Peter & Mary Harrison - Spinechiller

[dem bones]

Peter & Mary Harrison [collators] - Spinechiller (Sinclair, 1990)

Introduction

The South of England
Middle England
The North of England
Wales
Scotland
Overseas

INTRODUCTION
SPINECHILLER is a unique collection of true, authentic ghost stories, the experiences of ordinary people from all over the country, also some from overseas.

The stories have been collected over many years, mainly as a result of radio phone-in programmes where listeners have responded, in writing and over the air, to Mary's request for unexplained experiences. One of the most influential sources of material has been the regular MYSTERIES PHONE-IN with Pete Murray on LBC (London Talkback Radio). Mary has been the psychic researcher on this programme for over three years and has received a wealth of intriguing stories from listeners.

It is interesting to note that within the vast weekly mailbag a high percentage of letters start with the words: "Now I don't believe in ghosts, but..." Then the writer goes on to tell his or her ghost story! This shows that although people are often hesitant to divulge their experiences for fear of being ridiculed, the effect of what has occurred in their lives has been so overwhelming that they feel compelled to share their stories with others. Most of the stories in the book have been first time encounters and the people have gone to great lengths to emphasize that they have not dabbled in the occult.

Peter & Mary Harrison

A precursor of Richard Felix's The People's Ghost Stories (I swear that bloody book is haunting me), the one difference being these are separated into regions. Sample reports from the chapter devoted to the South of England.

According to former employee Gary Eldridge, Colin's bakery, Salisbury Road, had a high turnover of staff on account of its being haunted by a cloud of grey smoke with homicidal tendencies and a horrible laugh.

Joan Read recalls a non-fatal rub-in with the phantom organist of St. Nicholas, Deptford.

Brenda Whincup of Shropshire believes her gran's ghost tried to cadge a fag from her when she paid her mum a visit in London on Christmas Eve.

A shop premises on the Fulham Road haunted by a barber who slit his throat on learning of his wife's infidelity while he was away fighting the Kaiser. Quite good, this one.

Jeremy and a school chum witnessed a phantom hearse deliver a body to the mortuary in the grounds of Easthill House, Somerset (?) during the winter of 1963. The car and stretcher bearers left neither tyre track nor footprint in the thick snow.

Verity Blake on meeting her favourite teacher from schooldays at A Christmas reunion, then learning Miss Dorothy had died the previous Easter.

Mrs Sneddon recalls the night she watched a limping chap with a walking stick vanish through a locked door in Buckfastleigh Parish Church. Ghost said to be that of a man hanged as a thief, searching for his two vicious dogs.

Home on a week's leave in 1940, Jack Read returned to Lewisham, where the ghost of a girl killed in a bombing raid saved him from meeting with a similar fate.

Reminiscences of Frank, former landlord of the Star public house, (village unidentified), Herts., the haunt of a phantom buxom serving wench and multiple pigtailed ghosts wearing three-cornered hats.

[Swampirella]

Bought!

[dem bones]

Aug 2, 2023 11:17:49 GMT Swampirella said:

Bought!

Oh dear! I referenced The People's Ghost Story with you in mind, thinking it would prevent you doing anything rash!

Here's a contemporary review:

MARY Harrison is LBC's psychic researcher on Pete Murray's Mysteries Phone-In at London Talkback Radio. This collection of ghost stories has been compiled over several years from experiences phoned or written in by listeners. The Harrisons' two earlier books, The Children That Time Forgot (about remembered previous lives on earth) and Mystic Forces (about out-of-body experiences, timeslips, coincidences and other oddities), were researched in the same way.

There seems to have been no attempt at checking whether the contributions were genuine experiences or purely fabricated, and I must admit to finding Mystic Forces rather tedious, perhaps because the authors are not creative writers but merely quote their contributors. However, it tends to confirm the veracity of the correspondents, as real life is often boring — anyone who has attended a clairvoyance session knows how trivial are the messages passed on — and of the authors in not embroidering anything. Spinechiller is better than the last book because some of the stories are very eerie indeed.

More ghost stories are in the pipeline in Spinechiller II, and the authors welcome true stories of unexplained experiences of all kinds for future books. Send them to: Peter and Mary Harrison, c/o Sinclair Publishing Ltd, 26 Silver Street, Wellingborough, Northants NN8 1AY.

KS.


— Harrow Observer, 18 January, 1990.

To best of my knowledge, the threatened Spinechiller II failed to materialise. I'm still dipping into the Southern section. The suicide barber has been far the star of the show so far.

[Swampirella]

Aug 2, 2023 16:08:55 GMT dem bones said:

Aug 2, 2023 11:17:49 GMT Swampirella said:

Bought!

Oh dear! I referenced The People's Ghost Story with you in mind, thinking it would prevent you doing anything rash!

Here's a contemporary review:

MARY Harrison is LBC's psychic researcher on Pete Murray's Mysteries Phone-In at London Talkback Radio. This collection of ghost stories has been compiled over several years from experiences phoned or written in by listeners. The Harrisons' two earlier books, The Children That Time Forgot (about remembered previous lives on earth) and Mystic Forces (about out-of-body experiences, timeslips, coincidences and other oddities), were researched in the same way.

There seems to have been no attempt at checking whether the contributions were genuine experiences or purely fabricated, and I must admit to finding Mystic Forces rather tedious, perhaps because the authors are not creative writers but merely quote their contributors. However, it tends to confirm the veracity of the correspondents, as real life is often boring — anyone who has attended a clairvoyance session knows how trivial are the messages passed on — and of the authors in not embroidering anything. Spinechiller is better than the last book because some of the stories are very eerie indeed.

More ghost stories are in the pipeline in Spinechiller II, and the authors welcome true stories of unexplained experiences of all kinds for future books. Send them to: Peter and Mary Harrison, c/o Sinclair Publishing Ltd, 26 Silver Street, Wellingborough, Northants NN8 1AY.

KS.


— Harrow Observer, 18 January, 1990.

To best of my knowledge, the threatened Spinechiller II failed to materialise. I'm still dipping into the Southern section. The suicide barber has been far the star of the show so far.

Your mentioning The People's Ghost Stories had the opposite effect instead! I got the ebook version, for little more than $1 so practically nothing. I'm sure you'd say "It's not worth even that much" but I'm looking forward to reading it one of these weeks.

[dem bones]

More from the South.

MR Young on being overtaken by a phantom cyclist during a trial race from Gallows Corner to the Fortune of War pub, Southend, in July 1953.

Mr. Bletsoe's son - and evidently their dog - witnessed a ghost girl vanish from the wall of a Hemel Hempstead cemetery.

Mrs Pengilly of Southampton delivers with a haunted shed beside a Whitchurch mill whose screaming, chain-rattling ghost is that of a deformed child locked away by parents afeared of public ridicule. The haunting so upset Joe Lloyd's wife that he called in a priest to bless the house and grounds, which did the trick.

Ann Adams of Crowborough, E. Sussex reports the ghost of a "Victorian" woman in red sash dress playing Typhoid Mary in an old people's home.

Keen gardener Mr. Brett, "a down-to-earth Londoner," could get nothing to grow in his front garden. He later discovered that his house, built 1929, took a direct hit in a 1940 bombing raid, killing a family of four. "My blood ran cold when I learned that in the total confusion and devastation caused by the blast which damaged the entire street, the bodies of the two small girls had been laid out in the front garden, covered with a tarpaulin and forgotten about for a couple of days."

A lady from Kent on a levitating loaf in a bakers shop. Phenomena witnessed by two assistants and a lady who saw all from outside in the street.

A recurring theme of this section is the ailing parent whose ghost appears to a son or daughter several miles away at the precise moment of death.