Roman Soldiers At The Treasurer's House, York

[JamesWhitehead]

I read somewhere that Harry Martindale had enjoyed many years of popularity as an after-dinner speaker, so his account of the ghosts was in the nature of a polished performance. His down-to-earth personality and blue-collar job, together with his very unglamorous description of the Roman soldiers gave his story a gritty appeal which spelled authenticity to his audiences.

Now that I am in my own anecdotage, I find that the memories of even quite normal events have been supplanted, almost, by the words and phrases I have always used to describe them. Hauntology seems to cover this phenomenon.

To test Harry's witness-statement, we would need to be able to transcribe and date his evolving - or unchanging - narrative. It is likely that details would be added in response to questioning. All of which takes us some way from enjoyment of the tale as a performance. If I understand hauntology correctly, we are all essentially ghosts, condemned by language and self-awareness to be forever alienated from reality.

 

[Coal]

I read somewhere that Harry Martindale had enjoyed many years of popularity as an after-dinner speaker, so his account of the ghosts was in the nature of a polished performance. His down-to-earth personality and blue-collar job, together with his very unglamorous description of the Roman soldiers gave his story a gritty appeal which spellled authenticity to his audiences.

Now that I am in my own anecdotage, I find that the memories of even quite normal events have been supplanted, almost, by the words and phrases I have always used to describe them. Hauntology seems to cover this phenomenon.

To test Harry's witness-statement, we would need to be able to transcribe and date his evolving - or unchanging - narrative. It is likely that details would be added in response to questioning. All of which takes us some way from enjoyment of the tale as a performance. If I understand hauntology correctly, we are all essentially ghosts, condemned by language and self-awareness to be forever alienated from reality.

I like the idea of hauntology. We overwrite our episodic memories every time we dust them off and incorporate odd bits and bobs, so we become distanced from the reality of the forming with every passing recollection. It would be fascinating, in this case to see Harry's first transcript and compare it with an 'after dinner' version twenty years on, and I suspect there would be a divergence that, if even Harry himself were to compare the versions, would be surprising.

That is not to doubt the sincerity of the teller, rather that, that which we believe to be our memory is rather more fluid than we care to admit - as elsewhere I've noted my own episodic memories are more and more detailed than most, due (I assume) to a wandering childhood but even I can see when, revisiting some place of 35 years gone, that there were gaps in my recollection of place, but the parts I retain are enough to navigate. to recognise, but the later visits fill those gaps like they were never there...

 

[Howkflakegirl]

I should point out that there's quite a bit missing from the story here. My understanding of it is that Henry didn't tell people at first and had something of a breakdown. When he did talk about it he was laughed at.

The following is definately true. Some Roman historians went to speak to henry and asked for a description of the soldiers. He gave them one and they laughed at him, as his description was completely different to what people knew of Roman soldiers at the time. He was ridiculed over it and they assumed he was lying. Later excavations found dead soldiers wearing items of clothing just like those henry had described underneath the cellar.
There is no way he could have known that, or known what they would have been wearing, as the historians themselves didn't know

 

[escargot]

He said they were wearing 'kilts' and that they carried (I think) round shields instead of oblong ones. He was later proved right on both details.

 

[Howkflakegirl]

I think there was more as well, the shoes they were wearing were different as were the helmets.

 

[Coal]

There is no way he could have known that, or known what they would have been wearing, as the historians themselves didn't know

I refer you to the 1917 print.

 

[Howkflakegirl]

What is the 1917 print?

My understanding of the case is that Henry described things he could not have known at the time, including the plumage the Romans had on their helmets, the green tunics, the daggers they had, the sandals they were wearing, and round shields and where they held them. His description was considered to be anomalous until later excavations found evidence for this, with the outfits matching reserve soldiers or common soldiers that weren't part of the normal legion.

These soldiers were fairly unknown at the time that Henry saw the apparition, and whilst some historians may have known of them, the majority did not. It would also be unlikely that a blue collar man such as Henry would have known of them, and it's especially odd that these remains were unearthed where he said he had had his encounter

 

[Howkflakegirl]

Ah, just seen the print you posted above, apologies. There was a lot more to his descriptions than just round shields, and some of the things described by him aren't present there. What is the source for the engraving? It looks quite modern to me

 

[Frideswide]

Took me five minutes to find this 1917 engraving with some round shields:

I think they are oval - which was thought to be standard? that and the rectangle curved in? I'm thinking about the hours I've spent looking at the pictures in local history/archaeology back issues when I should have been doing somehting else!

 

[Mythopoeika]

Yeah...interesting thing about Roman shield design. The most common depictions show the oblong design on the left:

I'm less familiar with the other 2 designs. Maybe they were regional style variations?
We've all been led to believe that Roman military clothing and weaponry was pretty standardised, but I'm beginning to think that they weren't that zealous about reinforcing uniformity.

 

[Howkflakegirl]

Something we have to consider is that a lot has changed since the 1950s. We know a lot more about things like this and treat it as common knowledge when it wasn't always. We have made numerous new discoveries since, and our images of Roman soldiers (as well as other figures) have changed a lot since then. So whilst we might see certain types of shields depicted a lot now, it doesn't mean they were popular back then. Also, we have the internet and a lot of technology that allows us to find out new stuff instantly. Henry and other people in the 50s would not have had that technology, so it's arguable they would not know about really obscure historical stuff or have the means to find out about it, especially to this detail.

Just had a look on the national trust website and it says Henry saw round shields. The shields in the engraving appear to be a long oval shape.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/by-the-look-of-you-youve-seen-the-romans

This is interesting too: http://www.ciaranbrown.com/martindale.html

Edited to add links in

 

[EnolaGaia]

Yeah...interesting thing about Roman shield design. The most common depictions show the oblong design on the left:

I'm less familiar with the other 2 designs. Maybe they were regional style variations?
We've all been led to believe that Roman military clothing and weaponry was pretty standardised, but I'm beginning to think that they weren't that zealous about reinforcing uniformity.

Harry Martindale's account specified that the shield(s?) he saw were circular. This would mean they were of the 'parma' variety.

Now here's the problem with that ...

The parma shields weren't used by the middle and heavy infantry legionnaires. They were issued to the light infantry drawn from the lower / poorer tiers of Roman society - the Velites. Velites were skirmishers / irregulars deployed with spears / lances and 'darts' (essentially smaller spear-like projectiles). Velites wore wolfskin caps rather than metal helmets. They did carry swords, but as backup weapons.

The combination of circular shield and sword on the right (per Martindale) would seem to point to Velites. However ...

Velites (as a class) were discontinued with the Marius military reforms at the end of the 2nd century BC (circa 107 BC). From this point forward Roman legions were comprised of 'professional' soldiers (i.e., no standing irregular units). Another aspect of these reforms was that all troops were subsequently equipped with state-supplied gear designed for middle and heavy infantry.

The parma / circular shield had already been phased out in favor of the longer oval shield by the time of these reforms.* During the 1st century BC the oval had in turn been supplanted by the curved rectangular 'scutum' style shield, which remained the mainstay shield design thereafter.

*NOTE: I ran across mention of a parma variant peculiar to the Roman cavalry, but could not locate any details on whether it may have been obsoleted when the light infantry parma shield was dropped (or, for that matter, ever ...).

As a result, the first Roman legions to enter Britain (under Julius Caesar; Gallic Wars; 55 - 54 BC) were already a half-century past the dissolution of the Velites, the retirement of the circular shield, and imposition of standardization in solders' gear.

The timeframe discrepancy becomes even greater if we presume the phantoms' following the Roman road implied an association with the road. The Roman roads in and around York date back only as far as the second half of the first century CE / AD.

This is why critics have made such a big deal of sword position and shield style. Martindale's description sounds like Velites, but Velites were 'extinct' by the time the Romans came to Britain, and even more extinct by the time there was a Roman road to traverse in the afterlife ...

 

[JamesWhitehead]

If Harry did not talk about his experience until the early seventies, the question of what was known in 1953 becomes irrelevant. The given links are interesting but seem to accept Harry's account as part of the local scenery!

 

[Howkflakegirl]

We still didn't have the internet and such technologies in the early seventies haha.

I went to the treasurer's house last year and I think they said something about a certain group using these shields. I can't remember exactly what it was I'm afraid, but something about there being soldiers made up of the 'common people' or 'local people' or 'the reserves' something like that, and that's part of the reason they looked so drab as they didn't have the best uniforms. I think the lady who led the tour said that it's one of the reasons Martindale was originally criticised as they thought when his story was originally being told that they didn't exist anymore. I wish I could remember what else she said, I'll have to go back!

However, similar shields and the other equipment Henry described were found and dated to having been in the UK after the period that the Velites were allegedly discontinued, so it's certainly possible that those shields or similar ones were still in use. Some excavations at Hadrian's Wall and other forts in the UK have found that Auxiliary Troops used similar shields, so round shields certainly made it to the UK. If people were assuming that those shields hadn't made it to the UK when Henry was being questioned, then that would make sense of some of the ridicule aimed at him. However, I've read that this equipment that seems to match Henry's description was found sometime around the 1990s and 2000s, so they would not have known about it when his story was originally being told.

Edit - I've just read that apparently the soldiers wearing the outfit Henry described were not proper Roman soldiers, but local reserve and auxiliary soldiers from the local area sent in to take over the Roman garrison when the regular soldiers started returning back to Rome in the fifth century. So it would seem that they took the uniform style once worn by the reserves in the past and gave them to the new reserves. That's what the lady at the treasurer's house was saying actually -

He certainly seems as though he believed he had seen something, and if it's deception it doesn't seem intentional to me.

 

[EnolaGaia]

It's certain possible the Sixth Legion (Sexta Legio Victrix) in York recruited locals or auxiliaries and equipped them with obsolete Roman issue equipment. One reason would be that Sexta Legio came to Britain with Hadrian, they were the unit tasked to build Hadrian's Wall, the northern borderlands were anything but stable, and they would have needed all the help they could get.

However, there's another possible explanation that IMHO makes for a better ghost story because it involves soldiers very far from home, fighting in an unaccustomed manner, and unlikely to ever see their homelands again ...

The Roman Empire was heavily engaged with various Scythian (and / or Scythian-derived Sarmatian) tribes in the east (the Danube basin; at one point Croatia) for centuries. One of these Sarmatian tribes was the Iazyges, who were either allied with or fighting the Romans over and over.

The decisive conflict for the Iazyges tribe was the Marcomannic Wars (circa 169 - 175 CE). The Iazyges forces surrendered in early 175 and were subjected to heavy tribute penalties. One of these penalties was supplying the Romans with 8,000 Iazyge soldiers to serve a term of 20 years as auxiliaries. Circa 5,500 of these tribute Iazyge auxiliaries were shipped en masse to Britain and attached to Sexta Legio Victrix, with most of them apparently stationed at York.

(From what I gather, Rome didn't lift a finger to return the tribute soldiers after their 20-year term of servitude had ended.)

The Iazyges, being Sarmatian steppe folk, were traditionally and primarily mounted warfighters using bows and lances. If they'd been repurposed as auxiliary foot soldiers it's entirely possible they were equipped with outdated Roman hardware during the long exodus from the eastern empire to Britain.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... It's interesting that the website you link to says "many people have seen the roman soldiers". Is that true? Did you hear about other people who'd seen them? 'Many' sounds like quite a claim.

I've found only one specific claim of an observation other than Martindale's. The Wikipedia article on the Treasurer's House:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasurer's_House,_York

... mentions only two sightings, of which Martindale's was the second. The first is attributed to a "party guest" of Frank Green (last private owner, who restored the house from 1897 until 1930, when he retired and transferred the property to the National Trust).

This earlier sighting is attributed to:

Mitchell, John V. Ghosts of an Ancient City. York: Cerialis Press. pp. 53–54.

 

[Coal]

He certainly seems as though he believed he had seen something, and if it's deception it doesn't seem intentional to me.

That I agree with.

I plucked the engraving with the Roman oval shield off the internet to make a point and I 'took internet's word' that the engraving was dated as 1917 btw. Feel free to look harder...

My issues with the whole story are the vague appeals to authority taken as fact "historians didn't believe the detail he described" thing. What historians? Who were they? Were they serious academics or a few history buffs. Statues of the things he describe exists so it wasn't entirely unknown. "He didn't know it was a Roman road" (but others in the building knew, so that seems a smidge unlikely).

Other sightings are referred to, but exactly who are those people and has anyone actually spoken to them and correlated details?

Has anyone looked into Harry's background? Did he serve in the war maybe and go through Italy, somewhere with quite a of Roman carvings? (this is an example of a line of research, not a pseudo-fact to be debunked in mock triumphalism). Others: Did he have access to history books? How were history books at school illustrated in his day?

Has anyone looked at the possibility he had a fit or experienced some kind of fugue? He had a break-down afterwards. Was he epileptic? Did he suffer from migraines...

Like I said it's a good story. But for the very very improbable scenario, that he saw a line of independent non-corporeal Roman soldiers, to be true you first have to cross off the far more probable scenarios, e.g. that he was primed to see what he saw by things he'd seen and heard in his life and forgotten with/without a bang on the head or a mild fit.

This is a nutshell is my issue with much Fortean research - the improbable (by which I mean that true Fortean phenomena is by definition a tiny fraction of similar phenomena with mundane explanations) is constantly buttressed against the probable with second hand reports, bogus appeals to authority and lack of exploration and elimination of more probable scenarios.

 

[Frideswide]

I'm beginning to think that they weren't that zealous about reinforcing uniformity.

I /think/ (it's not my period!!!!!!!) that legions etc recruited from whereever they were at the time so they developed with people from all over the empire, albeit predominantly something. And the legion was standardish, but not necessarily between legions?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Has anyone looked at the possibility he had a fit or experienced some kind of fugue? He had a break-down afterwards. Was he epileptic? Did he suffer from migraines ...

That crossed my mind, too. I'd elected to bypass the issue and concentrate on what he claimed he'd seen, but now that you've brought it up ...

He was a 17-year-old worker:

- in his second day down in a cellar alone,
- perched on a ladder,
- in a creepily dark environment with only a single light / lamp of unspecified type, location, and orientation,
- exerting himself to create a hole overhead through what he didn't originally know was circa 2 feet of concrete.

By his own admission the sighting occurred shortly before lunchtime, which implies (a) he'd already been working hard for some time that morning and (b) he might well have been hungry or in a low blood sugar state.

My point: He could well have been in a vulnerable physiological state.

Another thing that makes me wonder about a fugue / seizure / physiological foundation concerns the first sign - the single note blaring that got progressively louder. Martindale describes the sound as similar to that of a horn, but I haven't located any account (including the Ghost Hunters video) in which he clarified whether this sound was intermittent or continuous. There's no mention of any of the figures carrying or blowing a horn once in view.

My point: The oncoming sound was probably a source of apprehension, and it may have represented a sensory disturbance akin to pre-migraine 'aura' effects.

A third suggestive factor is the initial / triggering observation Martindale described. He stated he'd realized the oncoming blaring sound was coming from the wall (which he was apparently facing* ... ). His first visual 'contact' was to notice something down and to his right (just off his right hip as he stood on the ladder). He specifically emphasized this initially noticed item as the plumage / frill atop the lead figure's helmet.

My point: The initial visual contact was an amorphous (possibly moving / swaying) object at the limit of his peripheral vision - the same area of the visual field where migraine 'aura' effects and pre-fainting visual distortions occur.

He grokked the visual impression as a Roman helmet, panicked, stepped / fell back off the ladder onto the floor, and scrambled away.

My point: He'd already concluded he was seeing one or more Roman soldiers by the time he'd taken up his eventual vantage point, he may have been dealing with the effects of falling off the ladder, and he was in a state of adrenalin-fueled stress.

I'm not saying it was definitely a physiologically-based hallucination, but there's plenty of reason to suspect such a thing.


* NOTE: The only orientation that would have allowed him to both (a) see the lead soldier below him and off his right hip and (b) view the swords of the marching soldiers on their right hips would be one in which he was generally, if not directly, facing the wall from which they emerged or else facing more or less 'down' the length of the cellar space.

 

[oldrover]

I'm not listening to any rational talk about this. I want to see a Roman. I really do, so sod the reason, I'm telling myself I still believe this.

 

[oldrover]

I /think/ (it's not my period!!!!!!!) that legions etc recruited from whereever they were at the time so they developed with people from all over the empire, albeit predominantly something. And the legion was standardish, but not necessarily between legions?

The Romans did recruit from everywhere they could, but I'm not sure they stationed local troops in their own areas, at least not in the early years of the Imperial era. Hence the ban on full citizen Legionaries intermarrying with the locals, again, at least not whilst on active service.

Also, they didn't necessarily recruit to the Legions themselves, but to the auxiliary units. As I remember the guy on Trajan's Column trying to stop Decebalus from committing suicide was a member of the auxiliary cavalry.

Equipment wasn't issued, you had to buy it, often this involved buying it off the bloke who'd reached the end of his 25 years, so the idea of completely standardised equipment even between two men standing alongside each other isn't really likely.

Also, the sparsity of records from this period means that there could have been a detachment of auxiliaries from anywhere stationed at or passing through York at this time. So it must be true.

 

[oldrover]

Another point against the arguments of the naysayers here, is why the hell would a young man in 1953, probably with his mind on the sort of things most young men would have today, such as girls, going to the pictures, looking cool, being relevant, you know that sort of thing, even be thinking of Romans? In 1953?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Another point against the arguments of the naysayers here, is why the hell would a young man in 1953, probably with his mind on the sort of things most young men would have today, such as girls, going to the pictures, looking cool, being relevant, you know that sort of thing, even be thinking of Romans? In 1953? ...

Good point. I wondered if there were some reason he'd been 'primed' to associate something new / novel with something so ancient. It occurred to me he may have been 'primed' by either generally being a resident of a very historical city with significant Roman connections or something specific in or around the worksite. The former is always a possibility given the locale. The latter didn't seem likely since the Treasurer's House's significance really had nothing to do with the town's extensive Roman heritage.

... Except for one thing ...

Martindale knew the excavated cobbled / stone area on which he'd placed his ladder represented the Roman road. He says as much in the video cited above. He also says it didn't concern or interest him much, but he knew. Even if he thought of it as an irrelevant factoid, it was a factoid about which the otherwise sensory impoverished environment reminded him for something on the order of a day and a half leading up to the sighting.

If nothing else, he was reminded every time his ladder rocked or shifted from sitting on the irregular / uneven surface.

There's also the issue of the sound that originally cued him something was happening. He described it as a blaring non-melodic horn sound. If it didn't remind him of (e.g.) a car horn or medieval pages' horns, it's not inconceivable he'd winnowed the possibilities down to the more fantastic possibility of some ancient call.

Consider it in light of the very context you cited ... If the first visual cue he got was something 'plumage'-like down and to the right, what was on (or latent within ... ) his mind such that he didn't initially grok it as a pinup girl's / movie starlet's / girlfriend's hair? Or the headdress of a showgirl or Indian from the last movie he'd seen?

I see only two alternatives: Something unmistakably ancient Roman was visibly present, or ancient Romans were ready-at-hand as a perception-molding notion (i.e., on his mind).

Since Harry waited 20 years to even mention the incident, and he's now passed away, it's a dilemma left to the ages ...

 

[Eponastill]

Enola I think your analysis is great and really interesting. I think you're right, he would have been aware of 'Romans in York'. And that's perceptive to spot that it was 'nearly lunchtime'. I certainly go a bit funny when it's nearly lunchtime.

So the lack of lunch, in a dark confined space, and in fact, concentrating hard on a task he had to do - those put him in a certain mindset. And I'd like to think (oldrover style) that it was because he was in this mindset that he saw something that a casual visitor to the cellar wouldn't pick up. That is, that there was something to pick up, and he was tuned in.

Because it's interesting that he would hallucinate scruffy short solders. If he was just having a Funny Turn, why wouldn't he see smart ones out of a children's history book? or his 'Charlton Heston type'? why would his brain make it different enough that (allegedly) people who thought they knew about the appearance of Roman Soldiers dismissed him.

Btw, how do you know he waited twenty years to recount it? I'd love to see some more video / read a bit more, but I haven't found any more at the moment.

[Also, Howkflakegirl, you say "The following is definately true. Some Roman historians went to speak to henry and asked for a description of the soldiers. He gave them one and they laughed at him, as his description was completely different to what people knew of Roman soldiers at the time. He was ridiculed over it and they assumed he was lying. Later excavations found dead soldiers wearing items of clothing just like those henry had described underneath the cellar."
Is that "definitely true?" Why would there be Roman soldiers with preserved clothes right under the cellar? I don't believe it, it sounds like chinese-whispers style elaboration of the story to make it sound more convincing. I mean in an old style ghost story way where the shade haunts the spot of its bones. Also,the video suggests he went to the museum curator, not the other way around - would Serious Historians seek out some crank who'd seen Roman ghosts?
Not being pedantic (much). Just trying to keep fact apart from speculation and elaboration.]

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Because it's interesting that he would hallucinate scruffy short solders. If he was just having a Funny Turn, why wouldn't he see smart ones out of a children's history book? or his 'Charlton Heston type'? why would his brain make it different enough that (allegedly) people who thought they knew about the appearance of Roman Soldiers dismissed him. ...

This is precisely why the Martindale incident is one of my favorite ghost reports. The scruffiness, short stature, green colored tunics, and walking over a foot beneath the current floor level all give this report considerable points for theoretical 'authenticity'.

On the other hand ... Young Martindale lived in a city with significant Roman era heritage. It's anybody's guess how familiar he may have been with 'realistic' Roman army garb and equipment from (e.g.) school, reading, or visiting museums.

I did some research on the Charlton Heston angle. Heston played Marc Antony in a low-budget 1950 film adaptation of Julius Caesar. This 1950 film played only a few places in the USA. I can't find any reference to UK releases or showings back in that timeframe except for its being shown at the 1951 Edinburgh Film Festival. I mention this because this seems to have been the only appearance of Heston in Roman garb up to the time of the ghostly encounter.

As a result, I presume Martindale's reference to Heston and Roman military attire most probably comes from the 1970 remake, if Martindale actually held a strong association between Heston and Roman army garb.

Btw, how do you know he waited twenty years to recount it? I'd love to see some more video / read a bit more, but I haven't found any more at the moment. ...

All accounts I've seen stated Martindale didn't publicly present his story of the encounter until the early 1970's. There are allusions to his having shut up about it after encountering skepticism / mockery in the wake of the incident, but I've yet to see any substantive description of these alleged initial tellings.

A number of writers have mentioned (apparently by copying claims from other writers) criticism of Martindale's descriptions of the figures' attire. I've not yet seen any substantive description of these alleged encounters - most particularly no mention detailed enough to support the idea he met scholarly resistance in 1953 versus sometime from the 1970's onward.

 

[Coal]

Good point. I wondered if there were some reason he'd been 'primed' to associate something new / novel with something so ancient. It occurred to me he may have been 'primed' by either generally being a resident of a very historical city with significant Roman connections or something specific in or around the worksite. The former is always a possibility given the locale. The latter didn't seem likely since the Treasurer's House's significance really had nothing to do with the town's extensive Roman heritage.

... Except for one thing ...

Martindale knew the excavated cobbled / stone area on which he'd placed his ladder represented the Roman road. He says as much in the video cited above. He also says it didn't concern or interest him much, but he knew. Even if he thought of it as an irrelevant factoid, it was a factoid about which the otherwise sensory impoverished environment reminded him for something on the order of a day and a half leading up to the sighting.

If nothing else, he was reminded every time his ladder rocked or shifted from sitting on the irregular / uneven surface.

There's also the issue of the sound that originally cued him something was happening. He described it as a blaring non-melodic horn sound. If it didn't remind him of (e.g.) a car horn or medieval pages' horns, it's not inconceivable he'd winnowed the possibilities down to the more fantastic possibility of some ancient call.

Consider it in light of the very context you cited ... If the first visual cue he got was something 'plumage'-like down and to the right, what was on (or latent within ... ) his mind such that he didn't initially grok it as a pinup girl's / movie starlet's / girlfriend's hair? Or the headdress of a showgirl or Indian from the last movie he'd seen?

I see only two alternatives: Something unmistakably ancient Roman was visibly present, or ancient Romans were ready-at-hand as a perception-molding notion (i.e., on his mind).

Since Harry waited 20 years to even mention the incident, and he's now passed away, it's a dilemma left to the ages ...

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I did some research on the Charlton Heston angle. Heston played Marc Antony in a low-budget 1950 film adaptation of Julius Caesar.

The water-cooler picture posted by oldrover is Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar, which was indeed 1953. The other big Roman picture of the year was The Robe with Richard Burton. There was certainly a lot of publicity around that first Cinemascope epic!

I see that Harry's tale is set in February that year; both The Robe and Julius Caesar were first shown in the UK nine months later but Romans were certainly in the air, if not under the floor!

"Now once the horse had cleared the wall and was going through the wall opposite, then Roman soldiers came out in twos - now I was in no fit state to count them as if they were going into the ark, but there were at least 20 of these Roman soldiers appeared here." - from Eponastill's very helpful transcription of the Ghosthunters programme.

It certainly sounds as if Harry's vision was panoramic in concept!

 

[oldrover]

The water-cooler picture posted by oldrover is Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar, which was indeed 1953. The other big Roman picture of the year was The Robe with Richard Burton. There was certainly a lot of publicity around that first Cinemascope epic!

I see that Harry's tale is set in February that year; both The Robe and Julius Caesar were first shown in the UK nine months later but Romans were certainly in the air, if not under the floor!

View attachment 5525

"Now once the horse had cleared the wall and was going through the wall opposite, then Roman soldiers came out in twos - now I was in no fit state to count them as if they were going into the ark, but there were at least 20 of these Roman soldiers appeared here."

From Eponastill's very helpful transcription of the Ghosthunters programme. It certainly sounds as if Harry's vision was panoramic in concept!

'The Robe' was 1953? I didn't bother looking for that one as I thought it was years later. Terrible film.

 

[oldrover]

As a result, I presume Martindale's reference to Heston and Roman military attire most probably comes from the 1970 remake, if Martindale actually held a strong association between Heston and Roman army garb.

I always took that comment to relate to 'Ben Hur'. Especially as it was related years later.

As I recall Martindale was quite a fervent Christian, I can't find any more details on that, but I wonder if it had any connection. Although in which way I can't imagine.

 

[Eponastill]

Yeah at the end of that GH programme he says "One of the churches here in York, they, er… put pressure… pressure on me as a Christian. They didn’t think it was right that I should mention my ghost story. And I went along with this for a while, but then I think – “No! Why? Why shouldn’t I mention it?”

I suppose it depends what sort of church he's talking about. Because (well, from watching other programmes in that series) the anglican church seems perfectly well geared up to deal with people who've experienced paranormal things, it seems part of the remit to minister to people who have. So maybe one of the more "modern" churches. Who knows.