Just Google how many pubs etc claim to be haunted by Dick Turpin. It's laughable. Either he was an extremely successful highwayman whilst somehow doing all that at the same time as being drunk all the time or pubs have been trying to drum up trade.
The Turpin business was run as a franchise. Licences to rob and use the name 'Dick Turpin' were granted only if the would-be franchisee could demonstrate the desired combination of flair, charisma and chutzpah.
Past life people .. it's always "In my past life I was Cleopatra/Napoleon/ etc .... it's never "I was called Steve. I played for my local team in 1978 but then I had a heart attack one day outside Woolworths in Durham" ..
And yet children who talk about past lives generally refer back to ordinary folk in the next town along.
Good point Bugmum, I'd forgotten about that although we could also look at the factor that most children aren't that interested or involved in research on infamous historical characters so would align themselves instead with people who they'd feel could have been more socially like them IMO.
Third sketch in on this episode.
Granted the following is a bit of a hobby-horse theory of mine, but I feel that ghostly legends like those above are a kind of alternative British history: a damning history of the mistreatment of women. Unsurprisingly and tellingly, the nature of this appalling alternative history - sad, poignant, subdued, and dressed-up in poetical tones of regret rather than displaying the outrage it really should reflect - is IMO all of a piece in its subtle protection of established power. One sees the same kind of curation in action when we're told of, say, WWI: similarly, we're encouraged to feel wistful and sad about the slaughter instead of disgusted and rebellious. I think this is deliberate, and such an age-old tradition that even those of us who write about ghosts fall into the trap of passing over outrage in favour of fey Romanticism; and even that stylistic choice is perhaps a telling one.
) and that they may be somewhat shocked at the appearence of an apparition and I guess there is a lot of speculation involved.
Exactly. These were 'warning tales' rather than actual historical facts. Which annoys me no end, the whole 'child out of wedlock' wasn't the automatic death sentence it is made out to be, and so many of these tales are Victorian morality stories, along with the 'walled up nun/priest's mentioned by @Tunn11 above. In fact we've got a thread somewhere about the 'walled up' thing and I think there is absolutely no historical basis for this story either.
Inappropriate historical costume upsets me. I couldn’t even watch Bridgerton. Miss Scarlet and the Duke Miss S’s clothes seem to be at least a decade ahead of everyone else. Sometimes they go and ask for Victorian so just get anything from 1837-1901.Good question @MorningAngel add to that the fact that most people are pretty bad at knowing what costumes were worn when (Including the props depts of various costume dramas!
Legends also seem to be involved in ordinary histories as well, I imagine that Mary Queen of Scots must have slept in a different bed every night of her life if you believe the number of historic houses claiming she slept there!
Interesting theory @Steven; ghost stories (at least those originating before about 1930) do seem to relate to a somewhat weird version of actual history given the numbers of randy monks and nuns, secret tunnels, burned witches, walled up nuns and lords of the manor codemned to forever ride headless horses up driveways etc. I've often wondered why certain periods of history seem to attract ghost stories whereas others don't (How many ghosts at Gettysburg, how many at the Somme?) Using the stories as a way of manipulating a general view of historic events or accepting establishment views is a fascinating idea.
Off topic - I'd recommend "Mud Blood and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan. It is controversial but dispels some popular ideas about that war. Possibly because of WW2 we tend to forget the outrage felt in Britain and elsewhere at the German invasion of France and Belgium in 1914, possibly greater than in1939 when Nazi atrocities were not as well known.
Quite extensive by airship and 'plane. See:
And then there's the good old 'monk's habit' which could be anything from a monk to a figure in a riding cloak with the hood up, or medieval peasant wear.
Didn’t war ships shoot a coastal towns too?Quite extensive by airship and 'plane. See:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Blitz-Bombing-London-World/dp/1472815297
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zeppelin-O...6e-a003-c368e6b021f3&pd_rd_i=1848324332&psc=1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Blitz-Neil-Hanson/dp/0552155489
Sorry, once a librarian and all that.
Or a hoodie after your mobile! I think there was a case I read about where some students were standing by the road in the rain holding papers over their heads and were taken for phantom monks!
Scarborough suffered a particularly bad attack. It's very well known here and the names of the casualties are recorded somewhere (I just can't remember where).
Scarborough and or Whitby IIRC
You are correct MorningAngel,German Warships Bombarded Hartlepool,Whitby&Scarborough on the morning of the 16th December 1914. Hartlepool is my hometown and I remember my Nanna who was a young married Mother at the time telling me about it when i was a kid in the 1960s.There was 130+ Civilians Men,Women & Children killed and many others badly injured along with some Soldiers of the Royal Garrison Artillery manning the Heugh Battery on the seafront, which is now a Military Museum with emphasis on The Bombardment. Scarborough & Whitby also suffered Civilian Casualties.A Service of Remembrance is held every 16th of December at the Heugh Gardens Hartlepool where a memorial has been erected with names of those who died on that day.
I think it was my dad that told me. It didn’t even come up when I studied the world wars towards my degree. I think the study was weighed down by the politics. I’m much more interested in the social history. That sounds horrific, how can it be so little known about? That’s what I say, the WWI home front seems mostly forgotten.
I
I'm sure I've read local ghost books with places claiming to be haunted by Churchill (a smell of cigar smoke), Wellington and, very recently, so must be in a haunted Buckinghamshire book, Florence Nightingale.
that's not actually true, there are a few but most of them are discounted in fact most cases are of people leading seriously humdrum lives
I don't know of any associated with Chartwell (Churchill) or Walmer Castle (Wellington) which is where I'd have thought there would be stories, whether for commercial purposes or supposed hauntings. (Which doesn't mean there aren't any
) Unlike Boleyn at Hever. Does Cromwell (Oliver) haunt anywhere? There are plenty of Roundhead/Cavalier ghosts.Could be, especially as they knew it was going to happen. Richard III had a pretty violent end but fairly swift; Hitler, Mussolini and others must have known their fate wasn't going to be good but you never hear of their ghosts.
I believe Oliver Cromwell is said to haunt his former house in Ely. I think, but may be mistaken, that Wellington has been said to haunt his former home Apsley House, in London. A brief google turned up various places said to be haunted by the smell of cigar smoke, which is said to be Churchill, I'll see if I can track down the exact place I was thinking of later.I don't know of any associated with Chartwell (Churchill) or Walmer Castle (Wellington) which is where I'd have thought there would be stories, whether for commercial purposes or supposed hauntings. (Which doesn't mean there aren't any
Could be, especially as they knew it was going to happen. Richard III had a pretty violent end but fairly swift; Hitler, Mussolini and others must have known their fate wasn't going to be good but you never hear of their ghosts.
Same sort of thing with battlefield ghosts. Seemingly every skirmish in the American Civil War caused hauntings but you don't hear of Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn) or Sand Creek being haunted - but build anything near an Indian burial ground and you're in trouble!
If there is anything external to ghost stories, a spirit or an atmosphere associated with a location. I'd imagine it must act on the mind of the viewer. They may be seeing a real phenomenon filtered through their expectations or knowledge of the site or past events. Perhaps some people see a road ghost or Black Shuck where other will see a UFO.
