Geoffrey Palmer & Noel Lloyd - Ghosts Go Haunting

[dem bones]

Geoffrey Palmer & Noel Lloyd - Ghosts Go Haunting (Odhams, 1967: originally Roy, 1960)

Back Rowel Friers:
Front Laszlo Acs

Ghost Dog
First Dance with a Ghost
The Iron Ring
The Brown Lady
The Duke's Decision
Ghost of the Coach-Road
Corpse-Candle
Appointment with Death
Ghostly Treasure
The Golden Guinea
A Ghost's Revenge
Back from the Sea
The Withered Bush
The Doctor and the Ghost
Ghost in the Schoolroom
The Haunting Skull
Ghost in Distress

In Search of Ghosts: Notes on the stories

Blurb:
GHOSTS GO HAUNTING
Ghosts have been seen since very ancient times, and ghost stories have been told round the fireside on winter nights to generations of children who have enjoyed the delicious terror of the unseen and the uncanny.

In Ghosts Go Haunting there are stories of‘ ghosts who have appeared during the last three hundred years or so. Each story is based on historical fact, though how much legend has grown round the original happening it is difficult to say. There are haunted houses, open coffins and ghostly dogs; skulls which play strange tricks, weird lights which foretell a death, and mysterious figures who move silently through the night. You will meet poor Rebecca forever searching for her golden guinea, mad Anne Tottenham, shut away in a tapestried room, the ghost who helped to foil a gang of highwaymen, and many more.

Whether you like your ghosts frightening or pathetic, angry or sad, romantic or tragic, they are all here. Even if you do not believe in ghosts you will find it hard to resist the spell of the supernatural which pervades every page, or to avoid giving a quick glance over your shoulder between one story and the next.

Every story has a spine-chilling picture drawn by LASZLO ACS.

Seventeen supernatural tales adapted from originals by such celebrated ghost-hunters and folklorists as Elliott O'Donnell, Augustus Hare, Florence Marryat and Andrew Lang.

Ghost Dog: Mr. Taylor, holidaying in Woolacombe, North Devon, narrowly escapes a terrible doom when he tries catching up with a young woman he believes to be heading toward the village. 'The White Lady of Death,' as she is known locally, makes it her business to lure strangers onto the quicksands. Taylor's faithful dead spaniel guides him to safety. According to the notes, the source for this one is Elliott O'Donnell's Ghosts with a Purpose (1951)

First Dance with a Ghost: South Downs. Alice Fitzroy receives an invite to Sir George and Lady Bell's Grand Ball at Merton Hall. How exciting! She so hopes a handsome young man will overlook her "old fashioned face" and ask her to dance! A charming stranger in what she takes to be fancy dress - blue satin coat, knee breeches, etc - obliges. How thrilling it all is ... until Alice discovers the dashing dance partner is long in his grave.

The Golden Guinea: Fisher Hill Street, near London Bridge, 1790. Rebecca Griffiths, servant, falls for Carl Dupree, "handsome, rich and gay," believing her undying love to be reciprocated. It isn't. When Carl moves to pastures new, Rebecca goes insane. Rebecca is hauled off to Bedlam to die mad, heartbroken, and clutching the golden guinea gifted her by Carl for being such a dutiful domestic. Her dying wish is that the coin be buried with her, but a greedy warden has other ideas ...

The Iron Ring: Radicofani, Tuscany, late in the eighteenth century. Count de Fensen, travelling Europe to forget the horrors of the Revolution, spends the night at a village inn. As he drifts into sleep, the ghost of a stonemason appears. "I am dead. My body is underneath your bed ... " The ghost claims that he was murdered by his wife and her lover, the innkeeper. To prove that de Fensen has not dreamt the entire episode, the phantom slips a ring on his finger. As requested, the Count tells his story to the Commissary of Police, who launches an investigation.

[dem bones]

The Brown Lady: Rainham Park, Norfolk, c. 1835. Among the guests entertained by Lord and Lady Charles Townsend, the famous author, Captain Frederick Marryat. On learning of the resident ghost, Marryat insists on putting up in the haunted chamber. He sleeps with a loaded revolver beneath the pillow. On the third night, Marryat's vigil is rewarded when 'The Brown Lady' steps down from her portrait, her face fallen away to reveal the grinning skull beneath!

Ghost of the Coach-Road: Yorkshire, late eighteenth century. Coachman Ben Priestley and passengers are protected from Highwaymen by the ghost of his grandmother, the one-time village flirt, making good on her dying promise.

Corpse-Candle: North Wales, "a long time ago." Tom Llewellyn, eighteen, goads nervous best pal Evan Pugh, sixteen, to accompany him through the creepy cemetery beside the chapel. They are intercepted by an eerie figure brandishing canwyll corph, the corpse candle! Best not look the phantom in the eye as it wears the face of he or she who is next to die. If Ghost of the Coach-Road reads like something from the early, benign Armada Ghost Books, Corpse-Candle would be suited to the later volumes where the tone tended toward darker outcomes.

[helrunar]

Somehow, I only just now realized that this book must have been compiled by the actors of these names. Interesting that the blurb doesn't refer to the fact that the compilers were well known TV actors.

Some of these sound almost exactly like stories I've read in such collections as Lady Asquith's Ghost Books.

H.

[Swampirella]

Aug 24, 2020 11:11:46 GMT helrunar said:

Somehow, I only just now realized that this book must have been compiled by the actors of these names. Interesting that the blurb doesn't refer to the fact that the compilers were well known TV actors.

Some of these sound almost exactly like stories I've read in such collections as Lady Asquith's Ghost Books.

H.

....and a few for me that sound like chapters from 50 Great Ghost Stories (ed. John Canning). Thanks for the review, Dem!

[Dr Strange]

Aug 24, 2020 11:11:46 GMT helrunar said:

Interesting that the blurb doesn't refer to the fact that the compilers were well known TV actors.

I don't think they were - it's a different Geoffrey Palmer who was/is in a lot of British TV sitcoms, and is still alive. This Geoffrey Palmer died in 2005, and he and Noel Lloyd ran a bookshop together, as well as writing books - www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-noel-lloyd-1200175.html

[dem bones]

Aug 24, 2020 13:20:17 GMT Dr Strange said:

Aug 24, 2020 11:11:46 GMT helrunar said:

Interesting that the blurb doesn't refer to the fact that the compilers were well known TV actors.

I don't think they were - it's a different Geoffrey Palmer who was/is in a lot of British TV sitcoms, and is still alive. This Geoffrey Palmer died in 2005, and he and Noel Lloyd ran a bookshop together, as well as writing books - www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-noel-lloyd-1200175.html

This from the inner dust jacket;

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

GEOFFREY PALMER is the Headmaster of a large Primary School in London, though in his time he has been an actor, baker’s roundsman, and has worked on a coal wharf. He is interested in everything to do with the past, and with Noel Lloyd has written several books on historical subjects, as well as children’s novels set in Sherwood Forest, where he himself lived as a boy. The children in his school get a ‘preview’ of his stories, and were inspired to write their own ghost stories after hearing those in Ghosts Go Haunting.

NOEL LLOYD is an actor who has appeared chiefly on the stage, but has also done radio and television work and has written plays for broadcasting. He has travelled widely in many parts of the world, and his experiences have been useful in his writing. Apart from acting and writing his chief interest is in music, and his collection of gramophone records is reaching proportions which are beginning to frighten him. In his spare time he goes to cricket matches.

Laszlo Acs, The Golden Guinea

[dem bones]

The Ghost's Revenge: 1755. Campbell of Inverawe plays Good Samaritan to an injured man, Macniven, unaware that the wretch has slain his foster-brother in cold blood. The dead man's ghost is adamant. "Inverawe, shield not the murderer. Blood must flow for blood." Campbell is torn. His loyalty is to his kin, but he gave his word to Macniven that he would protect him. A second night the spectre appears, angrier still at being denied. Campbell makes his mind up to kill Macniven, but the coward has bolted! His excuse falls on deaf ears. "I have warned you once, I have warned you twice, It is too late now. We shall meet again at Ticonderoga." So it proves. Adapted from Andrew Lang's Ticonderoga, (Dreams and Ghosts, 1897), as recently included in Rosemary Gray's Scottish Ghost Stories.

Appointment with Death: The ghost of a beautiful, stately woman appears to Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, to warn of his impending doom. Three nights from now, on the stroke of twelve, she will come for him. Friends josh his lordship as a superstitious fool but the man's mood-swings compel them to practice a little deception. on the third day, it is agreed that every clock in the house be brought forward an hour ...

According to the authors' notes, story pieced together from an entry in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1816, and correspondence in various issues of Notes & Queries.

The Duke's Decision: 1705. The much loved Duke Christian of Eisenberg reunites the ghosts of his ancestors - Duke Casimir of Saxe-Coburg and his wife, the Princess Anna - whose loving relationship soured due to a terrible misunderstanding. Pleasant enough, but in common with much of the selection, it lacks abject misery. Corpse-Candle still way out in front.

[dem bones]

The Haunted Skull: Seventeenth century, Burton Agnes Hall, West Riding, Yorks. Alice , youngest daughter of Sir Henry Griffith, is fatally injured during a tussle with bandits. Her dying wish is that her head be separated from her body and kept within the house as "I should not rest if part of me was not here." When her instructions are ignored, the hall is subjected to an outbreak of poltergeist activity.

The Ghost's Treasure: A familiar customer to readers of Harry Ludlam, Adrian Chambers, et al - Miss Beswick, perhaps better known as "the Mummy of Birchin Bower," who, fearful of premature burial, left specific instructions with her trusted physician what must be done with her remains after death. "Dr. White had her body embalmed with tar, covered with bandages, put in an open coffin with the face exposed, and for many years kept it at his home." Thereafter, sightings of the ghost in the brown dress were a regular occurrence at Birchin Bower, although she was never known to do any harm.

Back From The Sea: September 1866 off the coast of Jamaica. Horribly maimed in an accident aboard ship, young Tom Potter makes a last attempt to contact his mother in Greenwich, South London. She's moved out. Too slight to be maudlin.

The Withered Bush: Middle Manse, Blairgowrie. November 1730. David Sutor cannot rest until the bones of a poacher he murdered are recovered and afforded Christian burial. Until then, he is doomed to wander the Highlands in the form of a red-eyed phantom hound. His descendant, William, and a sympathetic minister organise a search for a mouldering skeleton buried beneath a withered bush.

[dem bones]

Last three:

The Doctor and the Ghost: Low Willington, Newcastle, 1840. Dr. Edward Drury holds a very low opinion of credulous fools who believe in ghosts and the like. "I would dearly like to show up all this nonsense about the supernatural. A night alone in a haunted house would be a very interesting experience." Farmer Davison suggests that he might regret those words were he to visit the old Proctor place after dark.

Ghost in the Schoolroom: Beaminster, Dorset, 1728. The ghastly-faced spectre of John Daniel, an unpopular pupil dead at fourteen, appears before a schoolmaster and several classmates - he hauls along a phantom coffin for the occasion. Haunting preceded by mysterious rapping and a ghostly choir.

Ghost in Distress: Loftus Hall, co. Wexford, Southern Ireland, eighteenth and nineteenth Century. When the man she loved failed to keep his promise and return for her, a distraught Anne Tottenham shut herself away in her room and went insane. The Tottenham's had the servants deliver her meals, otherwise they left her to die - whereupon Anne's growling, bedclothes-tugging ghost spent a century terrorising anyone foolhardy enough to sleep in the tapestry room.

[dem bones]

Noel Lloyd & Geoffrey Palmer - Haunting Stories of Ghosts & Ghouls (Hamlyn, 1982)

Ivan Lapper

Huw
The Bag of Ghosts
The Beggar Woman of Locarno
Ghost in Distress
The Withered Bush
Appointment with Death
The Message
The Duke's Decision
The Staircase
Billy Bates' Story
The Headless Horseman
Fisher's Ghost
The Black Ribbon
The Obstinate Ghost
First Performance
Ghost at Sea
Requiem for a Ghost
Mungo
The Haunting Skull
The Golden Guinea
Ghostly Treasure
Corpse-Candle
Ghost at Halloween
The Ghost in the Barrel
Ghost in the Schoolroom
Ghost of the Coach-Road
Invitation to a Ghost


No blurb, just an advisory note on p.6

The Stories in this book previously appeared in The Obstinate Ghost and other Ghostly Tales, Ghosts Go Haunting and Ghost Stories around the World all published by Odhams Books limited

Huw: Narrator, driving a lonesome mountain road during a rainstorm, offers a lift to a taciturn youth who asks to be dropped at 'Stricken Trees. When the motorist mentions where he's headed, the boy pipes up. "Don't go to Bala tonight, Mister.' And vanishes. What can it all mean? Shaken, the driver pulls in at the next pub and mentions what happened. A hush descends on the bar. A miserable old man steps forward ...

[dem bones]

Fisher's Ghost: Retelling of what's believed to be the first Australian ghost story in print (?). 19th Century Penrith, New South Wales. Abel Fisher, miserly middle-aged farmer, is murdered for his land, the weighted corpse left to rot in a stagnant pond. Fisher's horrible-looking spectre appears to Ben Weir, who informs a magistrate of his suspicions.

The Message: Artist Thomas Shadwell spends the summer months at a Kent rectory where he receives a visit from the ghost of the sweetest little girl in the world ever, who went to her death wrongly accused of stealing a gold coin. You're advised to keep that Mark of the Devil vomit bag close throughout this one.

The Black Ribbon: Keeping his promise, Lord Tyrone's ghost appears to childhood friend Nicola Sophie Hamilton, now Lady Beresford, and outlines her future, including the lousy bits and the age at which she will join him in the grave. His icy touch withers Nicola's wrist, requiring its concealment beneath a silk ribbon for the rest of her days.

The Headless Horseman: .... Charlie Curlaine's race with an irrascible old huntsman who carries his skull beneath his arm. As met in Carolyn Lloyd's Animal Ghosts (1980)

[dem bones]

Ivan Lapper

Ghostly Treasure: (Ghosts Go Haunting, 1960). Familiar account of the musty mummy of Brichen Bower and how she came to be that way. Miss Beswick's ghost was such a fixture on the corridors that the household grew annoyingly blasé toward her, although a last recorded appearance, toward the end of Victoria's reign, set a farmhand to flight.

The Beggar Woman of Locarno: The Marquess, furious that the days hunt did not go to plan, evicts an ancient ragged cripple from a bed of straw in the stable. Several years later, the beggar woman's ghost returns to destroy him. Much fleshed out from the Heinrich von Kleist original (?) as featured in J. A. Cuddon's Penguin Book of Ghost Stories. Palmer and Lloyd rework it as a supernatural horror.

Ghost in Distress: Loftus Hall, Co, Wexford. Young Anne Tottenham pines away her sanity over a handsome stranger who briefly visited the hall but never returned. Eventually she's confined to the tapestried room at the end of the corridor. "No one cared what happened to her. She grew wilder, dirtier, more like an animal than a human being."

Some years after her death, Anne's parents had a Justice of the Peace stop overnight. They put him up in the tapistried room ....

[jamesdoig]

Feb 12, 2021 12:05:09 GMT dem bones said:

Ivan Lapper

Doesn't that illustration look familiar?