Harry Ludlam - Ghosts Among Us

[dem bones]

Harry Ludlam - Ghosts Among Us: Eye witness Accounts of True Hauntings (Janus, 1994)

Cover design: Linda Wade

The Murderous Mother Superior
The French Cavalry Officer's Wife
The Bell of Death
Growing up with a Ghost
Ghosts Among Us
Supper for the Tomb
The Ghost in Town Tonight
The Haunted Police Station
Happiness is a Ghost
Terrors of the Tower
The Ghostly Fire-Raisers
'Evil' at a Boys' School
Close Encounters of a Ghostly Kind
The Ladies of the George
The Darling Ghosts of Pluckley
The Lift That Would Not Stop
Ghosts and the Camera
The Stratford Paintings Mystery
The Highgate Shocker
The Admiral Looks In
A Night at Skull Cottage
The Council House Horrors
The Sunken Garden
What Three Wives Saw
Ghosts and the Famous
A Haunted Police House
The Head of Anne Griffith
The Colonel's Lodgers
Spectres of the Crossing
Three Days of Hell
The Face in the Windscreen
Mrs Abercrombie and Others

Blurb:

'For connoisseurs of true ghosts - wistful wraiths and evil apparitions alike - I can most heartily recommend the careful researching of Harry Ludlam. He records with real interest and — dare I say it? — love, the existence of THINGS among us... Look back over your shoulder. Twice.' - The Sun

GHOSTS AMONG US is a collection of true ghost stories based on the testimony of eye-witnesses from all over Great Britain. Compellingly and chillingly told, these stories have been diligently researched by master investigator Harry Ludlam, who has spent years on the trail of the mysterious and often bizarre spectres in our midst. A must for sceptics and for those seeking reassurance that they are not alone in their experience of the supernatural.

Harry Ludlam is a former Fleet Street newspaperman, author of A BIOGRAPHY OF DRACULA and the much-acclaimed THE MUMMY OF BIRCHEN BOWER and editor of Elliott O'Donnell's GHOST HUNTER. Now he presents his latest enthralling collection of true stories in GHOSTS AMONG US.

Nabbed this for £1 at Sunday market on Christmas Eve. Harry Ludlum compiled several posthumous Elliott O'Donnell selections, and from the stories sampled to date his own accounts are no less entertaining.

The Murderous Mother Superior. A case from the 1970s. A child patient and staff reported sightings of a 'Blue Lady' on the wards of a Hampshire hospital. No-one seemed too upset until the ghost turned nasty, attacking Nurse Harris and a colleague in a rest room. "There were two empty beds in there, and we went to sleep. I awoke to hear my friend calling out. I imagined she had had a nightmare, and after talking to her, I dozed off. Suddenly I had the sensation that someone was lying full-length on me. It must have been a tall person because I am 5ft 5in and I was completely covered. I panicked because I felt I couldn't breathe, and then to my relief a nurse arrived to call us." The hospital was formerly a convent and seance revealed the ghost as that of a child-murdering nun (see cover photo) who hung herself in the 1920s.

The Ladies of the George. Haunted hostelries, including Lydd's ghost ridden The George Hotel whose resident phantoms include a young woman in crinoline, a murdered girl in room 6, a spectral cat, and a headless man in the car park; The Anchor Inn, Hastings, and its troublesome blurry featured hanged man in black top hat and cloak; poltergeist activity at The Chequers Inn, Smarsden, and strange goings-on at Rye's The George Hotel, one the favoured hang out of marshland smugglers.

" ... However, the Mermaid's more spectacular ghosts, unique in the annals of haunted inns, are the two phantom duellists in Room 16. The recent history of this haunting dates back to before the First World War when the inn, after some three centuries as a hostelry, had reverted to use as a private dwelling. It was bought by Mrs May Aldington, whose son was a novelist, and she reopened it as a theatrical and writers' club, attracting people like Dame Ellen Terry, Henry James and Rupert Brooke.

Mrs Aldington's own claim to fame came when she decided to investigate odd occurrences in one of the rooms — Room 16. She arranged for herself and a psychic woman friend to spend a night in it. Their vigil took place on 29 October 1913. The pair grew tired as they waited and both fell asleep. During the night, Mrs Aldington awoke to find a silent duel raging round her bed as two phantom combatants dressed in doublet and hose fought it out with rapiers. They fought for a few seconds until one man received a fatal blow. The victor then pulled his dying opponent to a corner of the room and unceremoniously dumped him down an oubliette, or trapdoor-hole, into the dungeon-cellar below. Mrs Aldington excitedly woke her friend to tell her what she had seen - the psychic lady had slept through it all."

The Haunted Police Station. Swadlincote, Derbyshire. Benign, if occasionally mischievous ghost of 'Sir', a chief inspector who dropped dead in his office on the day of his promotion to Superintendent.

The French Cavalry Officer's Wife. Author's friend, Mrs Alice Dixon, is unnerved by shadowy presence at house in Golders Green where a previous occupant was suspected of murdering his wife during World War I.

'Evil' at a Boys' School. An exorcism at Tonbridge Public school. The Rev. Francis Gripper banishes a furniture-rearranging poltergeist from the sanitarium.

[ripper]

I've read several of Ludlam's books over the years and enjoyed them. This sounds like an interesting collection of accounts, and, I am pleased to say, it is also currently on Kindle for £1.99.

[dem bones]

After a run of too samey true ghost Books (Peter Underwood in particular seems to have carved a decades-spanning career from recycling the same stories in slightly revised versions over several volumes), Harry Ludlam has restored my flagging enthusiasm.

The Head of Anne Griffith: "Never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave in the churchyard unless I, or a part of me at least, remains here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts. Promise me this, dear sisters, that when I am dead my head shall be taken from my body and preserved within these walls. Here let it remain forever and on no-account be removed."

Dying request of Anne, the youngest of Sir Henry Griffith's three daughters, fatally injured by muggers on a country lane. Clearly the ravings of a madwoman.

Obviously, she doesn't mean it. Ravings of a madwoman. Poor girl isn't herself. Let's give her a decent funeral and have done with it. But ...

The famous haunting of Burton Agnes Hall on the East Riding reads like "a fictional horror from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe."

The Face in the Windscreen: Ghosts of casualties of the road, including the man in cap and overcoat driven through by Mrs. Prior in West Hendred, Berks; 'the Lady of Barrow'; the young woman of Whatlington, Sussex, knocked down by a green Morris 1000, whose ghost only steps before cars of that colour; and the tragic spectres of a new bride and two bridesmaids killed a car crash on Blue Bell Hill in November 1965.

A Knight at Skull Cottage: Lancashire, 1940s. Two young girl students, Betty Priestley and friend Kathleen, spent a harrowing night at the country home of the former's Aunt, Mrs. Mary Seward. Mindful of chancing upset, Mrs. Seward had neglected to mention their room for the night was haunted by the ghost of a headless priest murdered by Roundheads.

[humgoo]

Dec 31, 2023 13:10:28 GMT dem bones said:

The Head of Anne Griffith: "Never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave in the churchyard unless I, or a part of me at least, remains here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts. Promise me this, dear sisters, that when I am dead my head shall be taken from my body and preserved within these walls. Here let it remain forever and on no-account be removed."

This one sounds lovely. And a bit similar to the Misty story about "Aston Hall" you posted recently.

[dem bones]

Yes, essentially the same story. Both tell it very well.

Supper for the Tomb: Pembury Old Church, Kent, 1830. Death of Mrs Anne West, 36, a widow with a morbid fear of premature burial. By the terms of her will, Mrs West stipulated that the corpse be laid in an open tomb and daily brought fruit in case of revival. Her bailiff fulfilled this duty for the few days it took to abscond the parish with all her valuables. For the best part of a century, Anne's angry ghost was reputed to chase that of her devious employee around the churchyard.

Also, a shorter entry on William Howell, the phantom miser of Ringmer, Sussex who lethally booby trapped the rotting wooden hut beneath which he'd concealed a fortune.