Mary Danby - The Green Ghost

[dem]

Terry Tapp - The Day I Died: Groan. All that fanfare, all that "yeah, but The Day I Died knocks spots off that one!" and .... wrong bloody story! Might even be wrong author, too, as the name 'Tim Stout' now flashes mockingly before my eyes. The corpse in question is Mr. Ernest Morgan, who expired intervening on behalf of an inoffensive pupil facing undeserved punishment from Mr. Bassett, the serial-caning maths teacher. The spectre sticks around to pay a few unimaginative pranks until Bassett sees the error of his ways. The Junk Room is way better.

[cauldronbrewer]

Apr 4, 2012 18:07:55 GMT dem said:

Terry Tapp - The Day I Died: Groan. All that fanfare, all that "yeah, but The Day I Died knocks spots off that one!" and .... wrong bloody story! Might even be wrong author, too, as the name 'Tim Stout' now flashes mockingly before my eyes. The corpse in question is Mr. Ernest Morgan, who expired intervening on behalf of an inoffensive pupil facing undeserved punishment from Mr. Bassett, the serial-caning maths teacher. The spectre sticks around to pay a few unimaginative pranks until Bassett sees the error of his ways. The Junk Room is way better.

I was wondering about that, as I wasn't too impressed with this one! ;D

[dem]

Introducing The Looney in Uncanny Banquet, Ramsey mentions that Alison Prince has had three children's ghost story collections to her name, Haunted Children (Methuen 1982), The Ghost Within (Methuen 1984 /Magnet 1986) and A Haunting Refrain (Metheun 1988), a seven story collection of "Supernatural stories on the theme of music." I've not seen a table of contents for Haunted Children but The Baby-sitter is in there. The Ghost Within has nine stories, one of which, The Lilies, was chosen by Robert Westall for Ghost Stories. She also made the decidedly adult 16th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories with a particularly nasty Mother's Day celebration. Incredibly, Alison's most famous work in Britain is the theme tune for cult TV favourite Trumpton, for which she also wrote the scripts! More startling revelations on her website, Alison Prince UK

Tony Richards - Somebody Drowned: Jeff Hollis, fishing at the weirpool where young Alan Weeks drowned last year. A pull on the line and Jeff reels in a human hand which disappears moments after breaking the surface. Alan is still thinking over what he's just seen when his friends Tom and Leon arrive. Leon, a swaggering loud-mouth, taunts him into joining them for their usual evening swim and never mind the 'DANGER' notice. Something clutches his ankle just as he reaches the deepest waters of the pool .....

For the first eight pages you might be reading something from The Pan Book Of Horror Stories, so a benevolent ghost comes as a disappointment. Tony recently contributed a far darker drowning story, The In-Betweeners, to the much-debated The Seventh Black Book Of Horror!

[dem]

If it's a mind-bending experience you're after, I can recommend alternating between this collection and John Halkin's increasingly suspenseful Slime (70 pages to go) wherein 'Jellyfish Hazard' warnings are now being posted across England and S. Wales, and - oh, tough luck Torquay ....

Back in the realm of The Green Ghost and two good ones on the bounce, or at least, i thought so.

Sydney J. Bounds - Hunter's Hill: The villagers avoid it as a place haunted by a past evil, and climbers have been known to plummet to their deaths in the valley below, but hikers John and Carol Clark ignore the elderly shopkeeper's warning and set off up Hunter's Hill. As they ascend a mist falls and it's as though the trees are deliberately lashing out at them. John twists an ankle forcing them to camp the night on a patch of barren earth.

At midnight a chanting torch-lit procession emerge from the woods. As John sleeps, his sister is frogmarched at pitchfork point into the trees where a stake has been prepared for the witch-burning ....

A re-jigged ending and this could just as easily made a volume of the Fontana Horrors. It's a big improvement on The Haunted Circus, that's for sure.

Rita Morris - Hallowe’en: One half of the 'Roger Malisson' team in a rare solo appearance. October 31st and Alan Chandler is hiding behind a gravestone in the local churchyard, waiting to leap out at his 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 she seems to take malicious delight in mentioning the fatal accident in the supermarket car park two months back which resulted in the death of a boy. 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. But, as she warns him, he'll soon come to regret his rudeness toward her.

[cauldronbrewer]

Apr 5, 2012 16:49:52 GMT dem said:

Introducing The Looney in Uncanny Banquet, Ramsey mentions that Alison Prince has had children's ghost story collections to her name, Haunted Children (Methuen 1982), The Ghost Within (Methuen 1984 /Magnet 1986) and A Haunting Refrain (Metheun 1988), a seven story collection of "Supernatural stories on the theme of music." I've not seen a table of contents for Haunted Children but The Baby-sitter is in there.

According to WorldCat, Haunted Children includes the following stories (along with illustrations by Michael Bragg):

Bodger
The haunted cow
Kirsty
The station-master
The suit of armour
Timmy
The last trick
The baby-sitter
Hetty's rat
Responsibility

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that "Kirsty" is about a girl named Kirsty who ends up insane by the end of the story.

[cauldronbrewer]

I may have guessed wrong--a brief review of Haunted Children on the Books for Keeps website suggests that Kirsty is the haunter, not the haunted.

[dem]

Don't know whether to be glad or disappointed that it's not a collection of her Armada Ghost/ Nightmares work, which is pretty stupid, I know as the more original stories the merrier. Still, it would be good to have all the early stories compiled into one Armada-size slimline volume.

In case you're unaware, there's yet another related series, Barbara Ireson's Spooky Tales, published by Carousel, which ran to six volumes between 1975-1984. The mix is similar to the Christine Barnard Armada Ghosts: 'classic' oldies fighting it out with Mary Danby regulars including Rosemary Timperley, Joan Aiken, Catherine Gleason, Margaret Biggs, Sorche Nic Leodhas, Geoffrey Palmer & Noel Lloyd, etc. Alison Prince's Can't Help Laughing made the final volume and it is far from the only reprint from the Armada's: The Woodseaves Ghosts, Brownie, The Sinister Schoolmaster, Humblepuppy ... there are some originals, but as they only account for a small percentage. Barbara Ireson was a prolific anthologist of children's ghost and horror stories throughout the 'seventies/ early eighties, and you'll find some examples here.

[cauldronbrewer]

Apr 10, 2012 9:41:12 GMT dem said:

don't know whether to be glad or disappointed that it's not a collection of her Armada Ghost/ Nightmares work, which is pretty stupid, i know as the more original stories the merrier. Still, it would be good to have all the early stories compiled into one Armada-size slimline volume.

That was my reaction, too!

I hadn't come across Barbara Ireson's name before, so thanks for the tip. She seems to have a fondness for Joan Aiken, which is a promising sign. It's a good thing I have an empty bookshelf set aside solely for future purchases of children's horror anthologies--my list keeps getting longer and longer, what with all the J. A. Cuddon, Helen Hoke, Mary Danby, Anthony Horowitz, Robert Westall, and now Barabara Ireson books out there.

[dem]

Ha, that's the curse of Vault! it's a very rare day when nobody suggests yet another book or story of interest. Even if you had millions to throw at collecting them all, you'd require a lifespan to rival Methuselah's and a library the size of the Gherkin.

Barbara Ireson's Creepy Creatures strikes me as a children's horror anthology you could easily repackage as an adult selection with nobody being the wiser, Ghostly & Ghastlly perhaps less so, though it includes a number of old faces. i'm not so sure about Spooky Tales which looks, for the most part, a grab-bag from 'children's anthologies you may already have. The first seems a typical case: two from The Third Ghost Book, two from The House Of The Nightmare, Chetwynd-Hayes from the Armada Ghosts, J. K. Bangs' The Water Ghost Of Harrowby Hall from everywhere, leaving a paltry three stories which may or may not be original to the collection. That will be another for the wants list, then.

Still chiselling away at The Green Ghost. I certainly share your enthusiasm for Tony Richards' commendably grim The Girl In The Cellar. It doubtless says something terrible about me, but when Mr Richards began laying on the misery with a trowel (the post "and then the spiteful aunt had a heart attack" episode), i damn near fell out of the chair with laughter.

Sydney J. Bounds - Spirit Of The Trail: Brash Texan cow-hand Red kills an Injun medicine man and wishes he hadn't. The dead man torments him across the Prairie before delivering the death blow. A much better example of Syd doing his thing than The Haunted Circus, I'd have said.

[dem]

Tony Richards - The Girl In The Cellar: A young heiress whose cruel aunt treats her as a skivvy and locks her in the damp, dark cellar whenever the mood takes her. Such is the case the night when the old girl suffers a fatal heart-attack. The imprisoned girl loses her sanity as she slowly starves to death.
Cut to the present day and Simon and his slightly older, responsible cousin Katy have been left to look after baby Daniella while his parents enjoy a gallivant on the town. As a storm rages outside, Simon and Katy descend into the cellar for more coal. The lonely ghost seizes her opportunity.

Ken Burke - The Dance Of Death: Galway. Little Molly develops pneumonia after her pony deposits her in the local pond. The Shaughnessy family banshee gets its hopes up.

Catherine Gleason - The Woodeaves Ghosts: David Mitchell and little sister Sally know the library at Woodeaves Hall is haunted. One hundred and fifty years ago, Lucretia and her brother Comus were poisoned here by their grasping stepmother who'd only married their father for his money. Tonight is the anniversary, and the dead children are bent on taking back the lives denied them - by any means necessary.

[ripper]

After promising myself that I would get a copy for far too long, I finally got one from a charity shop. Actually, it was Mrs. Ripper's eagle eyes that spotted it lurking in a pile of unsorted books, and, knowing my tastes, drew my attention to it.

[dem]

Oct 9, 2016 10:15:23 GMT ripper said:

After promising myself that I would get a copy for far too long, I finally got one from a charity shop. Actually, it was Mrs. Ripper's eagle eyes that spotted it lurking in a pile of unsorted books, and, knowing my tastes, drew my attention to it.

Well played, Mrs. Ripper. A real mixed-bag, this one. Some of the stories from the earlier volumes of the Armada Ghost Books are pretty meh, but the series definitely improved circa vol seven. Hope you let us know how you get along with it!

[ripper]

Will do, Dem. I have a few of the Armadas, but thought this 'best of' would give me an idea of the overall series, albeit that these would be the cream, I presume.

[dem]

Oct 10, 2016 13:30:30 GMT ripper said:

Will do, Dem. I have a few of the Armadas, but thought this 'best of' would give me an idea of the overall series, albeit that these would be the cream, I presume.

Not all of them are "the cream," at least, not in my opinion, but the very good ones compensate for the weedier efforts.

[dem]

Some more;

Rosemary Timperley - The Murderous Ghosts: "I don't care much for females. They seem unnatural to me." Such is Jack's response when Mr. Gregory Lake, who has just thrown wife Annabel overboard, cautions him, "Never get married, young man." Occasion is a cross channel ferry trip and Jack's initial suspicion is that the stranger is either pulling his leg about murdering his wife or he's a lunatic. Mr. Lake has yet to realise that, as with his wife, he too is a ghost, Annabel having spiked his drink with weed-killer before he drowned her.

Rosemary Timperley - The Thing That Went Bump in the Night: "Cut-my-throat-and-hope-to-die." Tom is spending his hols at uncle Bob's, where something unseen nightly bounces downstairs like a football. When the boy gropes around for the invisible thing his hands come away covered in blood! What can it all mean?

Tom pays a fruitful visit to the previous owners, Misses Upward and Downey, who explain what happened the night the burglar broke it. A touch of the macabre, not lacking in supernatural incident.

Rosemary Timperley - the Haunted Pillar-box: (Armada Ghost 8, 1976). Some people post the most inappropriate items.

Catherine Gleason - The Post Room: Joey's first summer job, as assistant to pensioner Fred in the post room of Harmon & Co. He's a replacement for the late Charlie, who misses Fred too much to rest quietly in his grave. Charlie takes to communicating racing tips through the Telex and generally making himself useful, ultimately in a life-saving capacity.

Daphne Froome - Lisa: A series of unlikely circumstances sees Lisa trapped in a flat on Cheapside close to St. Mary-le-Bow church while collecting a donation to "the stray animal charity." Fearful she'll starve to death before the owners return from holidaying in the Lake District, Lisa is rescued by the ghost of Dick Whittington's cat, just in time to board the charity's float for the Lord Mayor's Parade.