Some Ghosts I Have Known Who Turned Out To Be Massive Pricks
Ghost hunters in Somerset’s Quantock Hills have reported that the spectre of Jane Walford, who was murdered by her husband John in 1789, can often be seen at the site of her demise, known as ‘Dead Woman’s Ditch’, swearing violently at people. “FUCK OFF,” Jane will usually shout at total strangers, before vanishing. Although, according to a few reports, she will on occasion vary this to “BOLLOCKS” or “MOSSY JUGS”.
A lot was made of this strange occurrence in various local news pieces a year or so ago, the story doing the rounds and hitting my inbox on average twice per week for a spell of almost three months. “I know: I’ll send this to Tom!” people obviously think when they see something like this, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought or understand where it comes from, but just how shocking or unusual you find a ghost whose USP is yelling “FUCK OFF” at strangers is a matter of context, shaped by the life you have lived to that point. Your average urban dweller who works in an office, rarely gets out to bramble-tangled ravines and eerie forests, and receives most of their knowledge of the supernatural from Victorian ghost stories? Maybe they have come to expect a certain cliched dignity from ghosts. Me, on the other hand? I walk in countless creepy and unsettling places in the west of England so take a report like this more in my stride. “Big deal,” tends to be my immediate reaction. “Check my face for surprise.”
Up to now I have refrained from speaking about the more antisocial and surprising ghosts I’ve encountered on my travels, as my suspicion is that they value their privacy and would not encourage internet tourism. On the other hand, most of them were absolute twats, so I don’t really feel I owe them anything. Also, I like lists, so don’t see why I shouldn’t summarise some of the weirder ones here:
The Commitmentphobic Pheasant Of Budleigh Salterton
Most commonly spotted on the eight or nine mile stretch of the South West Coast path immediately west of Sidmouth, this talkative bird, who has been known to introduce himself as both “Richard” and “The Fashion Chicken”, will generally open a conversation by lamenting the construction of the Ladram Bay Holiday Park in 1950, which coincided with his death at the hands of a recently cuckolded farmer. But Richard’s primary concern is less the injustice of his demise or the despoiling of the southern coastline and more the philosophy of successful romance. “I am just chilling right now,” he will explain, eventually, to pretty much anybody he meets. “Taking some time to focus on self care. After all, how can you expect anyone to love you if you don’t love yourself? What you need to know is that there’s never any pressure with me. In my experience you can’t force it, and the best stuff comes when you’re not searching too hard.” Those who have met him remember noticing a curious smell - part grain, part cologne - and an overall sense of bonhomie at odds with his rampant self-interest. His always-sudden departure in veil of sea mist will typically be presaged by some rambling excuse about a blocked bank card or the exclamation, “Shit, I just remembered I’m an hour late to meet his chick I got talking to in an abandoned garden centre last week.”
Mr Harris, The Broken Printer Poet Of Dunkery Hill
Little is known of this desperately pale and surprisingly lyrical ghost aside from his habit of walking the bridleways and lanes of the Devon-Somerset border, lugging around a 2002 Epson Stylus Photo 820 Inkjet Printer and asking, “Does anyone know where I can get this piece of shit fixed?” Other distinguishing features include a birthmark on his trousers and a habit of handing out verse - all reluctantly written in longhand - to any attractive woman he encounters, with the announcement, “You remind me most uncannily of my dear, departed Madeleine. I composed these lines for her in 1998 but they could just as easily apply to you, right here today.”
The Castle Of Obsolete Cultural Chatter
As dusk falls and a visitor walks around what is left of this thoroughly portentous building, chilling voices can often be heard to ring out from its remaining corridors, dungeons and ramparts. “Mumford & Sons make some of the most honest and gritty folk music I’ve ever heard,” one will confess. “I have a lot of time for Russell Brand and Bo Selecta,” another will add, while, from the old theatre, the eerie tinkle of the Sky TV planner muzak circa 2006 rings out. Far too many legends surround this building to list in full here, arguably the most infamous being that any time one of its tortured souls refers to the internet as “the interwebs” another chunk of stone tumbles from its 15th Century structure into the mournful river below.
The Realism Tree
A popular picnic spot for young lovers for centuries, The Realism Tree grows on the banks of the River Dart in south Devon and, once every full moon, is known to open a wide, disturbingly human-looking mouth concealed low in its trunk and ask, “So, if pressed, what do you truly want out of the future?” Initially shocked, those sitting beside it, hypnotised by the sprawling beauty of its mystic limbs and suspecting they have hit a magical turning point on life’s long road, will always eventually respond by detailing their most passionate hopes. The Realism Tree will then make a fearsome rumbling sound, as if its deepest roots are spontaneously ripping themselves from the earth, before calmly detailing the flaws in its interlocutors’ plans, with comments such as “But step back a moment: Is that genuinely attainable? Let’s face it, you’re not getting any younger, and there are only so many hours in the day”, “So-called Utopian communities pretty much always end in political in-fighting and sexual jealousy” and “I don’t mean to be a downer but that dog is going to completely ruin your social life.”
Craig, The Persecuted Pony
Thought to be an apparition of a young pony killed by a car during the early days of motor travel on Dartmoor, Craig is that strangest of all supernatural phenomena: a ghost who only comes out in the daytime. Tourists to the moor are often drawn to his cute appearance, offering him biscuits and other snacks, all of which he will decline, before listing, by full name and current address, all the friends who have betrayed him. A detailed chronicle of a string of other injustices he believes the universe has rained down on him out of pure spite will soon follow, such as the time he was overlooked in favour of his paddockmate Harold as the corporate face of an equine rescue centre. Soon, still totally unaware they have encountered an incorporeal being, the tourists will make their excuses. “Ok, we’d probably better be heading off,” they will say. “I predicted you’d say that,” Craig will reply, head hung low. Strangely, Craig remains visible only to humans, although a theory has been put forward that his fellow animals can see him after all and are merely ignoring him in the hope it will eventually nudge him to move to a different area of protected moorland.
