Mary Danby - Armada Ghost 7

[dem bones]

Mary Danby [ed.] Armada Ghost 7 (1975)

Uncredited. Peter Archer?

Mary Danby - Introduction

Joyce Marsh - The Shepherd's Dog
Pamela Vincent - When the Moon Was Full
Julia Birley - The Life and Soul of the Party
Brian Morse - A Cat on the Drive
Lucy Norris - Portrait of Rhoda
Kay Leith - The Tockley Familiar
Sydney J. Bounds - The Hanging Tree
Mary Clarke - The Old Man of the Hills
Ray Gottlieb - The Fun Fair Ghost
Tim Vicary - The Curse of the White Owl
Rosemary Timperley - The Man with the Beard
Mary Danby - The Haunters

Blurb:

Interior artwork by Peter Archer

Twelve chilling tales of dark delight!

A fearsome bodysnatcher .... a phantom in a fun fair .... an eerie gunfight ..... a conjurer who's even stranger than his tricks ....

A shrouded figure walks by night ....

A portrait comes murderously to life ....

Just a glimpse of the hair-raising fun lying in wait - for you.

Joyce Marsh - The Shepherd’s Dog: Dutiful to the last, Chauval the big, white shaggy sheepdog, obeys his dead master's command to herd a little boy away from the cliff's edge, even though it costs his life. Dog and man reunited in afterlife. Doesn't sound like much from so woeful a synopsis, but a strong opener and instant best-of-book contender.

Pamela Vincent - When the Moon Was Full: A vision of the Dreamtime. Separated from father while out night-fishing in the Australian Northwest, she yells at the moon - and is briefly transported back in time to witness a God dancing before a worshipful Aborigine.

Rosemary Timperley - The Man with the Beard: The Laycock's shed is haunted by the ghost of Nathaniel Bogg, bodysnatcher turned Burker, whose infamous client, Dr. Carver "the Cadaver" had a thing about the corpses of children. Obviously young Roger doesn't know this when he and best pal Alan played hide and seek in the garden.

Sydney J. Bounds - The Hanging Tree: The lynching at Tombstone Gulch. Original appearance of an old friend from The Green Ghost & Others.

Ray Gottlieb - The Fun Fair Ghost: Cocky twelve year old accepts job offered by "the fat geezer" at the fun fair. His duties? Creeping from hiding place to touch up the girls riding the Ghost Train. Real ghost - Elizabethan age model: talks like " By my troth, fine sport indeed" - dislikes competition. They reach a mutually beneficial arrangement.

[dem bones]

Julia Birley - The Life and Soul of the Party: Mr & Mrs Cox host the Parish Children's Party at her least favourite building in the neighbourhood, St. Ethelburga's, Penge. "Its just a useless bit of run-down Victorian gothic. A regular rocky horror. People throw their litter into the graveyard. It gives me the creeps." Even Mr. Cox's mood darkens when arch troublemakers Trevor and Larry show up bent on ruining the evening. He needn't worry. The infant greasers prove no match for tonight's cabaret turn, a masked, wispy-haired Conjurer, with several better than average tricks up his sleeve.

Mary Danby - The Haunters: The Westhampton Boys Club pay their annual visit to Blackwood Hall, a fifteenth century mansion house dutifully boasting a haunted gallery. Fledgling phantom fighters Jack and Bill Simpson surreptitiously access the gallery after dark, but the "spectre" they encounter - purportedly that of Sir Peregrine Portly - is so rubbish, it could only be one of their classmates fooling around with a sheet over his head! The brothers, furious that anyone would dare disrupt an important scientific investigation, prepare a spooky surprise for the prankster.

Brian Morse - A Cat on the Drive: When Michael's family move to London they do so minus 'Tibby' the cat who is evidently too stuck up to surrender a prestigious Barnet postcode. Or perhaps, even over several miles distance, Tibby senses the presence of a feline ghost at new home to be? It transpires that 'The Laurels' on Church Road is built on the site of a house destroyed by a German bomb on Guy Fawkes night, 1941. The solitary survivor of the blast has haunted it ever since.

[dem bones]

Lucy Norris - Portrait of Rhoda: Cake-scoffing Sarah Parker has unwisely boasted to school chums that she will shed half a stone over the Christmas holiday, but that becomes increasingly unlikely with every midnight pantry raid. Involuntary help is at hand from the murdering ghost of a local beauty whose portrait hangs in the study. According to family legend, Rhoda Marston's violent temper was solely responsible for the tragic accident that so disfigured her face and drove her to suicide. Now she steps out from the canvas ...

Mary Clarke - The Old Man of the Hill: Nature ramble on Tormore Crag for Mr. Watkins thirty-strong study group. Jimmy Chow, one of the brighter pupils, has looked forward to the climb but, as ever, he's targeted by the wannabe school bully, Race the racist, who threatens to entomb him once they reach the hilltop cemetery. Story seems to be heading places until, crushingly, the ghost of a kindly, centuries dead stage-Chinese intervenes on Jimmy's behalf.

Kay Leith - The Tockley Familiar: To break the monotony of holidaying in North Throcton with an elderly aunt, Derek Waverley, thirteen, investigates the alleged haunting of Tockley House, a roofless, burned out ruin, once home to Allan Broadfoot, notorious Black Magician. As have so many before him, Derek is scared half to death by a pair of fiery disembodied eyes and comes under attack from a stone-throwing entity. As with previous story, early promise sacrificed to a pat "happy" ending as Derek teams up with an amiable old timer to perform an impromptu exorcism.

Tim Vicary - The Curse of the White Owl: Local legend has it that Lady Mary Mowbray (died c. 1580) was denied burial in the churchyard for this grief-stricken outburst following the death of her infant child.

"Wherefore should I any longer worship your God, when he permits the very owls to breed in the belfry without harm and yet he could not save my daughter? I think I had rather be an owl, then, than a woman who kneels to your cruel God!"

A kind-hearted vicar has since diverted a section of the churchyard wall to reclaim the grave, but the curse upon her Ladyship remains. Every spring Mary is doomed to return to the church tower in the feathered form of a pregnant barn-owl so she may experience the loss of her newborn over and over. It has to be said that God is not the most sympathetic of deities in this one.

On hearing the story, cousin Simon, A Brummie, visiting with his parents, insists Sara accompany him to the belfry at midnight to show him the owlets. If she won't, well, that just proves that girls are soppy Scaredy Cats. Although Sara is fond of Simon there are times when she could cheerfully murder him and this is one such occasion. But to let the side down is unthinkable. Together they mount the steps ...


Despite mild criticisms above this is comfortably among the most consistently rewarding volumes I've read. Personal stand-outs include The Hanging Tree, Portrait of Rhoda, The Man With the Beard, The Haunters, The Shepherd's Dog, Curse of the White Owl .... in short, most of them.