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Top Hat Man

GNC said:
Some children can have very vivid imaginary friends, to the point that the "friends" seem to have a life of their own. I suppose if friends exist, then enemies, or at least sinister figures, can exist too.

Incidentally, your description of the Top Hat Man does sound like the Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town from the comedy serial off The Two Ronnies, broadcast in the 70s but repeated in the 80s too. He's kind of notorious for scaring kids even though he was supposed to be funny. Could he have inspired the look of the brother's "imaginary" enemy?

We must have an imaginary friends thread around here, if anyone can find it... might make you think, @Seasidepagan ?
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Yes I do know that character! I had never made the connection but it could have been that my brother saw it!
 
pandacracker said:
Thanks for your account Seasidepagan.

My thoughts, for what they're worth.

Although the man looked scary, he didn't say or do anything unkind. You brother was left wrapped in a blanket (a safe and secure thing to do to a child) yet left at the bottom of the stairs by the front door (an inbetween, exit/entrance, passing through space.)

I lean towards the psychologists explanation that it was your brothers way of dealing with the loss of you father.
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I quite agree although he scared my brother he didn’t hurt him and as you say, wrapped him
Up warmly.thank-you for tour thoughts
 
The man on the Sandeman's bottle is notable for his cloak, as much as for the hat. They got Orson Welles, no less, to impersonate him in a series of ads, back in the sixties. I don't think the brand is much seen in the UK now.

I suppose the get-up is meant to represent a Portuguese nobleman*, typical of the brands of the past, which used age and authority to appeal to a new and insecure market. Welles's impersonation played on his shadowy Third Man, Harry Lime, persona. As Lime was a trader in adulterated medicines, we must assume his celebrity could override too much memory of the plot!

He may also have been drawing on his love of stage-magic, for the cape was a fine cover for rabbits and doves.

Right now, I am struck by the way that brand-name recalls the traditional goblin of sleep, who chucks sand in kids's eyes! :yellowc:

Edit: I see I made a common Madela Effect error in associating Welles with Sandeman's Port! He advertised Domecq sherry in similar gear. Now, it is the hilarious outtakes of ads he did for Paul Masson, which stick in the mind!:boozing:

*I got this a bit wrong too. The Sandeman's figure is meant to be a Portuguese student, his flatter hat set at a rakish angle! The company's own website states that the mysterious figure of The Don was created by a Scottish artist under a French pseudonym, probably inspired by artwork for Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro!

Well, this is all a bit marginal but given the times . . . :pipe:
 
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Sollywos said:
Another great post Seasidepagan although I'm sad to hear about your brother's passing. Were the other things that happened to him in later life things that comforted or scared him? I'm glad you've decided to start sharing your experiences here. :)

Sollywos x
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A bit of both I think , I wait for him to let me
Know he is still around.
 
Familiar?

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A scarecrow doesn't seem complete somehow unless it's wearing a hat. The farmer who makes it will put one on its head even though hardly anyone wears one these days. He thinks that by putting a hat on the scarecrow it will appear more like a real human being to birds.

Not sure about birds being fooled but I think it does work on people, the hat being a 'finishing touch' which makes us first think (often accompanied by a slight feeling of shock) that there's someone over in that field before we realise it's just an imitation.

If these entities were ghosts of people who had died when certain types of hat were fashionable and commonplace, we wouldn't expect them to interact with the living in the ways reported. But if they were something else, something trying to look human, then they might think that the wearing of a hat is just something people do. How to appear perfectly normal.
 
David Plankton said:
But if they were something else, something trying to look human, then they might think that the wearing of a hat is just something people do. How to appear perfectly normal.
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As if this wasn't creepy enough.

I might speak to my sister later today. I can ask her if there have been any developments or sightings recently.
 
David Plankton said:
... But if they were something else, something trying to look human, then they might think that the wearing of a hat is just something people do. How to appear perfectly normal.
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Considering the decline in hat-wearing over the last 60+ years ...

If they were something coming from afar whose orientation to earth customs was based on old media broadcasts encountered on their way here they might well believe respectable adult humans commonly wear hats.
 
I mean...I have another story that might be relevant but it's a tag long. If people don't think it is, mods can chuck it somewhere else.
I've been on these boards for nearly 20 years, in various shapes, so I might well have told this one before. I'm reminded of it now as my family immediately made the connection with my mum's odd incident.

When I was about 14 or 15, I would often walk over to a friend's house, about two miles away. We lived in a built up area (still near the estate where Gran lived), but at night, the main street was largely deserted. Lots of brightly lit neon and shop displays, which only went to disguise how empty the place was after dark. Now, it's all bars and takeaways, but back then (probably about 1987/8), it was silent, with very little traffic for such a main road (A61 leading into Sheffield).

So, walking to my friend's place, I'm in a rather hyper-vigilant mode. It wasn't the toughest neighbourhood, but it had problems and a fair few issues around violent crime, hence I keep my wits about me. And to my dismay, I see two local...ahem..."characters" coming the opposite way. These two are the classic little angry bloke/big tough bloke combo. They're the same age as me, but given that I'm a queer, disabled geek without much money, we were not predisposed to get on. There's no way out of this; crossing the road admits fear and will inevitably lead to a confrontation. I'm just going to have to try and face it down. I know that the very least I'm going to get is a load of verbal abuse.

Except, when we meet up, they just stare at me oddly. The little one is silent for once. The big fella just looks nervous and says "Alreight? as we do up here. And they go on their way. And I sweatily continue onwards, with frequent glances over my shoulder.

Next day at school, I see the big one. He tells me that the little one wanted to start something but they didn't, for reasons that become obvious when he asks "Was that your dad?"

"Who?"

"That bloke you were walking with. Him in the big black hat. Reminded me of Freddie Krueger."

Remember how I said I kept looking around? I'm absolutely certain I was alone. The streets were empty apart from the three of us. And when I told my parents, they immediately reminded me about the Man in the Hat on the stairs. So I'm quite fond of him myself.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Considering the decline in hat-wearing over the last 60+ years ...
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Oh, I don't know, the amount of beanies and baseball caps I see around campus. It's just different styles of hats and more weather-related. In 200 years time, all the creatures trying to imitate humans will be wearing a natty woollen number with a fluffy pompom on top.
 
Excellent story, it does sound like potential child hood trauma but who knows? Like many I was traumatised by the Phantom Raspberry Blower and have a "scary top hat man" archetype in my he'd since childhood. It may be solely from the Two Ronnies sketch or may be a composite. I recall a Jekyll and Hyde type character from a Bugs Bunny cartoon that freaked me out as a kid as well.
 
bugmum said:
Oh, I don't know, the amount of beanies and baseball caps I see around campus. It's just different styles of hats and more weather-related. ...
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Understood ... My point was that the hat styles typically reported for these shadowy figures tended to be older, less common styles such as fedoras and top hats.

Come to think of it, I don't recall any reports of ghosts, shadow figures, etc., wearing the sort of headwear (ball caps; beanies) that's become most common nowadays.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Understood ... My point was that the hat styles typically reported for these shadowy figures tended to be older, less common styles such as fedoras and top hats.

Come to think of it, I don't recall any reports of ghosts, shadow figures, etc., wearing the sort of headwear (ball caps; beanies) that's become most common nowadays.
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Ghosts are predominantly Hipsters?
 
This topic was ringing bells somewhere in the grey matter for me and it's just come to me and made my blood run cold.

My mother, now aged 59, told me some years ago about a recurring dream she had throughout her teens where a man dressed in black with a wide brimmed hat (she described it as like Zorro) would stand outside the kitchen of her Nan's house and stare in the window at her, grinning in a menacing way. She had this dream many times up until the birth of my older sister where I remember her saying she plucked up the courage to shut the curtains on him and it stopped from that point.

I'm going to have a chat with her tomorrow to see if I can gleam any further information.

As an aside, as a young kid, before I even knew about ghosts and the like, I always hated that house. I had a permanent uneasy feeling constantly, to point I had to be accompanied to the toilet at all times!
 
We've discussed him before on other threads but the character Reverend Kane from Polergeist 2 fits this bill. He scared me when I was younger.
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EnolaGaia said:
Come to think of it, I don't recall any reports of ghosts, shadow figures, etc., wearing the sort of headwear (ball caps; beanies) that's become most common nowadays.
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That's a good point. A great point in fact. Surely there MUST be some reports out there, however they (if they do exist) are certainly in the minority. Why is this so? Why do these Hatmen have the look that they do? When you think about it, it becomes even more bizarre.
 
Lord Lucan said:
That's a good point. A great point in fact. Surely there MUST be some reports out there, however they (if they do exist) are certainly in the minority. Why is this so? Why do these Hatmen have the look that they do? When you think about it, it becomes even more bizarre.
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Here are some possibilities that come to mind ...

To the extent such shadow figures represent ghosts, they're "past tense" (i.e., dead; daparted). It would therefore be no surprise that their ephemeral after-appearance would include fashions or styles from the time they were alive.

To the extent such shadow figures are concocted / constructed / projected from the observer's viewpoint the vintage / archaic dress and headwear may represent accessories associated with a "stock figure" invoked to depict the immediately present presence or vision.

To the extent such shadow figures are associated with death or the cosmic mystery of the afterlife (a la religious teachings) it would be no surprise they'd be clothed (themselves or by the observer's imagination) in reasonably formal dress, akin to a preacher or an undertaker.
 
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Connotations of religion, perhaps but more generally, I think, figures of authority. Not all the seers are youngsters but the phantom figures appear to exercise authority over their victims as hargingers of bad news. :hide:
 
Ogdred Weary said:
Ghosts are predominantly Hipsters?
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If most ghosts are hipsters, why aren't they sporting big fluffy beards, wearing plaid shirts and drinking a microbrewery IPA?
Shucks, maybe in 50 years or so they will . . .

Assuming the scary Hatman is a child's projection of anxiety, I wonder what the 17th or 18th century version of a Hatman was. I suppose some kind of demon. But what if you grew up in an 18th century Enlightenment household where demons were pooh-poohed? Would the Hatman have worn a tricorn? Or a gigantic wig? Could ETA Hoffman's Sandman be the Hatman of the early 19th century? And what about in other cultures outside Europe?
 
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