Warwick Castle Competition - 'Ghosts have no feelings'

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Ghosts have no feelings: a collection of Ghost Stories centred on Warwick Castle.

A collection of short stories with Warwick Castle as the location, the product of a competition. Dates from 1988.



Cover and blurb from goodreads.

Blurb:

The 18 stories in the volume have been chosen from over a thousand specially-written entries in a Warwick Castle Ghost Story competition.

Widely diverse in style and content, they give full rein to the imagination of their respective authors, some of whom have based their stories on the traditionally supposed ghosts of Warwick Castle, whilst others have devised their own. In many cases we see 'life' from the inside, as it were, the ghosts themselves being the story-tellers.

Truly a national effort, the authors whose work is included here hail from as far as the Isle of Arran to Wiltshire, Essex to Shropshire, Norfolk to Avon, whilst the course of the West Midlands is well represented, proving that the noble pile that is Warwick Castle can stir the imagination of writers throughout the land.


Format 120 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1988 by Barbryn
ISBN 9780906160077 (ISBN10: 0906160073


Content:

The Wall - Paul D. Wapshott
Run to Mama - Sandra Gourlay
A Friend of Walt's - Audrey Elizabeth Roberts
Moll must have her pay - Rex Caddick
The Banquet - F.B. Atkin
The Gravestone of a Star - Graham Mercer
The outing - Pamela G. Hodge
Ghosts have no feelings - Reg Ferm
Time Tilt - Peter Thomas
The last of Clovis - Maggie Taylor
Ghost Writer - Beryl Williams
The Devil's looking glass - Bridget Rees
Padowski's Ghost - Howard C. Davis
The Ghosts of Warwick Castle - Keith Lanyon Jones
R I P Susie Smith - Caroline Price
The Will of Warwick Castle - Merlin Pearson Rogers
The best bargain driv'n - Geoffrey Fricker
The Minstrel's Tale - Joan Horn

[dem bones]

Nov 15, 2023 9:58:07 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

Widely diverse in style and content, they give full rein to the imagination of their respective authors, some of whom have based their stories on the traditionally supposed ghosts of Warwick Castle ...

Warwick Castle, Warwickshire
I FOUND IT interesting that of the scores of haunted castles I visited in the course of getting material for this book hardly any referred to their ghosts in their guidebooks. There would be pages of architectural description, diagrams and measurements, and often ample illustration but no mention of any supernatural aspect. I wonder if there is something about a ghost which is considered to lower the tone of a castle, or are the authors of guidebooks a race of dedicated materialists, able to enthuse equally about a donjon or garderobe but contemptuous of the Green Lady or the Family Curse?

A welcome exception was at magnificent Warwick Castle where not only do they mention the ghost of Sir Fulke Greville in their literature, but have a taped version of the story playing at intervals in the haunted room.

Sir Fulke Greville, first Baron Brooke, was an Elizabethan poet who completed his education at Jesus College in Cambridge. He wrote over a hundred sonnets and a couple of tragedies, but his life was not that of a literary recluse as he also served as a Privy Councillor.

While in London in 1628, he was stabbed by an old and trusted servant named Ralph Heywood. Heywood committed suicide afterwards, but Sir Fulke lingered a month before death overtook him. Then his restless spirit returned to his castle which he had restored at great expense to "the most princely seat within the midland parts of this realm", which is still a good description of Warwick.

The haunted room is Sir Fulke's study which is furnished just as it would have been when he sat there, quill in hand, before his parchment. His spectre still haunts it. Recently Mrs Joan Ryan heard an eldritch sound above the noise of her vacuum cleaner when she was cleaning the room. She described it as a loud "raking sound" coming from the panelling on which hung a portrait of the murdered gentleman.
"I turned off the machine, and a few moments later I heard the same noise again," she said. "I was so frightened I could not even find the key to let myself out of the room. I had never believed in ghosts, but I do now." After this she refused to work in the tower.

While I was visiting Warwick Castle a lady at the sales counter told me that the ghost of Sir Fulke had been seen in the castle shortly before my arrival.

In Notes and Queries Volume 14, 1918, I came across another story of Warwick Castle submittted by Mr J. Harvey Bloom who wrote:

An ancient dame had the privilege of selling spare milk (at the castle) and by system not uncommon to modern milk vendors she so cheated her customers that the earl hearing of it cancelled the privilege. She then bewitched the castle, usually in the form of a black dog. The chaplain and the vicars of St Mary's and St Nicholas brought the evil one to rest by reading passages of scripture, and eventually followed the witch in the form of a dog to the height of Caesar's Tower from which she or it sprang into the stream to a chamber prepared under the milldam. Her statue was placed above the tower battlements until blown down some years back.

Warwick Castle is well worth visiting because it has everything a castle should have from a defensive mound built by Ethelfleda, daughter of King Alfred, to a magnificent collection of armour in the Great Hall; and for those interested in the macabre there a display of torture instruments, some of which are from the Nuremburg Castle collection, in the dungeon.

— Marc Alexander, Haunted Castles (Frederick Muller, 1974)

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

I haven't read any of the stories to see if they compare. One seemed to have the ghost of a jogger.

[dem bones]

Similar idea, for children, the Michael Morpurgo edited Ghostly Haunts (Pavillion 1994, Collins 1995), ten spooky tales featuring such National Trust properties as Castle Drogo, Thomas Hardy's cottage, Hardcastle Crags, Mompesson House, Oxburgh Hall, etc.