Hauntings in July

A priory church in London, a castle in Norfolk, two battlefields - one in Somerset, one in Scotland -are the locations for ghosts this month.

Around 7 o'clock in the morning is the time to be in London's oldest parish church. At that time on each 1st July the ghost of the founder of the original monastery and hospital, built in 1123, is said to walk in the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield.

Rahere, a favourite courtier (some sources say, a jester) of King Henry I, fell ill on a pilgrimage to Rome. He vowed that if he recovered he would ‘erect a hospital for the restoration of poor men.' He then saw a vision of St Bartholomew who commanded him to build a priory church as well as a hospital at Smithfield. When he died in 1145, Rahere was buried inside the church.

His tomb was repaired in the 19th century when his body was found to be well preserved with even his clothes and sandals intact. After his tomb had been sealed one of the church officers fell ill and confessed that he had stolen one of the sandals. It was never returned to the foot of the owner, and since that day Rahere has haunted the church. His shadowy, hooded figure appears from the gloom and brushes past witnesses before fading slowly into thin air.

In the mid 20th century a Reverend Sandwich, showing two ladies round the church, sighted a monk standing in the pulpit delivering a sermon to an unseen congregation. No sound could be heard; the two ladies were quite unaware of the ghostly apparition.

In May 1999, the security company informed the verger early one morning that the alarms inside the church were going off. The verger searched the building but the church was empty, He had switched off the lights and was about to leave when he heard slapping footsteps down the central aisle. When he called out the footsteps stopped for a moment before continuing along the aisle. He locked the doors and called the police. Their search found no windows or doors open; there was no sign of anyone in the building. When the security company's engineer came to check and reset the alarms he found that only the central beam that passes Rahere's tomb had been broken. Whatever, or whoever, was responsible had managed to simply appear at the centre of the church. It was then that the verger remembered that the footsteps sounded like the ‘slip-slap' of sandals.

A seemingly tragic enactment takes place on the 3rd July at the ruins of Burgh Castle in Norfolk. A body, or what appears to be a body, shrouded in a white blanket or flag is flung from the ruins onto the foreshore. The real life origin of the presumed death is not known.

I have only established one source for this story but there is more than one account of ghostly galleons seen approaching the shore overlooked by Burgh Castle.

The Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685 is said to be the last battle in England. The battle site in Somerset is the scene of ghostly horsemen and troops on 5th July. Voices are said to call out to witnesses over the nearby River Cary, and horsemen gallop silently along. People have reported pockets of cold air, and seeing a white woman glide over the marsh, near where her lover was murdered by Royalists. Sounds of fighting have been heard on the anniversary of the battle.

The battle between the ‘pitchfork' rebels led by the Duke of Monmouth and the army of James II under Lord Faversham, took place on the 6th July 1685. The royalists ruthlessly slaughtered wounded rebel soldiers who survived the skirmish. Monmouth was captured two days later and executed in London. Disembodied voices are heard and the ghostly figure of Monmouth is said to re-enact his attempted escape every year.

The revolt had started in June 1685, when the Duke tried to claim the throne. The Duke mustered support from the Somerset people; they suffered terribly in the aftermath of the battle, during the trails known as the 'Bloody Assizes', presided over by the notorious hanging Judge, Judge Jeffries, who sentenced hundreds of people to death.

The events of the battle and the bloody aftermath left a deep mark upon the local people.

A local lad fighting with Monmouth's army captured after the battle was known in Somerset as an exceptional runner; his captors told him that his life would be spared if he could keep pace with a horse. Although he managed to stay beside their finest horse at full gallop, this feat did not save his life for after the race his captors reneged on their promise and he was put to the sword. His sweetheart devastated by the news of her lover's death drowned herself in the shallow waters of the levels, her ghost accompanied by the sound of a man and a horse running at full pelt is now said to haunt the levels.

From Somerset we move to Pitlochry in Perth and Kinross, and to the Pass of Killiecrankie. On 27 July 1689 this was the scene of a bloody battle between the government troops of William of Orange and Jacobite Highlanders supporters of the deposed King, James VII of Scotland (James II of England), commanded by Viscount John Graham of Claverhouse, better known as "Bonnie Dundee".

The battle site is said to be haunted, the whole scene replaying in all its gory details with young highland women picking over the corpses for valuables. Other witnesses have reported ghostly soldiers at the site. The haunting is said to be more intense on the anniversary of the battle. A dull red glow bathes the area and people have been startled by the sudden appearance of ghostly troops, marching through the ravine in the fading light of day; others have heard the distinct volley of muskets, firing in the air close-by them, and one woman looked up from a picnic to see the phantom forms of dead soldiers lying on the ground!

During the battle, the government troops dazzled by the sun watched as a screaming avalanche of tartan swept down the slopes of the gorge towards them. A government soldier named Donald Macbear, took one look at the advancing hoard and ran for his life. Reaching at the rocky shore of the River Garry, he escaped by jumping 18 feet to its opposite bank, leaving his pursuers gazing in astonishment across the gap, which is still known as "Soldiers Leap."

As if this was not enough, the area is also haunted by the drifting head of a woman murdered on the site during the seventeenth century, and a tall white spectre who tries to grab people passing along the roads; anyone the ghost touches dies within the year!

Haiti - 6 months on

Yesterday the 12th of July was exactly six months after the Haiti earthquake. So far the 100 Stories for Haiti anthology has raised about £3000 for the Red Cross.

You can listen to interviews with some of the writers and volunteers involved in podcasts at

http://www.100storiesforhaiti.org/podcast

The book may be bought direct from the publishers or as an e-book from smashwords - details may be found at http://www.100storiesforhaiti.org.

You can also donate to the British Red Cross Haiti Appeal at http://www.redcross.org.uk/

If you read or listen to the news you will know Haiti still needs our help.

North Yorkshire Village Dogs - Katie

One look at Katie and you know she loves to run; she has just the legs for it. It must be her Saluki blood. Katie is a two-year old black and white Saluki/Spaniel cross with her colour and the look in her eyes suggesting that the Spaniel was a Springer. There is no mistaking that her ears are from the ancient Saluki stock.

Katie came to her present home from the Greyhounds Galore rescue centre when she was four months old. She is a timid dog who will back away and bark as you approach. A ladies’ dog, she dislikes men especially those wearing a cap. Even if you offer her a treat she is not easily won over.

She is full of life and will run and run, jumping up at birds and chasing hares. We have to wait and see what happens if she ever succeeds in catching them. On the beach Katie will run for miles chasing any seagulls that are around. She enjoys running on the lead with her owners and their children when they are out training. The only problem they have is keeping up with her to avoid being pulled over.

There are at least two walks each day, the first in the village early in the morning and then a two to three mile evening walk. At the weekends she is treated to a five-mile outing. She still has enough energy left to race around the garden to which she has free access through a dog-flap in the door.

In the summer she sunbathes on the trampoline but her favourite spot is on top of the patio table. There she can sit or stand to look out over the fields behind the house. Katie is pampered to the extent that she has her own room where she is fed, usually the Pets at Home adult complete dry mix. She sleeps on her sofa in this room too. She is not allowed on other furniture and knows she may not go upstairs. Treats consist of pieces of chicken and occasional biscuits; she knows she may also get special treats in the form of illicit sausages slipped to her by grandparents on a visit.

She enjoys chewing squeaky toys and tug of war with anyone who will play. On canal-boat holidays Katie will jump on and off at bridges and locks; she is quite happy to walk on the towpath on her own alongside the boat.

Katie is covered by pet insurance with visits to the vet so far only being for routine checks. Her owners are hoping that she will grow out of her habit of barking at strangers and dogs. They believe that her slightly timid nature was possibly caused by ill treatment when she was a puppy. Although she barks she never bites but a careful watch is kept on her with children just in case. If a man she doesn’t know comes into the house, after a time, she will sidle slyly up to lick his hand and even offer a paw to shake.

Rana Clamitans

Last year I spent a holiday in Michigan and decided to try a spot of fishing.

*******

Have you ever had the feeling that something’s watching you?

I had spent two hours fishing without even a suggestion of a bite from anything other than the ever present mosquitoes when I became aware of a pair of eyes watching my every move.

Rana clamitans, the American Green Frog, was sunning himself on the surface of the lake.

He, or was it she, occasionally stirred a leg to paddle slowly in my direction. Then Cody, the red retriever who spends hours every day trying to catch frogs decided to take a paw. Missed again Cody. Rana just dropped its nose and was off to the depths of the lake.

Before this happened I had managed to get my camera out and take some pictures of the frog and of another at the other side of the lake.

Next day I sent the photos to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources who were kind enough to identify the frog as Rana clamitans.

They gave me links to more details of its life cycle from one of thousands of eggs with up to two years to survive as a tadpole before becoming a frog.

Roman God to Icelandic Witch

For those who were caught up in the travel problems caused by a cloud a volcanic dust, there’s not much consolation in being told it could have been worst.

The term “volcano” was first used by the Romans to describe Mount Etna, the mountain they believed to be the forge of Vulcan, their god of fire. It was Vesuvius in AD 79 that devastated the towns of Pompeii and Heracleum. Vesuvius, classified as a dormant volcano, last erupted in 1943.

Active volcanoes erupt on a regular basis every so often; some are permanently active. Dormant volcanoes have not erupted for 25 years or over; they will erupt again soon or may be classed as extinct if they have not erupted for centuries; extinct volcanoes have come back to life after centuries of inactivity.

Volcanic activity is associated with movements of the Earth’s tectonic plates. Volcanoes occur within zones within or at the edge of the tectonic plates. About 90 percent of all volcanoes exist in the so-called Ring of Fire along the edges of the Pacific Ocean.

Iceland’s Mid Oceanic Ridge volcanoes occur where two tectonic plates are diverging and form along a line of fissures. Laki, in 1783, came from a 15-mile long fissure. The eight month eruption of lava, dust, acidic and poisonous gas killed almost all of Iceland’s sheep and cattle. One-quarter of the population died of starvation or were killed by the toxic fumes.

The Laki eruption resulted in what has been called Britain’s greatest natural disaster. Dust clouds obscured the sun during the summer, flash floods occurred and there was an increased number of deaths. The bad summer was followed by one of the coldest winter on record.

If Laki was a killer it was dwarfed by Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 when an estimated 92,000 died. Its effects were felt as far away as Europe and North America. The devastating effects of Tambora are said to have inspired Bryon’s gloomy poem “Darkness” and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

More people witnessed Tambora than any other eruption but Krakatau, also in Indonesia, in 1883 generated the loudest sound from the release of an estimated 200 megatons of energy, the equivalent of 15,000 nuclear bombs.

The late Bronze Age eruption of Santorini off Greece was very similar to that at Krakatau; the central highland of the island collapsed to generate the modern caldera which forms the three island archipelago of Thera, Therasia and Aspronisi. The myth of the lost city of Atlantis may be based on the collapse of Santorini.

Air passengers who doubted the wisdom of the flying ban following the April 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull should be reminded of what has happened before. On 24 June 1982 a British Airways 747 flew into an ash plume from Indonesia’s Mount Gulanggung. All four engines failed in turn, the plane lost 23,000 feet in height. Fortunately all four engines restarted after it glided clear of the ash cloud. Three weeks later three of the four engines shut down on a Singapore Airlines 747 in the same area.

In December 1989 a KLM 747 flew into a volcanic ash cloud from Mount Redoubt in Alaska The aircraft entered the cloud at 25000 ft; all four engines failed. The plane descended for more than 14000 ft before the crew managed to restart the engines.

But perhaps what we should fear most is the larger and more dangerous Katla volcano, named after a witch in Icelandic legend, adjacent to Eyjafjallajökull. In the past 1,000 years, all three known eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull have triggered subsequent Katla eruptions.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html

North Yorkshire Village Dogs - Poppy

The West Highland Terrier in this series was given the name of Poppy because she was bought near to Armistice Day from a County Durham breeder, the last of the litter to be sold. Her new lady owner had just retired from teaching at a primary school and her retirement gifts included sufficient funds to buy the puppy at twelve weeks old.


At night she sleeps in a basket with a duvet in the kitchen; she has a ‘day’ bed too in the lounge next to the radiator, of course. Poppy is a downstairs dog as she will not venture up the open-tread stairs. She does not enter the ground floor bathroom of the lady of the house –she knows this is not allowed.


Poppy is the best friend of Bracken, the Jack Russell earlier in this series. Although she tolerates other dogs she is not that keen on Bertie, a visiting Yorkshire Terrier, - she protects her large bag of soft toys from him. Her favourite toy is a squeaky orange ball which she can just get her mouth around and with which she loves to play. To gain Poppy’s attention for anything like being photographed – you just have to squeak the ball and her ears prick up, so typical of a ‘Westie’. She immediately becomes photogenic, watching to see what will happen next.


She is a fan of Belgian chocolate and likes to finish off a Magnum on a stick. Poppy is a good eater being fed on IAMS Complete; however she will also polish off vegetables and grapes and best of all some lettuce.


Although Poppy, now twelve years old, has a good pedigree she has never been a show dog due to the kink in her tail that she has had from birth. She would not agree with her master who says, “She does nothing useful”. After all she stands on her specially made armchair, looking out of the window at the road outside. How would he know that there is anyone about if she did not growl quietly at them? He has even made her a small platform so that she can clamber up on her chair now that she is older and has stiffness in her joints. For the same reason Poppy appreciates the non-slip mat on the step up to the front door of the house she protects from her chair.

Poppy loathes having a bath but suffers its indignation as she knows that she will be rewarded with her favourite jelly baby treat. She is permitted to have one of these a week with or without the bath. Because of an occasional skin disorder she uses Malaseb special shampoo at ten times the price of that used by her master!


Good with children Poppy shows no sign of aggression in any situation. She tolerates a collar when out on a lead in the lanes around the village but really likes the freedom to run around in the local park and on a North East beach; she will go in the sea as far and as long as she can keep her feet firmly on the ground.

The Valiant Dragoon

The 25th June this year is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Brown, Yarm's valiant dragoon,

Elements of mystery surround his life and death. The exact location of his grave is still unknown. In 1968 the Queen’s Own Hussars presented a memorial headstone which stands in the Yarm graveyard of St Mary Magdalene’s Church. The inscription on the headstone, erected in 1969, reads:

IN MEMORY OF

THOMAS BROWN PRIVATE

KING’S OWN

REGIMENT OF DRAGOONS

THE HERO

OF

THE BATTLE OF DETTINGEN

27^TH JUNE 1743

The citation describing Brown’s heroic actions says:

“He distinguished himself in a most extraordinary manner at the Battle of Dettingen.

He had two horses killed under him, two fingers of his bridle hand chopped off and, after retaking the standard from a gentleman at arms, whom he killed, he placed it between his legs and the saddle and made his way 80 yards through a lane of the enemy, exposed to fire and sword, in the execution of which he received eight cuts in his face, hands and neck, 2 balls lodged in his back, 3 went through his hat, and in this hacked condition he rejoined his regiment, who gave him three huzzas on his arrival.”

At Dettingen King George II became the last English monarch to lead his army into battle. The heroic Tom Brown, a private in the 3^rd Hussars, commanded by Brigadier Bland, became the last man to be knighted on the battlefield.

Tom was born at Kirkleatham but accounts of his life give different dates for his birth. However researchers at the Teesside Archives have found a baptism record for Thomas Brown on June 25, 1710. Brown’s father had a cottage in Kirkleatham close to Sir William Turner’s Hospital which had been founded in 1676.

Two years after Dettingen the people of Kirkleatham planted an elm tree outside the hospital gate with a plaque commemorating Tom’s exploits. When this tree died an oak was planted in its place and the plaque disappeared. The plaque has since been replaced, thanks to a vicar in the 1940s.

Despite many references to Brown being knighted doubt remains about this honour. The caption on a 1746 engraving by Louis Boitard refers to him as Mr Brown. The oldest regimental records of the Hussars do not refer to the knighthood either. Twentieth century books on the history of the 3^rd Hussars do not mention it. Even the College of Arms can find no record in the grants of Arms or in the standard printed work, “Knights of England.” However there is a written account of Brown’s knighthood in “Battle Honours of the British Army,” published in 1911.

An oil painting by James Princep Beadle shows Brown kneeling in front of King George after the battle hangs in the Queen’s Royal Hussars Officers’ Mess. Beadle specialised in military paintings; he produced the Brown work in 1904 but his source for the knighting of Brown has not been established. A copy of this painting, presented by the 3^rd Hussars in 1993, on the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the battle is in Yarm Town Hall.

Tom Brown’s story appears in a typewritten poem entitled ‘The Song of the Silver Nose’ in the Middlesbrough archives – possibly a modern transcription of the 18^th century original.

In old Kirkleatham stands a tree

They planted to the memory

Of a bold dragoon named Tommy Brown

Who helped to beat the Frenchies down.

Refrain (to be repeated after each verse)

And this is the song of the silver nose

Of our hero, Tommy Brown.

The French were holding German Lands

When George of England made his plans.

To help his friends he crossed the sea

With Tom Brown in his company.

In June of seventeen forty three

King George marched into Germany.

He led his men across the Main

But the Frenchies drove him back again.

King George, he’d lost near half his men

When he made his stand at Dettingen.

But when they tore his flag away

He feared he’d lost the day.

But bold Tom Brown, he seized his chance

And galloped through those men from France.

He fought and swore and cut and tore

Till he’d won the English flag once more.

He place that flag between his thighs

And thundered back through the battle cries,

The Frenchies tried to cut him down

But they couldn’t stop our Tommy Brown.

They slashed his face, they slashed his neck,

They lodged two bullets in his back.

In fighting off King George’s foes

Tom lost two fingers and his nose.

But when Tom raised the flag again

King George’s soldiers cheered and sang.

And proved themselves true Englishmen

By winning the battle of Dettingen.

King George was pleased with Tommy Brown.

He gave him a pension of thirty crown,

A walking stick with a golden head

And a silver nose to wear instead

In a High Street inn of old Yarm Town

As landlord Tommy settled down

With his silver nose and walking stick

Till they buried him in forty-six.

It was too dangerous to remove the bullets from Tom’s back and this may have been the reason he left the Hussars.

The house in which Tom lived out the last few years of his life still stands on the north side of Yarm High Street; it had been an inn, bearing his name, from at least his time until it lost its licence in 1908. One of his contemporaries asserted that he “did kill himself by drinking.”

Today the inn is two separate homes one of which boasts a blue tourist plaque to identifying him as the hero of the Battle of Dettingen. A small brass plate on the door identifies it as Tom Brown’s House.

The original wooden sign which was attached to the house has disappeared. After a period on show at Preston Hall museum a new sign remains in Yarm Town Hall; so far attempts of the Yarm Civic Society to have the sign returned to the front of Tom’s house have not succeeded.

The valiant dragoon was interred in Yarm churchyard in 1746. Of that there is no doubt. The church register simply states, “Buried – Thomas Brown Dragoon.”