Weird War Tales

[Spookdaddy]

Not conventional war, maybe - but I was reminded of a pub tale once related to me by a retired train driver.

We were not actually talking about weird things at all, but about his childhood trips from the hills above Manchester, where he lived as a teenager, to his parents old home in County Fermanagh. He mentioned that one of the most disturbing things he experienced was not directly associated with the Troubles - but then, afterwards, he sometimes wondered if it was.

In 1970 he and a couple of friends were camping in a field near to the old family farm. As dusk settled they became aware of what they thought was a figure standing behind a hedgerow that bordered the field at some distance. Unnerved, but fortified with cider and teenage grit, they went to investigate but could find no-one, although all of them were sure they'd seen a flesh and blood human being watching them from the cover of the hedge.

The night descended and they made a fire, and sat around drinking and telling stories - all the while putting down the snuffling noises and odd indications of motion that occasionallty disturbed the stillness to cows doing whatever it is cows do at night. Then, well after midnight, an unearthly shriek - like that of a barn owl, but much louder - pierced the night two or three times, followed by a loud rushing sound and the sense of a physical body flying just above their heads; one much bigger than any bird.

Of course they legged it back to the farmhouse, where an initially unconvinced grandfather - sure that they'd just succumbed to nighttime horrors - joked that it couldn't have been the banshee because he hadn't heard that they could fly*.

1970 was bad, but worse was to come - and the area they were staying was then relatively unaffected, but that was to change too. My friend - not someone I would say was prone to flights of imagination or airy rumination - said he often wondered if they'd witnessed something which was somehow connected to what was to come.

*Edit: I'm not exactly sure about this. I have it in the back of my mind that I have heard them associated with flight, but I'm not an expert and I wonder if 'flight' in this case might have been in reference to speed of movement, rather than the ability to get airborne. Whatever, my friend's grandfather clearly didn't attach wings to his banshees.

 

[escargot]

Have this again, from b3ta -

My family used to have the village shop in a tiny farming village in rural Lincolnshire. And because it was so distributed, my dad used to do deliveries in the van. Farmers and their families would phone through their orders, and make a date for delivery. On weekends, as a young Sasquatch, I'd go with my Dad and help him carry boxes and bags. This was great, as I got to go round all the farms, play with all the kids and be shown all the animals.

One day, we were visiting a farm, and the farmer's wife introduced my dad to her mum, who was visiting. She said her mum was the local fortune-teller, at which my dad smiled politely and said "How interesting." or some such. He didn't believe in any of that rubbish. A more mundane and normal setting could not be imagined - a workday farmhouse kitchen, plain wooden table, muddy boots by the door.

Then this woman looks up at my dad and says "I've got a message for you." Her face crumpled, and she was clearly confused. "It's your sister, but it's a man. He's in a greenhouse in the sky, but it's falling and it's on fire. How can a greenhouse be in the sky...? How can a man be your sister?"

To my total surprise, my Dad's face was wet with tears. He thanked her for the message and said he understood perfectly. Things returned to normality; tea was made, drunk, and we left. In the van, I was bursting to know what that had all been about. When my Dad had been a teenager, his best pal was a lad called Peter, and they looked very similar in height and facial features. People used to ask them if they were brothers, and their stock reply was "No, we're sisters!" Peter had gone into the RAF during the war, and had flown in an Anson light bomber, which was nicknamed the Flying Greenhouse. His plane had been lost over the Channel.