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Haunted Canal Tow-Path

Rodentus

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jun 16, 2009
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I was talking to my father the other day and he told me about the only time he's ever been scared. We live in the small town of Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire. Leighton is a very old town and used to be very prosperous due to the Grand Union Canal running directly through it.
My father used to work behind the bar at a pub called the Wheatsheaf, one night he was walking home by himself after he'd done a shift there. He was coming up to the Linslade bridge (Leighton is more officially known as Leighton-Linslade as it swallowed the smaller but still substantial town of Linslade many years ago) over theGrand Union and he saw a shape on the tow path below him. Being a naturally curious type he looked close as he ambled past and saw that it was an old lady by herself feeding the ducks. What worried him was that it was the early hours of the morning, it was dark and there were no ducks. He also couldn't see any bread hitting the water, just her hand reaching into a bag and gently dropping a handful of nothing into the canal.
As well as being curious by nature my dad is a good natured soul so he assumed it was a little old lady, lost and confused so he stopped and called out to her to see if she was ok and needed taking home.
The apparition turned towards him and looked straight at him, although he says it was more like she was looking through him. There was no expression on her face, she was just staring blankly through him. He said it was at this point he began to get scared, he could almost sense somthing alien (I don't mean extra-terrestrial) behind her eyes. He said he was rooted to the spot in an almost primal panic state. Then she apparently turned away from him and shuffled off into the darkness.*

*I should probably point out that this bridge is covered with street lights so is well lit even in the darkness. Obviously though there are no street lights on the tow path itself.

He then almost ran home to my mother, told her what he'd seen only to have her tell him not to be so silly. In the cold glare of rationality he quickly filed the whole experience away at the back of his mind.

Now my dad (bless 'im) is prone to exagerrating stories, but being his son now for 24 years I can tell an embellished story from a true one. His made-up stories are wildly extravagent. If this was one of his stupid stories it wouldn't have been one ghost, but dozens, doing the congo, naked (now I'm exagerrating but you get the picture).

If anyone is from Leighton or has any knowledge of it,this happened on the side of the bridge which now has Tesco on it.
Does anyone know of anything similar? Happening on the Grand Union Canal, in or near Leighton?

I'm much more of a skeptic than my father but something in the tone of his voice and in his eye gave me the shivers when he told me this.
Oh, and before I forget, my mum remembers him getting home all flustered and telling her, and she still thinks he was being silly.
 
Seeing mention of canals in another unrelated thread reminded me of an experience my mother and brother had, walking along a canal towpath in the 1950s.
It was long before I was born but my mum and brother often spoke of it to me in later years. My brother was aound 9 years old and walking along with my sister (a year older) and mum on a warm summer day on the canal towpath on the Grand Union canal in Apsley Hertfordshire close to the massive John Dickinson paper mills which lined the canal at the time.
My mum said my brother was dawdling along looking for fishes and so on and stopped to peer into the water. Mum and sister walked back to see what he was looking at and he told them, in a matter of fact way, that there was a man floating under the water face up and not moving. Obviously unsettled by this my mum and sister had a look and could see nothing although he still insisted he could see the man. They eventually persuaded him to move on and my mum was naturally creeped out about it but put it down to his active imagination.
A week or so later the local paper reported a man's body being found in the canal, sadly a suicide victim and also sadly not that unusual in a canal.
My brother did have an active imagination as a child but he has always insisted he did see the man athough my mum and sister saw nothing.
 
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