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TV, Films, Books That Turned The Young You Onto The Fortean

My kids had those. They were read to bits! :D

I acquired the Ghosts one again from a car booty a year or so back. It is still a good read.
 
It wasn't really books, TV or film for me - I mean, I liked that kind of thing but wasn't particularly obsessive about it. I never read or watched Sci-fi or Fantasy. The only thing I can really remember getting hooked on early on was Attenborough’s Fabulous Animals - I've still got the accompanying book.

What really got me interested in the subject were the family ghost stories and tales of odd happenings related in various farmhouses and cottages over the Peak District - especially those told on a late winter afternoon in my dad's cousin Kit's tiny cottage in the Manifold Valley, rammed with ancient furniture, a couple of stuffed owls, a tin bath hanging up in the kitchen and a terrifying outside toilet at the end of the cottage garden.
 
My Dad had a couple of Reader's Digest books on the paranormal (can't remember the titles now) which covered most Fortean areas: UFOs, ghosts, time slips, etc. Got me hooked at a very early age. He also had a moth-eaten copy of Lo!

One of the first Fortean books I bought as a child was in the mid '70s about the hollow earth - complete bunkum but fascinating none-the-less. This was soon followed by assorted Von Daniken crap, but his eye for an archaeological anomaly struck something inside.

These were followed by assorted UFO books (the names of them escape me now), which have long vanished - mostly lent and never returned (which is why I rarely lend books now!)
It kinda escalated from there until now when my library is seriously starting to cause us storage problems.
 
dreeness said:
..."Where did you hear this word?"

-- "N-nuclear?!?"

"NO! Not that word! THIS word! THIS WORD!!"

-- "The Book of Revelations!"...

Yes, brilliant.

Obviously you wouldn't want anyone to overuse Revelations as a reference for their schoolwork - not if you don't want to read about them in the papers, that is.
 
paranoid420 said:
The world of the unknown books, i had them or my school library had them. I totally forgot about them until now.
http://rue-morgue.com/blog/archives/201 ... /hpim0777/


I still have the annual of those three bound into one. My first Fortean book what a treasure, got it for christmas when I was about 6 and pretty much ignored everything else that holiday.

It was quickly added to by:
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The vividly illustrated story about the american haunted house, with the Polt/ghost looking like Chaney's Phantom resulted in many sleepless nights. :lol:

Also the Amarda Ghost books. Those lovely Hamlyn books by Daniel Farson and my personal bible for many years the great Peter Underwood's Ghost Hunters Guide followed then by the Handbook.
 
You got a book that looked like that when you were 6???
Did you have lots of bad nightmares?
 
My kids had that. Think I got it for the older lad when he was about 9, so the youngest'd have seen it at around 3. She came to Uncon this time so it wasn't money wasted! :lol:
 
paranoid420 said:
The world of the unknown books, i had them or my school library had them. I totally forgot about them until now.
http://rue-morgue.com/blog/archives/201 ... /hpim0777/

Those were some of the ones I was thinking of, but there was also another series: smaller, A5-ish, perhaps, with the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall on the front cover and the b&w photo of the grinning driver with a ghostly old woman in the back somewhere within. It could have been a yellow bordered cover - or I may be conflating it with National Geographic back numbers from my dentist's waiting room...

Any ideas?
 
Peter Underwood!

As a child I'd sneakily read my father's Fortean books. My favourites were about ghosts. Bigfoot, UFOs, vampires, werewolves, Yetis etc didn't bother me. Ghosts did, probably because there was some Spiritualism in the family so the spirits of the dead were believed to be still around...

Peter Underwood's books were avidly devoured and scared the young me stiff. I was too young to be reading them really and they gave me nightmares. I had to give them up so I could start sleeping at night, at about 11!

50 years have passed. Someone on'ere recommended a Peter Underwood video available on YouTube. I listened reverently on my bedside Mac and, yup, had nightmares. It's Peter Underwood. I still believe every word he says.
 
Good old fashioned Tales from the Crypt and similar American import comics in early 70's. Some stories were factual (eg death of Isadora Duncan with illustration) and some were just beautiful fiction (eg when Death decided to die) that still stays in the mind.
 
This bad boy started me off when I was around eight. Certain bits scared me silly.

Why don't authors seem to have such silly names now? IIRC his wife was called Araminta..

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I think what was most interesting was the inclusion of folk tales, local festivals and other traditions as well as the ghosties and ghoulies!
 
Good old fashioned Tales from the Crypt and similar American import comics in early 70's. Some stories were factual (eg death of Isadora Duncan with illustration) and some were just beautiful fiction (eg when Death decided to die) that still stays in the mind.
Isadora duncan was the ultimate fail.
 
I don't know whether we become interested in mysterious phenomena or whether we're just made that way. However, the popular culture of the seventies and early eighties, when I was growing up, was saturated with weirdness. But the first thing that I remember being a non-fiction look at the strange and supernatural was Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, and the accompanying book, which was almost certainly the first non-fiction title I read from cover to cover. I'd have been about six at the time. But my sister had a liking for the supernatural, and my dad pondered UFOs. So I suppose it was inevitable that I'd grow up with those interests.
 
Dr Who - 60s & 70s
UFO
Ace of Wands
Quatermass
Zodiac
Dennis Wheatley
Hammer Horror
There used to be a program on Anglia TV where three people were tested on their fortune telling abilities
Our Haunted Kingdom - Andrew Green
Loch Ness Monster - Tim Dinsdale (long term loan from school library - still have it)
Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology
 
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...But the first thing that I remember being a non-fiction look at the strange and supernatural was Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, and the accompanying book, which was almost certainly the first non-fiction title I read from cover to cover...

Yes. My mum and dad bought that for me one Christmas - I still have it somewhere.

As I said earlier in the thread, my interest was initially sparked by family stories and weekend supply trips to all kinds of ramshackle nooks and crannies in the countryside to see equally ramshackle relatives. (My dad was very close to several of his cousins - who had been like sisters to him, and who me and my brothers thought of as aunts - all fantastically eccentric.)

When I did start exploring the subject independently, I remember these being the first books I ever bought on my own behalf:

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Both were bought in the same bookshop on the Shambles in York, during a family holiday in the 70's. I still have them up on the shelves.

The Ashe book was a bit advanced for me then, but I grew into it - and although my parents were quite strict in some ways, and didn't have a lot of cash, I don't remember them ever discouraging me from a book because it might be 'too old' for me.

The Bords book was fantastic - and I suspect a cornerstone of many budding weirdologists library. (As you can probably see, it's been very well read.)

It also had a picture of ...shivers... the Newby church ghost. (Yeah, I know...but come on - it's still spooky as anything.)

Also the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall - but that one's for wimps.
 
I read a lot of SF from an early age, so I was 'primed' for an interest in the Fortean...
At some point in the 70s, someone gave me a UFO book for Christmas. It was a book by Brad Steiger, but I no longer have it and can't remember the title (but I remember the cover picture). I can't find it listed anywhere, which is Fortean in itself.
Then I discovered Fortean Times back in the late 80s. Or was it the early 90s?

Edit: Oh yes, I forgot - I used to get a comic called Countdown (late 60s/early 70s). It had these wonderful little features about UFO sightings.
Me too. I remember getting a book about aviation mysteries and that was what really triggered it - especially the chapter on UFOs.
Countdown brings back many memories, I couldn't wait for the next issue to come out.
I used to have this wallchart up in my bedroom.
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And I still remember this article about Rex Heflin's photographs
Countdown%252B002%252BPg%252B22-23.jpeg
 
Reader's Digest Myths and Legends, The Unexplained and Man, Myth and Magic.

The last two were part-works and so I saw only occasional issues. Am now the proud owner of complete sets.
 
A disturbing memory just popped into my head - one of my much older sisters had a girls' magazine annual for xmas one year, which had a scary drawing inside the front cover. It was of two girls crouching on the floor looking terrified, while behind them someone tall was standing up wearing a huge grey overcoat and possibly a mask.

What frighted the 7/8 year-old me out of my wits was the fact that the coat sleeves dangled down over the figure's hands. Dunno why that was so scary, unless I thought the arms were going to pop out of the sleeves like tentacles or summat.

Kids sometimes pick up on things like that, they can't explain it at the time. I just used to keep my eye on the book and slam it shut whenever anyone opened it in case I accidentally saw the picture!
 
The Reader's Digest: Strange Stories - Amazing Facts
It had everything a young mind could want. Ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Sea Serpents, Jack the Ripper, Spring Heeled Jack, curses, magic, witchcraft and those damned fucking scary Belmez faces that terrified me as a child.
I still have a copy in my library.
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The Reader's Digest: Strange Stories - Amazing Facts
It had everything a young mind could want. Ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Sea Serpents, Jack the Ripper, Spring Heeled Jack, curses, magic, witchcraft and those damned fucking scary Belmez faces that terrified me as a child.
I still have a copy in my library.
View attachment 24857

I've got that version too.
 
those damned fucking scary Belmez faces

When decorating at home years ago I pulled some wallpaper down (all 50 layers of it, as normal in a council house) and found a stain on the plaster underneath that resembled the profile of a bearded man. I thought 'Jesus!' like you do, but my kids decided it was actually the then Mr Snail. I quickly repapered so it's probably still there.
 
The Reader's Digest: Strange Stories - Amazing Facts
It had everything a young mind could want. Ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, Sea Serpents, Jack the Ripper, Spring Heeled Jack, curses, magic, witchcraft and those damned fucking scary Belmez faces that terrified me as a child.
I still have a copy in my library.
View attachment 24857

I have that at home. Sharp-edged and fresh: cost 99p at a boot fair!
 
This bad boy started me off when I was around eight. Certain bits scared me silly.

Why don't authors seem to have such silly names now? IIRC his wife was called Araminta..

View attachment 24848

I think what was most interesting was the inclusion of folk tales, local festivals and other traditions as well as the ghosties and ghoulies!

That's Antony Dacres Hippisley Coxe.

Is he related to R Hippisley Coxe?

Yes, I've noticed the lack of final 'e'.

91Ut2RPYeDL.jpg
 
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