin Cooper befriends the ghost of Joey Mullery, who died when a bomb fell on Pursell Street on October 22nd 1940. As the anniversary approaches, Robin is transported back from the world of Th*tch*r, the Thriller video, and Blockbusters to that of W. Churchill, Vera Lynn, Arthur Askey, The Ovalteenies Song, and Lord Haw Haw. Alan W. Lear - Whoever Heard of a Haunted Lift?: Tower Block misery. Tompion Court is only seventeen years old but already it's falling to buts. Twelve-year-old Colin especially dislikes the lift which smells ghastly and is forever breaking down. Uncle Derek, a leftover hippie, torments him with the story of little Billy Ross, who got stuck on the eigth floor, and died of an asthma attack before anyone bothered to respond to the alarm. Now Billy's ghost is out for revenge, and Colin's as good a scapegoat as any. Story is littered with pop references. T. Rex, Ride A White Swan, Neil Diamond, Cracklin' Rose, Mamma's & the Pappa's, Kinks, Manfred Mann, Beatles, Sergeant P****r's Lon*ly H***'s Club B***. There is also an allusion to the lift scene in Omen IIRita Morris - Hallowe’en: Rare solo appearance for one half of the 'Roger Malisson' team . October 31st and Alan Chandler is hiding behind a gravestone in the local churchyard, waiting to leap out at best friend, Tommo, a tradition they've observed every year since they were seven. But tonight there's no sign of Tommo, just the local tramp, 'Smelly Alice' with her filthy carrier bags, who gives Alan a fright when she calls to him from the trees. Alice has never spoken to him before, but tonight takes malicious delight in mentioning the fatal accident in the supermarket car park two months back which resulted in a boy's death. Alan is so creeped out by her that he checks to make sure the lights are on in Tommo's house and, reassured when he spots his friend in the upper bedroom, lets fly a volley of abuse at the malodorous old-timer. He'll soon come to regret his rudeness toward her. Sydney J. Bounds - Spirit Of The Trail: Red, a brash Texan cow-hand, kills an Injun medicine man and wishes he hadn't. The murdered man torments him across the Prairie before delivering the death blow.
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Post by helrunar on Sept 18, 2019 15:09:00 GMT
I love all the asterisks. Thanks for the smiles.
Isn't Vera Lynn the one they used to tell the joke about: "When she'd come on stage, you could hear a pin drop. And then she'd do it. She'd drop the pin." Classic.
The Armada ghost books--they were pitched to kids--did I understand that correctly?
cheers, H.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 18, 2019 16:17:18 GMT
This is Vera Lynn:
This song always brings tears to my eyes, even though I have never experienced war. Such is the power of Vera Lynn.
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Post by dem on Sept 18, 2019 17:06:42 GMT
The Armada ghost books--they were pitched to kids--did I understand that correctly? Kids from approx. seven to ninety. Philip Sidney Jennings - Run For Your Life: Sports day cross country race across Bogs Field, the first three finishers winning a place on the County under sixteen's team. Danny is determined to be among them, though there is little hope of his keeping up with Quinn and Spinak, the school champs. Fortunately he has some unexpected assistance from the phantom keeper of Toll Tunnel whose ghastly appearance spurs him to victory. Jan Mark - Who's a Pretty Boy, Then?: (Lance Salway [ed.] Black Eyes and Other Spine Chillers, 1981). Dad builds an aviary on a patch of garden where he can get nothing to grow. Dad hates when people treat birds as toys and warns Mum and young Rachel that there will be trouble if they name the six budgerigars and/ or teach them to talk. Whoever is buried beneath the soil is not so easily dissuaded, and it is not long before he is regaled with the mantra "Pity me," "Oh, I'm so cold," "cold as clay" when he returns home from work each night August Derleth - The Patchwork Quilt: ( Over the Edge, 1964). New England. Ariel Bennett is staying with Aunt's Beatrice and Ellen at their house overlooking the cemetery. Tonight the bed seems unnaturally cold, so Ariel helps herself to a patchwork quilt from the closet. It's a little too small but no matter. Somebody tucks her in. The ghost is that of tragic Mrs Payne, who stitched the quilt for her doomed little daughter and, on her own death soon afterward, asked that it be buried with her. For some reason, this simple request was not granted, and now each night she returns to the guest room to seek it out. |
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Post by dem on Sept 19, 2019 10:10:53 GMT
'Victorian' triple-bill to end on: each would have been equally at home in the grown-up Fontana Ghost Books. Alison Prince - 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.” Furious with mum for withholding pocket money until she tidies her room, Ginny Thompson cycles away into the woods, unaware that Dad has yet to get around to mending the brakes. Dusting herself down after a near miss with a milk float, Ginny finds herself before an old house in the woods. Despite herself, she feels strangely compelled to obey the faint tinkle of a bell. The formidable Mrs Rackham wants her breakfast, and she wants it now! ... Catherine Storr - Christmas in the Rectory: A small Cornish parish gets through parsons at an alarming rate and has done for several decades. According to old Johnstone the leaf sweeper: "Not a one of them stopped out a year. Not since he was here, and that's more than seventy years gone." "He" being an evil clergyman who reputedly made a pact with the Evil One and eventually hung himself in the room above the study. William, the current incumbent, insists this room remains locked as something about it scares little son Hugh. Even so, William and Fanny cannot find any servants willing to stay the night while nurse is considering a new post. And now his sisters are coming to spend Christmas at the rectory. Here's some we made earlier: Mary Danby - Mrs. Jones: Stuffy Mr. Jones works as the butler at Hartswell Manor. He previously served at nearby Stanton Manor, but switched jobs after his wife ran off. Eddie and Eileen, son and daughter of the cook and chauffer, notice that a ghastly stench clings to Mr. Jones clothes’ and especially his sheet. Upon further investigation, they discover that the butler has a dirty secret and that the sheet has a mind of its own. Impressively revolting for a children’s anthology! A recent read of four of Mary Danby's Armada Ghost tales only confirmed that the nastier her stories get, the more I like them. Benevolent spectres rarely do it for me, so the main excitement I got from A View Of The Sea was when the girl at the candyfloss stall's 'Kiss me quick' hat blew away. The Armada Ghosts were, of course, specifically intended for children and those chosen for the collection recently sampled, The Bumper Book Of Ghost Stories were clearly selected as suitable for the very very young: supernatural tales with the death taken out. Those that make the Mary Danby-edited The Green Ghost have a harder edge, like they were hand-picked for the strange kid at the back of the class who's carved something unspeakable on his desklid with a compass, and some have more a touch of vault-appeal about 'em. Mary's Mr Jones is a case in point. She seems to have a fondness for setting her kids stories in the world of Upstairs, Downstairs. This time the children, Eileen and Eddie Porter, live in a small cottage on an estate where their mother is cook and father chauffeur to Sir John and Lady Blane of Hartwell Manor. Mr. Jones, the lugubrious butler, terrorises the servants with his vicious temper, and rumour has it that, unable to endure another second of his miserable company, Mrs. J ran off with another man. Nobody will mention it but Mr. Jones gives off an odour of .... something not right, while his room is permeated with the most abominable stench. The children are regularly set to clean it, and wonder darkly as to who is leaving those slimy footprints? On one occasion they even remove a disgusting, mouldy sheet from the bed. And why, when he lives by himself, do they hear him imploring someone to leave him alone? Comes the night when they watch Mr. Jones take a spade and a bundle to the edge of an adjoining corn-field. He starts to dig ... |
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