The Last Letter from Dr Alexander

Dr Doctor Heartly,

My apologies to you again for missing our reunion this year at Grizedale. You may be aware that my Rachel, Dr Jennings, passed away earlier this year and with the early retirement of Dr Wallis at the end of April, the practice has continued to function, just barely, with two men short. Indeed, I have relinquished my additional responsibilities with the Commission to some bright young upstart, though I may confess to you that taking the lead in the End of Life review had begun to strike a little too close to home with these advancing years.

It is however my End of Life that I wish to pass to you. Learning from the experience and concerns of the Liverpool Care Pathway, I have spent considerable time liaising with our colleagues in the district and have taken on board the views of patients, relatives and colleagues on the matter, and have assembled a comprehensive set of guidelines, and an implementation strategy that I trust you will find most useful, should you choose to proceed. The work is not ready for publication, but I would be honoured if you deemed fit to follow through to implementation, and published with your own conclusions.

Also enclosed, as I’m sure you’ll have noticed, is the fruit of my lifelong study into what I have come to term cognitive pre-mortem. As well you know, I have long been intrigued by the persistent family tales of those experiencing prior warning before their death. I know this defies logic, but every ward I have visited has such a story, and I have heard them all.

I can imagine your face as you read this, it defies all.reason and possibility you say, and you are right, but I want to give you a summary of my findings that will hopefully whet your appetite enough to, at the very least, open my journals, and not just consign them to the shelf.

Take the case of Mr Barnham, for example. Both he and his wife were patients of mine for over forty years. I confirmed all of Mrs Barnham’s pregnancies, watched their children grow from new born to becoming parents themselves, and of course, I watched Mr and Mrs Barnham retire, and recede into old age. It was I that diagnosed Mr Barnham’s heart condition and it was I that referred him for a pacemaker, giving him a full extra ten years to spend with his wife. But it was also I that should have spotted Mrs Barnham’s cancer, but I didn’t, and with the voracity so typical of these tumours, Mrs Barnham was dead, just a month after her husband’s own life extending procedure.

Mr Barnham never held me responsible, not so I would know it, and certainly not to the extent to which I hold myself, but he always maintained that had he known he was to lose his beloved, he would never have taken the procedure.

Ten years after that procedure, Mr Barnham came to the clinic for a routine appointment, he checked out well, but at the end of the appointment he confided in me.

‘Doctor’, he said, ‘I saw Millie this morning, while I was in the shower’.

Millie was Mr Barnham’s wife. He explained to me that he’d been taking his shower before coming to see me when he felt someone enter the bathroom. He pulled back the shower curtain and there she was, resting against the sink, large as life. He asked her if she was really her, and she told him yes, they chatted about things, the grandkids she’d missed, how he’d missed her, but she knew this already, she was never really far away.

This is all right up my street and I wanted to know more, but there wasn’t really anything else to tell. Mr Barnham had had a catch up chat with wife, like he had just returned from being away on business for a week or so. There was no terror, no creepy chains or spooky mist, but she did tell him that they would be together again soon. I always imagined if I’d been in that situation I would have panicked, but he was calm. It wasn’t a warning, it was a promise, and he seemed at peace. He left me with a skip in his step and a gleam in his eye.

That afternoon, the call came. The body was found resting in his arm chair by his daughter, and I went out to pronounce the death. He was indeed at peace, and his expression was blissful. He had spent the morning settling his accounts and left this world with his affairs in order.

This is just one account, there are many, and I know you have heard them from your own patients. I firmly believe that there is something in this and it’s conscious enough in the public psyche that it should be accepted in the media. Take Lou Beale or Jack Duckworth for example, but jokes aside I have so many of these examples, but I’ll give just two more.

This is the case of the ICU patient at Morecambe General. The particulars of the case are all recorded in both the history sheets in the patient record, and in my own journal, and the family have agreed to participate in further studies of this encounter should you deem to pursue it.

The patient in question, a young man in his late teens had a rather nasty meeting between a sheep and his motorcycle up on the Quernmoor Tops, which put him in a coma, but his condition only deteriorated further, eventually being placed on life support.

This family is well known to me also, being registered to my practice, and I called in to offer my support whenever I was passing ICU. It never did look good for the poor chap and it reached a point where the question of switching off the machine had been asked.

As you know, this is a decision that we all hope that we never have to make, and what happened next, I can at least validate myself.

It was late evening and following an over running project meeting, I was catching up on my emails in the ward manager’s office before going home when I caught sight of the back of a patient pass the office door and walk down the corridor. I didn’t think much of it at the time; it is after all a hospital. There are patients wandering around all the time; it was only once the patient had left the ward that I realised that something was amiss. It took a moment for me to register that on the intensive care ward, patients are not prone to getting up to stretch their legs.

I put my head out of the office door expecting to see who ever it was that had passed standing by the ward doors waiting to be let out by the attendant, but there was no one there.

Downstairs however, the patient’s mother, whom we will call Mrs Smith in the interests of information governance, was stood at the coffee machine by the reception desk staring through her options when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Expecting her eldest son to have caught up with her, she didn’t look up, but a voice said, Don’t cry mum.

She wept and told her son that she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t be the one that ended her son’s time here, the one that admitted all hope was lost. That she was giving up.
But the voice said that it was ok, that he didn’t mind.

Mrs Smith was furious her other son, Peter, could even think such a thing, and she turned to give her adult son a thick ear, but it wasn’t Peter, it was Paul stood there, in his hospital gown, but not a scratch on him.

She cried, asked him what he was doing out of bed, was he feeling better? But the answer was no. He had come to goodbye.

She was calm, she told me, very calm under the circumstances. It was later that she would freak out.

Paul told her that he would wait for everyone to arrive, but that he was ready to go now. Mrs Smith flung her arms around him, held him as tight as she could, and asked him to stay. She told me later that her son was soft to the touch, and had all the scents and feel of a baby, the way she always viewed both her sons. And then he was gone.

The next part I can corroborate as I was there. Mrs Smith pounded on the ICU doors, demanding to be let in, but as the reception desk was abandoned I used my own pass card to let her in. She dashed right past me and down the corridor, in to Paul’s room.

I followed her down.

In the room, the whole family was assembled and Mrs Smith had rested her head on her son’s chest, weeping, she told him everything she needed to say, everything that had to be said, and everything he’d always known to be true; and that he would never ever be forgotten.

Then he flat-lined: the DNR tag prevented the crash team invasion.

I stayed with family a while, eventually sitting down with Mrs Smith with a cup of tea in the office. She told me what had happened down stairs, and that she was at ease now that she’d had that one last goodbye, and how relieved she was that she didn’t need to pull the plug herself.

Now you know me, I’m a believer, but I also remain sceptical of each case I encounter. Morecambe General is a big hospital, if a patient had walked down the corridor, he should be on the security cameras right? I checked, and during that exact time, a circuit board had blown, knocking out every camera for three minutes. When they did come back over. It was all over.

There are lots of coincidences that I have found during this lifelong study of mine. Coincidence beyond reason, but coincidence nonetheless; it is almost as though the world itself conspires to maintain the shroud of uncertainty around the truth of our eventual fates, and all the evidence that I can provide, is ultimately anecdotal.

Despite my best efforts, it is here that the world continues to outwit me, but what that security recording did show me, is Mrs Smith dropping her arms, as if from a deep embrace with an unseen companion, and then she runs to the lift (The video file is in the notes too).

I know you too well to know that this alone is not enough to sway you, but I hope you will at least review the materials that I have sent as I fear I have run out of time myself; if there is any truth in the stories I have recounted to you, this will be my last correspondence. Despite the clear bill of health, I received this morning a visit from Rachel, beautiful as the day we met, and she told me, as the others have been told by their loved ones, that I will see her again quite soon.

Farewell my dear old friend,

Dr P Alexander

28/12/2023 0

Little Fingers

Little fingers get everywhere don’t they, and when you’ve got small children following you around for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, it doesn’t take many trapped-in-door incidents to put you on edge and alert to the danger in everything you do.

I’ve trapped fingers in doors, toes in doors, feet in car doors. It’s easily done, they’re like lightning and they get everywhere, like rabbits, but there was no lasting damage, it’s more the shock that upset them, and us.

But it’s been quite a while now, our children aren’t that little anymore, and they move through the house with all the stealth and grace of a marching band, so it’s rare that I might close a door on one of them. Indeed, what’s more likely is that they’ll close the door on eachother, we are not yet through the slamming doors in each others faces stage of child development.

We do have to keep all of the doors closed though. We have a bunny and not all of the house is bunny proofed, and the bits that are get frequently dismantled. It’s a ceaseless task which I would compare to the painting of the Forth Bridge, but that’s an obsolete expression now that they have finally finished painting the Forth Bridge, for now.

This morning however, as I closed the lounge door behind me, I caught a glimpse of a little hand on the door in the periphery of my vision, and I immediately stopped the door from closing any further. When I looked down to see whose fingers they were, I saw as they were withdrawn from sight on other side of the door. It was in that moment that I realised that my children were both at school and I had just returned from the school run, and besides, our children are bigger now, and have themselves learned not to put their fingers in the path of a closing door. This hand was much littler than any hand I knew, and was positioned much lower on the door. This hand could only belong to a preschool age child.

A little finger reaches around the edge of the door.

A chill ran down my spine. I’ve been watching too much horror on the TV, clearly. It puts ideas in your head and you start imagining things that aren’t there. But I was certain that this was there, and, I’m not saying that the house is haunted, but it would tally with the sound of children laughing in the night when everyone is asleep.

I knew that I was alone, but I couldn’t leave the matter uninvestigated so I opened the lounge door fully to see who or what was there, but the room was as empty as I expected. On the back of the door, however, was the explanation I was looking for. Hanging from the door handle was a small pink MacDonalds plushie, with a pink little hand reaching out.

Little Miss Hugs plushie hangs from the door handle.

So that just about covers it. The plushie hand had swung out as the door closed and was spotted in the corner of my eye. Except, I didn’t see a finger protruding as the door closed, I saw a hand, a full four fingers, gripping the edge of the door, didn’t I?

08/02/2022 0

Spooky Muse

I’m a writer but I’ve got to admit, I haven’t been writing as much as I should be. I can’t decide if its apathy or lethargy, but as the pandemic rolls on, and with working full time from home, and raising kids, and all of that TV that needs watching, its hard sometimes just to keep my feet off of the poof and the cork in the bottle. Whatever the problem might be, its absolutely not lack of inspiration. Like most writers I have a collection of high quality note books and journals stuffed from margin to edge, cover to cover, with million dollar ideas. I’m absolutely not short of ideas.

I don’t know what it is but the French have a phrase for it, that thing that we can’t describe or explain, je ne sais pas ce que c’est. I don’t know what it is that is stopping me writing. It could be Writers Block, I’ve had writers block many times before, but this different. Writers Block is what stops me writing when I’m sat at my desk with pen or keys and world enough and time, but this is different, I haven’t even wanted to sit at my desk and write. Insane as it sounds, its true. My desk is the comfiest place in the house. I have a big chair with cushions perfectly moulded to my arse. I have an ergonomically arranged keyboard, not an ergonomic keyboard, I might add, just one that I have placed on my desk in an ergonomic fashion. I am also positioned next to the heater, not that I can afford to have it on, being a writer and stuff.

By now, you’ll be wondering what I’m going on about, whether there is a point to this article. Well there is, because the literary doldrums have broken and I’m back on the keyboard. The Muse, Writer’s Santa as they call it down our way, has paid me a visit and I couldn’t be happier.

I like to think of myself as a ghost story writer, but writing ghost stories doesn’t come easy to me. To take an idea and craft it in such a way as to compel your reader to fear what words will unfurl but to read on nonetheless is a gift I don’t feel I possess, and so I have to work at it, and with Christmas just behind us, I’ve been exposed to many of the greats all over again, and some of the not so greats. Netflix has added ghost stories to its offering and I’ve been working my way through them. I quite enjoyed Ripper Untold, a view not shared by many reviewers, but I thought it captured the period quite well, except for the anachronisms.

I stopped after the first three anachronisms, but screw top wine, electric lamp, and halogen light bulbs in Victoria’s London is enough to take me right out of the story. And the less said about An English Haunting the better, with its 1960s setting and wine cellar of Aldi wines and barcode labels. But these production issues are their’s and not mine, my problem was my muse, and at last it came.

I recently had the house to myself for a few nights while the wife had surgery. When I say ‘to myself’ I mean with the kids, and the floppy eared bunny that eats doors, and all of the creepy crawly things that live in the former outbuilding that we call the bathroom. By house I mean our hundred and fifty odd year old terrace, with its winding creaky staircases, sloping floors, draughty outbuildings and the dank dank cellar. When a loved one goes in for surgery, one can’t help but be faced with our mortality and our frailty, and when left to ones own devices in a creepy old house, one can’t help but think of those hundred and fifty years and all of the lives that have been and went within these walls.

The first night that I was alone I could not settle until I had heard back from hospital that all had gone well, and it was after half past eight when they did. By that time the boys, most unusually, had gone to bed and were asleep, so I poured a glass of wine and enjoyed a few episodes of Shed and Buried, and, while listening to the sounds of the house settle for the night, I imagined what stories the house might give me.

The house is old, and predates things like indoor plumbing, so the bathroom isn’t upstairs, its in a converted outbuilding, and when it rains it leaks. We have a well developed list of repairs to complete.

Being in an outbuilding isn’t ideal after a few drinks, and midnight trips to the bathroom, after a bottle of wine, through the creaky narrow stairs, across the dark kitchen, and out in to the porch, gave me some inspiration I can use.

To get to the bathroom, you have to exit the house, entering the unlit porch that has been built to enclose the otherwise outside bathroom, and that porch has a door with a glass window. Sometimes, when the light is right, when the house is dark and the neighbour’s security lamp is on, there is a shape on that glass window, the shape of a figure silhouetted by the light outside.

This figure is a trick of the light, but it always gives me pause when I see it in the corner of my eye as I’m about to enter the bathroom, and I thought to myself, what if on one of those occasions I dismissed this shadow standing at the door as a trick of the light, it wasn’t a trick of the light. What if the shadowy figure was actually there? What if the door was unlocked? Its easy to be complacent in a sleepy little town such as ours. An unknown figures stands at the door and stares in through the glass and I just walk right by them and get in the shower. Not really my style of story, the physical threat of a live intruder, I’m more toward the other worldly supernatural horror, not least because ghosts don’t need a key.

That first night that I was home alone was unsettled and I got very little sleep, but I did get some, and I know this because of the dreams. Do the departed visit us in our dreams? I’ve heard it said before, but its impossible to know for sure, but during times of high stress, I often dream of my sister and this night was no exception. It was a silly dream, we were both roaming the streets and high rise flats of Sheffield looking for a disreputable man that could obtain a certain part for our car. A silly dream, with unrealistic locations and implausible acts, but I awoke feeling somewhat soothed and in no doubt that it was a dream, unlike the next one.

As I lay in bed trying to get back to sleep, I heard sounds from outside the bedroom, as if someone was creeping through the house. Although we haven’t been here long, enough time has elapsed for me to become familiar with all of the sounds of the house, of which there are many. Often, I am kept awake by a long slow creaking just outside the bedroom door, but I know this to be the door to the attic room. If it is left slightly ajar it will move in the draught from the roof window, creaking loudly as is rocks ever so slightly, and it will do this all night if you let it. But this new sound was different, it was like someone sneaking through the house, most likely just one of the kids going to the toilet or for a glass of milk, which was fine, they didn’t need to be sneaky about it so I decided to get out of bed and talk to them.

Immediately to the left of my bedroom is the narrow stair case to the attic behind that creaky door. I was expecting to find one of the boys on that staircase. My ears were telling me that there was someone on those stairs, but when I pulled open the door, the stairs were empty and the light was off, so the sound must have been coming from somewhere else, but before I could check I heard a new sound, voices.

Hushed voices, but it wasn’t the children, these were adult voices, with American accents. Someone was on a device and watching YouTube. I won’t name them because I’m not sure that I can, but there was a child sat on the bottom step of the stairs on the ground floor. Not the comfiest place to sit, nor the most well hidden. I was cross that they were up at this time, but I could understand why they would have difficulty sleeping, so I called them up gently and told them to turn off the device. They did so without a fuss, and once they were at the top of the stairs I gave them a kiss and sent them on to their room in the attic. I should have taken the device off of them, but I decided it was better to trust them. Before I got back in to bed myself I made another trip to bathroom and noted that shadow on the porch door was gone, and the neighbour’s security lamp that casts it must have been off.

The next morning I mentioned the midnight videos, but neither of them would admit to it. ‘We can’t use our Switches at night, you’ve set a timer, remember’ they said in unison. They were right. I was wise to their late night games and videos and had used the parental settings on the Nintendo Switches to lock them out after 7:30pm. I had no choice but to believe them. It must have been a dream, but it was so real. Dreams usually occur in dreamy places, like the unrealistic representation of Sheffield of my previous dream. Alright, the dream city is real enough at the time, but not afterwards. If the child on the stairs was a dream it all felt very real. The layout of the house was exact, right down to the boxes at the foot of the bed that need to be stepped over because they haven’t yet found a permanent spot at the this new house. I’ve never had a dream that real before, and I remember every detail. Every detail except the child’s face, the face is blank to me now.

And if indeed it was a dream, which it most likely was, why was there a bum mark in the dust? The stairs should be swept at least once a week, but the two minute job has been low on the priorities of late so needed doing. If I had dreamed the child on the stairs, why was there the impression in the dust of a small bottom? We soon established that it wasn’t any bottom that was present in the house. The oldest was too tall to comfortably sit on the lowest step, and the youngest was too particular to sit on a step that needed to be swept.

I have to accept that this was just a very real dream, and the imprinted bottom would have some other explanation, though not necessarily supernatural, fascinated as I am with ghosts and spooky matters, I can’t say that I actually believe in them. I know that the house is old and creaky, and the light does strange things. Since I’ve been aware of the figure I have started to see other outlines in the corner of my eye, but I know these are tricks of the light. The patch of light on my bedroom wall that grows intensely, and then darts across the room and out of the window is nothing more than the headlights of a passing car cast through the lead pattern on the window glass. The strange arc of light in the porch roof is just the moonlight scattered by the glass. My office door that opens itself at random just needs a new catch, and the figure standing in the door way is just my imagination, like that time I watched the movie Ring and imagined the creature Sadoko stood at the foot of my bed and could then no longer picture the bed without her, the imagination is a powerful thing.

So I got to wondering, for my story, what if these things, these spirits that haunt our dreams and dance at the periphery of our vision, what if they need to be let in? What if, in calling for my muse I have opened the door both to and from my imagination, and what if that door cannot be closed? No. When it comes to ideas for spooky stories, I have inspiration wherever I turn my eye.

01/02/2022 0

I Wrote Two Poems

I haven’t had a go at writing poetry in years, but good ones appear in my Twitter feed every day, and yesterday, for some reason, maybe the dull weather and the lazyness of Sunday apathy inspired me to capture my thoughts.

This first one, written directly to Twitter, is about that very thought,

The bread machine is silent, it knows what to do 
The crockpot is bubbling, we’ll meet again at six 
Tomorrow’s socks are washing 
Beer is opened, pen lid is off 
Poems do not have to rhyme

The bread machine is silent, it knows what to do
The crockpot is bubbling, we’ll meet again at six
Tomorrow’s socks are washing
Beer is opened, pen lid is off
Poems do not have to rhyme#writingcommmunity #poetrycommunity #sunday
— Mike Duggan (@MikeDug45117510) December 1, 2019

The next one, is an epiphany. I have taken my eyes off the prize, I’m not writing as much as I was.

I checked on dinner, phone in hand. 
I set the washing machine, phone in hand. 
I sat down to write, phone in hand. I opened a beer, phone in hand. 
I mock those who can’t put their phone down and enjoy life, with my phone in hand. 
I wrote this on the phone in my hand.

I checked on dinner, phone in hand.
I set the washing machine, phone in hand.
I sat down to write, phone in hand.
I opened a beer, phone in hand.
I mock those who can’t put their phone down and enjoy life, with my phone in hand.
I wrote this on the phone in my hand.
— Mike Duggan (@MikeDug45117510) December 1, 2019

I have gained a few likes for these, and even a retweet, but whats more important is actually writing them, is writing, and it is this that I need to focus on.

02/12/2019 1

The Nursery

‘I always feel silly about this bit‘ I told the vendor, ‘But full disclosure is full disclosure. Even ghosts‘. The vendor was a young man, late twenties, and as well presented as my three bed detached house he was trying to sell.

‘Ghosts, eh?’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck, ‘one man’s ghost is another man’s creaky floor board you know‘

‘Quite true‘ I said, and I had to agree with him, ‘but you know how it is now. They changed the law to protect the buyer and seller alike. Anything you mention now, you can’t be sued for later; and we’ve already covered the physical, social and geographical sections‘

‘I know‘ he said, sighing. ‘I know‘

‘I should probably put down that creaky board too‘ I said, ‘just to be on the safe side‘

There had been something of a scandal in the property market of late, with lofty booms and deep depressions, accusations of misleading descriptions, dirty dealings, gazumping and gazundering, and legal actions taken to recover any and every misspent penny. The inevitable outcome of course, was the full disclosure clause. A catalogue of features, good and bad, compiled by the seller and presented to potential buyers. A full service history for the home; every dripping tap, noisy neighbour and molehill went in to the report, and if necessary, an estimate on the cost of correction. If you knew about something, but failed to log it, you could be, potentially, liable for hefty losses.

The vendor fell silent and rubbed his neck again.

‘I’m guessing by your silence that you have something else to disclose‘ I said.

He laughed dryly, as if choking on ash. ‘It’s crazy‘ he said. ‘How can I disclose the presence of something I don’t believe in?‘

‘Do you believe there is a presence?‘

He stared through me, his eyes glazed.

‘Just tell me what you know; we can let the buyer make up their own mind.’ I pulled out my notebook to record the details.

His face dropped. ‘That’s what worries me‘

It was a tidy little house, only one year old and with one careful owner. It sat in an ample sized plot, its garden commanded an uninterrupted view down the long valley and the ocean beyond. A typical modern middle class home, it was of a unique design among its neighbours, and it was hard to imagine how a house of this standard would fail to find a buyer in the current market.

‘We bought it in a rush‘, the vendor explained, ‘with the baby on the way and the unexpected job transfer; we found ourselves moving back out west. Found this house as part of a new development and moved straight in, just one week before baby was due.‘

That was August, last year. A real heat wave, I remember it all too well. While I celebrated my promotion to Associate Member that night with altogether far too much alcohol and a skinny dip in the Tamar, the vendor had had a celebratory barbecue at his brand new home.

He took me outside to show me, and his tale unfurled.

‘We were out in the back garden‘ he said, ‘When I first thought something was up‘

‘Over there‘ he said, pointing to the neighbouring street that backed on to his land, ‘That’s Elms Walk now, but when we moved in, that was the edge of the wood‘

‘We were all out here drinking; having a laugh, scoffing Evie’s minted lamb burgers and caramelised bananas. It was a beautiful day, practically tropical. It must have been about seven o’clock though, when the sun started to dip behind the trees, casting the garden in to shade, and at that same moment, the wind picked up. The whole yard cooled down, and, this might just be the booze, but the shadows from the wood seemed to dance menacingly toward us, and creepily, and far faster than I would expect the sinking sun to cast.‘

‘I had hoped we get more sun in the back than we did, but I didn’t mind.’ He went on. ‘The setting sun was just an excuse to light the chiminea. This was when Evie asked me to get her a blanket from indoors.’

‘I did as asked and went inside, everything was still in boxes, even some of the cupboards were still in flat-pack boxes and waiting to be unpacked and assembled. The Nursery had become an unofficial laundry room while we got sorted, and as I pushed open the door to collect a fleece blanket, something rustled behind the boxes. I only saw its shadow, but my best guess was a cat, or a small dog; I could hear it rustling the plastic bags as it tried to evade me. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption, the doors and windows had been open all day. Anything could have got inside; my only worry at the time was getting bitten by some rabies infected mog.’

‘And then I thought it was a bird because when I crept cautiously round the boxes and found nothing, and walked round around again. I was certain, then there was a tap and the window, a flutter of wings and it was gone. I thought no more of it as I picked up the blanket.’

When I got back outside, Evie was sat up on the bench, nursing her huge baby bump. I was very protective of my wife and bump, and I didn’t care for the worried look on her face.

‘It got cold very quickly, she told me, as I wrapped the fleece around her shoulders.’

‘I asked her if the baby was ok, and she assured me that everything was fine, but that she’d felt something, like someone had been touching her tummy, stroking her, pressing down like an obstetrician might examine the baby. She said that she must have imagined it, but that it felt so real with her eyes closed; when the shadow from the trees moved across her, she was sure someone was stood there’.

‘That sent a right chill up my back,’ he said, ‘and Evie never really shook the feeling that someone was stood over her shoulder where ever she was in the house. I wished I’d listened to her at the start.’

‘After the barbecue, we only had a week to try and sort the house, but so much of our stuff was still in storage that we just couldn’t feel at home; and the bare walls and polished floors made for a cold and empty feeling. It was harder to settle in than we’d thought, especially after the weird dream I had that night, I had enough doubts about the house and moving without some haggard looking grey skinned witch with wiry green hair screaming “Idiot, you got the wrong house!” at me. I woke up with a scream, my vest soaking; I very nearly set off Evie’s labour.’

‘About a week after later, we were both in bed, and I’d made Evie a caffeine free coffee for a Sunday snuggle and snooze, but we both heard a noise. We sat upright, and heard it again. A high pitched, but stifled giggle, like an excited schoolgirl trying keep her cool as she met her idol.’

‘“She’s on her way” The same hushed voice called out. And in the next moment, Evie was gripping my arm. Her waters had broken. I won’t bore you with the slippery details, but twelve hours after that, we had a beautiful baby girl, and the creepy voice was right. And after that, things started to get weird.‘

‘Got weird?’ I said to the vendor, ‘as if the creepy voice and groping thing was normal?’

He led me back inside and up the stairs to the master bedroom.

‘We kept baby in here with us to begin with, for the first two weeks’ he explained, ‘but she was so unsettled, and it began to interfere with our sleep. She would wake every three hours for a feed, which is normal, but we started to have weird dreams. Both of us dreamed that she was in the bed with us, and we’d wake at the same time looking her under the sheets. It was like we were having the same dream, at the same time, and it was only when one of us looked up to see her in her crib, that we realised that we’d been dreaming it, but it was hard to shake when it was so realistic, like something had been there with us in the bed.’

‘That is weird’ I said, ‘Spooky even’.

‘That’s not the worst of it‘ he went on.

‘One night I woke up in the small hours. Evie was sat on the end of the bed, with her head slumped. I asked if she was ok, but she shushed me. I went over to see what was wrong, and tapped her on the shoulder’.

‘She snarled at me, muttering that I’ll wake the baby, but the baby was in her crib, and I told her this. Then she opened her eyes and saw her empty arms. “Where is she, where is she!” She almost screamed the house down’.

‘It’s all right, I told her, gripping her upper arms to steady her, though by now baby was screaming too, and ready for a real feed’.

‘It was after this I suggested that baby be moved to her own room. I’d hoped that things would get back to normal if at least one of us would get some sleep. Evie took some convincing to let the baby sleep in another room, but she knew it was the right thing to do, and she wasn’t very far away, and we had the pressure matt, and the sensor, and the night vision camera streaming to our phones, which meant that we were effectively in the same room wherever we were’.

‘On the very first night in her own room, just as we had settled her in her cot and stood admiring her, Evie spun around, adamant that she had felt a breath on her neck. I shrugged it all off at the time, but if truth be told, I felt it too, and not just the breath. I also felt a nudge, like someone was pushing their way between us’.

‘As the baby grew older, a couple of months or so, she began taking an interest in the corner of the nursery, always that same corner. I tried sitting with her facing the other way round so that she couldn’t see it, but that would agitate her, and she’d wriggle her way round, and I’d have to give in and face that wall anyway. This went on for a few weeks, always the same corner, and if you can imagine, a two month old girl, laughing and smiling at a plain empty corner. Even I had the creeps by now’.

‘ It could be my imagination, and it probably is in all fairness, but one night, she woke up all grumpy, needing a change and a feed. Evie was doing her dead to the world thing, so I got up. It would have been about five am, and she was cradled in my arm, glugging down the milk, and as normal, I was staring at those gorgeous big brown eyes. She smiled back at me, gargling cheerfully on the milk, but she wasn’t really looking at me, she was looking past me, and this is where my eyes must have been playing tricks, because there was something there, moving over my shoulder, reflected in her eye’.

‘I froze at first, and my skin tightened as the Goosebumps formed, forcing the hairs of my arms to stand on end. Baby just chuckled though, and I had to force myself to find reason. If someone was behind me, it was either Evie, or I had an intruder to deal with’. The vendor continued his story, and even I was starting to have goose bumps. ‘I turned to see an empty room. I was beginning to agree with Evie, and that we weren’t alone here. Baby eventually fell asleep and I placed her back in her cot, but I didn’t really want to leave her there on her own’.

‘I did go back to bed though, eventually, and snuggled up to the sleeping Evie, wanting to wake her, tell her what had happened, and if she’d seen or heard anything more, but I heard baby was awake again, although this time, she didn’t cry. I was happy enough to listen to the monitor and leave her to laugh herself to sleep, but as she giggled and gurgled, I made out another, distinct voice in there’.

‘Evie, not as asleep as she’d made out, heard it too, and we both sat, bolt upright, at the same time. We leapt out of bed and ran down the hall to the nursery, terrified by what we might see, but driven on by parental instinct. I got there first and turned the light on. Baby was alone and now sleeping again, quietly in her cot’.

‘Evie yelled at me, Now do you believe me! I did’.

‘I really did, but I didn’t want to believe her. I’d heard it myself, seen things too, inexplicable things, but if I confessed to this, it would make it real somehow, and it can’t be. So, “It must have been the wind or something” I told her’.

‘She harrumphed at me, and we both crept back to our room. I turned the monitor screen on, and angled it so that we could both see it, and the cot on the night vision screen where the baby was now sleeping soundly, and we listened to every blip…blip…blip of the pressure mat that vigilantly reported every breath and heartbeat, ready to alert us to any lack of movement’.

‘Evie turned her back to me, and I felt terrible for dismissing her fears. But we both loved the house, for all of its weirdness, and accepting it really was haunted would destroy that. Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the screen‘.

‘Do you ever get that thing, where you’re looking at an everyday thing‘, he went on, ‘and it looks normal, but there is something different with it, but you can’t say what. Like when a colleague gets a haircut‘.

‘Well, we had neighbours living on either side of us now, and when a car drove up the road, the head lights would shine through the curtains and cast a shadow on the back wall of baby’s room that was clearly visible on the monitor. By this time, the neighbours were up and leaving for work in the darkness of the winter morning, and each time a car passed the house, their headlights shone upon the wall the outline of branches from an enormous bare tree. I’ll attribute my slow conclusion to my lack of sleep, but it did eventually dawn on me that there are no trees outside, and certainly not between the window and the road’.

‘There was nothing outside that could cast anything even remotely similar to that shadow, and I didn’t just look out the window. I investigated this properly, taking in to account the height of the window, the level of the road, the direction of traffic; I modeled exactly where a tree would have to be to cast a shadow on that wall’.

‘What’s more, I have the recording from that night, and the shadow is there. I didn’t imagine it, it shouldn’t be there, but it is‘.

The Vendor was starting become agitated by his own story. It was hard enough to imagine that someone would make this up, especially as it could affect the value of their home. ‘Maybe it was a trick of the light‘ I said, trying not to over stimulate him further, ‘Maybe the tree was further away, down on the main road’

‘It really wasn’t‘ he said, ‘And if it was, that wouldn’t explain the leaves in the nursery. Everyday we’d have to vacuum, but the windows were never open, how they blew in is a mystery‘

He walked me back through to the nursery and we looked out the window, ‘See,’ he said, ‘these windows were never opened, Evie was terrified baby would fall out one day and it was better not to get in to bad habits.‘

Outside, he was right, there were no trees, just shrubberies. The whole wood had been cleared for the housing development, much to the protest of many conservationist and pressure groups at the time. ‘Show me where the phantom tree would have been‘ I said, and he pointed out a recently disturbed flower bed.

‘Just there he said, I dug it up, found a bunch dead roots down there, but nothing of note’.

‘That’s where you thought the rabbit warren was isn’t it?‘ I said.

‘Yes, but as we discussed, the investigation found nothing down there, and no on-going concerns’

‘Yes, it’s all in the report, and there’s sign of pests. No sense going over old ground, is there anything else I should put in the disclosure?‘

‘That’s everything I can think of‘ he said.

At that, we shook hands and I returned to the office to type up the brochure.

It was about a week later when, I received a visit from an interested buyer, and we spoke at length about this house, in particular, the spooky goings on. I was worried this would put them off, but she was illuminated by the prospect and she went on to make a very generous offer, generous enough that I wanted to give the news to the Vendor in person, so I could see his face.

We met in the Kings Arms pub next to my office and he beamed as I gave him the news. Cash buyer, no chain, wants to move quickly. It’s the best part of the job for me, seeing someone’s plans work out.

‘Who is she?”‘He asked me, taking a long celebratory sip of beer.

‘Didn’t like to pry‘ I said, ‘but she gave me her business card‘ and I slid it toward him. ‘It’s got a photo of her it’. His eye brow rose as he picked it up to inspect it closely.

‘Cornish Dryad Society?‘ He said, reading the words on the card beside the picture, ‘That’s the old woman from my dream!’

For more tales and spooky matters, click here.

24/09/2019 0

Research Trip – Liverpool Overhead Railway

I have a story that I have been meaning to write for some time, a few actually, that are set in the old and smokey docklands of Liverpool, and to write these stories with any authority and authenticity, I need to establish an understanding of the period and setting. There is only so much that you can garner from books and archive films, and nothing beats a site visit. That was my excuse at least for dragging my wife and two children all the way to Liverpool to look at a train.

The train in particular that I wanted to see belonged to the Liverpool Overhead Railway, known colloquially as the Docker’s Umbrella. My digging told me that there was a preserved vehicle on Display at the Liverpool Museum, and probably a model railway too. Unfortunately the Model Railway wasn’t there, and I haven’t been able to track down the one that I saw at an exhibition a few years ago, but I’ll keep looking.

The lighting in the museum was really dim, and the spot lights caused a lot of glare and lens flare. J.J. Abrams would like it here.

The view from beneath gives a good feel for what it might have been like to walk beneath the elevated track, and imagine the trains rumbling above our head.

After taking the lift up to the first floor, there is a mock station display and part of the train compartment is accessible to visitors. We went inside and took a seat. I can’t imagine that these trains were this clean when they were in service. The elevated track ran for substantial sections directly above the steam operated dock railway. This would have been a much dirtier journey than we could ever expect today. Smoking would have been permitted too, and the floor was likely to be a grimy black, and littered with cigarette butts and paper wrappers.

The seats, curved slatted wooden benches, were actually quite comfortable, this was a very well built machine. Two thirds of the carriage were inaccessible, but the mannequins in period dress posed behind the glass gave a good impression of what it was like in the fifties.

Around the carriage display, there are information panels, posters and memorabilia. Its a great shame that this railway didn’t survive and would be a great transport solution for Liverpool and tourist attraction in itself. Unfortunately, when the line was closed in the 1950s, the dock was in decline and the private motor car was in ascendance. Railways and tramways were being replaced by buses and the infrastructure being torn down. Even if there was an appetite to save this railway, the decades of steam and acrid smoke from the dock engines on the railway beneath had caused substantial damage to the iron structures and full replacement was never going to be feasible.

This was a great loss to Liverpool, and the country, but like all of the beloved railways of yesteryear, this one lives on in our imagination.

Further Reading

Read more of our train posts on our Wheels of Steel page, and more travel posts here.

Facebook Group Liverpool Overhead Railway
Wikipedia Liverpool Overhead Railway

24/09/2019 0

Two Bridges

It’s funny how becoming a parent changes your life in so many ways. You look in to those brand new eyes, the eyes of a new person, a unique individual, and imagine all the things they have yet to see; the life they have ahead of them.

For the past, however many months it is, all they’ve seen is the pitch blackness of the womb, punctuated by the occasional red glow of a bright light from somewhere beyond penetrating the flesh and in to the womb, so all of this, my face, mommy’s smile, is all new to them. Or at least it, we assume it is.

I’m not really one to believe in reincarnation, I’m not really sure I believe in a God, but when I look in to those deep blue eyes, there is so much more depth, more pain, more joy, more tales to tell than in any of the other eyes that I have ever seen. The things they would tell you if only they had the words.

It is nonsense I know, but when I tore myself from my wife that night, nursing our new born child in that hospital room, I got to thinking of my own life, my childhood, my parents and upbringing. How might his experiences compare to mine, I too was once a tiny new born once, a blank sheet, as it were, what will his first memory be? I remember mine so vividly, and not like it was yesterday, but like it were today, still happening now, like part of me is caught, forever in that moment.

I can’t have been much older than one. My mother always insisted that all of her boys were walking by that age, though I can’t have been any younger. It was the day I was given a first taste of freedom, and my first real reprimand that I recall, though there must have been others before it, for me to have dreaded this one so much.

My parents were very strict on hygiene, and germs and disease, that led to a paranoid over-cleaning of surfaces and the unfortunate over-cooking of food. Maybe this is why I like crunchy vegetables and rare meat so much, in rebellion of my folk, but I knew even then that I must not eat from the floor. That was forbidden.

It was a warm day, must have been August, since that was the month of my birth, and I wasn’t quite walking yet, but I do distinctly remember that this was the first time I was allowed out on to the communal grass to play by myself. To the front of the house was a grassy area where the older kids would play. There were no cars here, just neat little footpaths that meandered between the houses and through the estate. I remember quite clearly for such an early age, the elation of being allowed out by myself, the freedom I had been given, and how I would not disappoint. But I was wrong about all three.

I clambered up the shallow sloped path that led on to the main pathway that served the 1970s traffic-free open plan estate, and remember coming across the small dip in the tarmac. This dip features heavily in my early memories. About a foot across, but only an inch deep, this was where the older kids, and eventually myself, would assemble to play marble tournaments. Or when it had been raining, me and my brothers would race, fighting all the way, to be the first to leap, feet first, in to the puddle, full pelt, and empty the dip of water before the others got there. It was worth the inevitable thick ear.

But anyway, back to the one year old me, alone on the footpath. Dad had definitely closed the door behind me. I was alone, free to do as I pleased, and although I knew not to put things in my mouth, I soon came across the discarded outer wrapper of a packet of Opal Fruits; the ones now branded as Star Burst.

I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe I figured no one would know, but I felt wrong even as I did it. It was like being possessed by one’s own primal instinct. I clutched the litter in my chubby little fingers and raised it to my mouth, but even as I did so, something compelled me to look up. Twisting my back and neck to look up and over my shoulder. My heart sank as I realised that I was not as alone I had believed.

Of course my Father hadn’t let me play out alone, I was a baby, and he was right there, watching me from an upstairs window. I caught just a glimpse of a boiled red face before it disappeared, and before I knew it, I was back indoors.

I can’t say as I remember my punishment, I don’t really remember much else from that age, but this one thing, every detail, down to the Opal Fruits wrapper, is clear enough in my mind that I know the memory is real.

I had the most lucid of dreams too as an infant. Often waking in the night to find my mam sat beside me, often before I’d even realised that I’d even had a nightmare. Usually, it was my two older brothers that had inspired the dream. They teased me rotten, both of them being a fair bit older. I would scream not to be left alone with them as Mam and Dad would get ready for their Friday night out down at the Clog and Hatchet. Bizarrely, though, my brothers would usually manifest themselves as girls in the dream.

One dream in particular has stuck to me to this day. My “sisters” had pinned me down and tickled me so hard that I woke up screaming. I think it scared my Mam that I talked so much about the sisters I never had, and whenever I try to ask her about it later, she said she didn’t recall, or that it I was confused between boys and girls, him and her, he and she, when I was younger, but I know that that wasn’t it. The two older sisters were blonde and had long hair; I can see them now if I think back, tying me the washing line or putting Barbie’s shoes up my nose for their evil amusement.

But there was a recurring dream too. On more than one occasion I had this dream that I had fallen off of a railway bridge, often enough that for some time I believed that it had actually happened, especially though, as I never dreamed of the accident directly, just that it had happened, like I had been told about it happening to me. I was usually at school or nursery in the dream, and the teacher would explain why I wasn’t there, that I had fallen, had a terrible bump, and why the children must always stay with their Mummy and Daddy and keep away from the bridge.

I hadn’t thought about this stuff in years but something in Byron’s eyes got me thinking; awakening old memories, my oldest memories in fact. So old that dream and fact and imagination often overlay each other, blurring the lines that should keep them separate. Of the nice dreams that I have had, this one was the nicest. It was about God.

At the edge of the estate was an old ash path that led through the wheat field, over the railway, and then in to the next village where Gran lived. I walked this way so many times with Mam, or Gran, or sometimes both, through those bright yellow fields, which to my knee high stature pretty much formed the horizon, connecting with the soft and fluffy white clouds that sailed silently above in the rich blue sky. It was inevitable that they would find their way in to so many of my earliest dreams and memories.

In the warm breeze, where the wheat crops rippled like waves on a vast yellow sea, and birds cawed cheerfully above, my asthmatic gran would wheeze as she dragged me away from something in the bushes that I had no business prodding. In my dream I would hear laughter and happy music, an assault on the senses, and always I would be drawn to this spot, where it was always sunny, and filling the sky above and down to where the sky met the field, was God. God, as I understood him to be with my innocent young mind. He smiled on me; and a long arm would sweep across the surrounding fields, not beckoning, but welcoming, like an open invitation to enjoy all that I could see. It felt like home, safe.

These dreams stopped by the time I could verbalise them, but that part of the village was always an enormous draw to me; but then I’m sure that the real appeal was a little less ethereal. It was of course the path that led to the train bridge, and what was more attractive to a small boy than the sight of a dirty great big noisy blue diesel locomotive chugging up the hill with a long train of coal hoppers?

My mother must have had the patience of an angel to stand and wait there on the bridge, in all weather, in the hope that something would use the line soon. But it was hardly a Mainline, and hours at a time could pass before a train would come by. I loved to see Gran, with her chip butties and jam rolls, but not until I’d seen a train or two. I image Byron will be very much the same.

It wasn’t just the trains either, that drew me to the bridge. Down the line was another bridge, just close enough, on a clear day to see people crossing it. Sometimes they too would stop and look up the line, and I would wave to them, and they would wave back. Another little boy and his Mam perhaps, just like me, waiting for trains to pass beneath.

I was fascinated by that other bridge and I kept nagging my Mam to take me there, but she would always say no, that it was too far, or we don’t have time; but as a child I was as resourceful as I was persistent, and eventually persuaded her that we needed to walk down the path that ran parallel to the track and in to the village. I was certain that we would cross another footpath that would lead to the other bridge.

The path ran straight and hugged the side of the railway that lay in the cutting to the left. I would have been most disappointed had a train passed now as it would have been out of sight. It wasn’t long though, before the path began to descend, and soon we were level with the track. There was a gap in the hedges here and I could see through to the rails. The rail was now at eye level. It would have to rise again soon to provide another crossing, but it didn’t. The path continued to descend, and dropped through a hedge row and in to a ginnel flanked by high fences before emerging on to the main High Street of our village, next to the low bridge that took the road beneath the railway and out of town.

I couldn’t understand it. I thought I had the whole spatial awareness thing sorted. I knew my way around the village. I had been wrong before though, at Christmas, Santa came to the Woollies Grotto and I remembered quite distinctly how to get there. It was in the snowy area outside of a small cave toward the back of the store. You had to wait your turn and then cross over a small hump bridge, over a frozen pond with penguins and elves, before sitting on the bearded man’s knee and telling him that you wanted a train set. Later, after Christmas, I wanted to visit him again, mostly to tell him about the apparent mix up with the presents. I ran to the back of the shop, my wheezing Gran in hot pursuit, only to find nothing. Where I expected to find the grotto, now there was no cave, and no humpback bridge, just a selection of light fittings; from which I was promptly pulled away.

Of course, now I understand that it was just a display, specially erected to draw customers, but to this day, I have no such explanation for the bridge. The next nearest bridge was two miles down the line, near enough to see the tops of wagons go over, but you’d need a hefty set of binoculars to spot someone waving.

Until just a few days ago, I’d put this one down to false memory, or an overactive imagination. But Carmel had started researching our family tree, now that we had started a family of our own, and we’d agreed that we would put aside a copy of the local paper from the day of Byron’s birth; but as a nice surprise, I ordered reprints of the Chronicle from the days that me and the wife were born.

On page eight of the Dearne Chronicle, 22 August 1974, there was an article about the planned demolition of the unsafe Spur Lane Bridge as it was structurally unsound. It went on to say that the Vickers family, whose son had tragically fallen from the bridge in December the year before, were leaving the area to start a new life with their two remaining daughters.

Make of this what you will, I like to think that my feet are firmly on the ground, but in the delivery suite, when Byron took his first good discerning look at his new world, the midwife looked over and smilingly said, “This one’s been here before”. I knew exactly what she meant.

07/09/2019 0

Ghostly Word Art

I recently joined a Facebook group that shares True Scary Ghost Stories and started thinking about my own real ghost experiences, and I posted this account on the group page.

Whenever I’m asked if I’ve seen a ghost, I always think ‘No, of course I haven’t seen a ghost‘ and the conversation dies or moves on to something else, or both. But later, sometimes hours, sometimes days, I’ll start remembering the weird things that happened that could well have been ghosts. Its a bit like when someone asks if you know any jokes and your mind goes blank.

This morning I remembered something that happened over twenty years ago in the student house I shared with six other students. It was a big old terrace, with three floors and a cellar, and a yellow door.

At the time, I was having a bit of a personal problem with one of the house mates, a storm in a tea cup really, and I was in the kitchen discussing it with one of the others. Everyone else was out and my house mate was preparing a lunch to take to campus while we chatted. He finished making his packed lunch and left the house for the university, leaving me in the house by my self.

I was very cross that day and used the large colourful magnetic letters on the fridge to leave a hurtful message for my troublesome roomie. Pleased with my mean comment, I made myself a coffee, but when I turned back to the fridge, just moments later, I saw that my cutting words had been scrambled.

I can still feel the way that the hairs on my head, arms and legs stood on end as I saw that my message on the fridge had changed. The magnetic letters been pushed to the edges and formed a thick band around the two words in the center of the fridge door. Its simply said “No Mike“.

The house was definitely empty. The kitchen was at the end of a long narrow hall, impossible to get to without being heard. The house itself was big and lofty, but every door and floorboard in the ancient building made its own identifying sound and betrayed the location of any one moving around the house. It was impossible to not know if someone else was home, you could even hear the neighbours on either side at times, coughing, laughing, or closing a door. The silence of the house during the daytime, when everyone else was out was deafening, and the sound of the fridge, grumbling and gurgling alone in the kitchen, seemed all the louder for it. No person could have changed those words, no one was there.

The problem with the roomie soon resolved itself, as these thing usually do, and I am grateful for what ever force intervened in my quarrel that day, as somethings are best left unsaid.

06/09/2019 1

Derek Throttlebottom the Time Travelling Train Spotter

“What did you say?” I said.

“I said don’t interfere with anything, you’ll ruin it all” Derek Throttlebottom barked the repeat instruction, as if my very presence here was riling him, though it probably was.

“Alright, you don’t have to tell me twice“

Derek Throttlebottom frowned at me with his usual suffer no fools glare and then stepped back outside on to the narrow icy pathway that had been cleared through the snow. I watched him walk down the full length of the platform, treading carefully on the frozen snow that shone bright by the light of the full moon hanging above the town. The frozen snow crunched loudly underfoot with each historic step.

‘Don’t interfere’ I recalled as I returned to my cosy warm chair in the station Tea Room, the crackling fire routinely spitting out hot projectiles on to the hearth. ‘Perhaps I should return the fairy cakes on the display back to their original positions’. I said to myself.

“There you go dear, get that down you” The old tea lady took me by surprise. She coughed her words, a spent half of a cigarette clutched twixt her parsed lips. I shooed her filthy smoke away with an exaggerated grimace, but she just rolled her eyes at me, tutting, as she turned back to the counter from whence she came. The smoking ban may have been a long way from here, but that didn’t mean I should inhale her cancerous filth.

After she’d placed the cup of hot Bovril and two slices of generously buttered thick white bread on the small round table beside me, she stopped for a moment to peer out through the misty window. She saw Derek, my travelling companion outside, stood at the very end of the platform. She parted a dirty look in his direction. “Is he alright?” She chirped, “Standing out in the cold all night with barely a jacket“

“Oh he’s fine. He’s quite warm out there” I told her, I considered explaining his fleece jacket and twenty first century thermal underwear but I was interrupted before I could.
“In the head I mean” She said, “He’s been standing out there for nearly an hour and nothing’s come in. The next train is the London one and that don’t stop here”
“Oh he knows how he looks…” I couldn’t tell her why we were here. That we were time travelers on a secret mission to change a catastrophic sequence of events and avert a terrible tragedy, but before I’d had chance to remember my cover story, she’d wandered off, mumbling something about the oddness of trainspotters.

Derek hadn’t told me why we were here. But I knew my history. It was the 29th January 1957. The night of the great railway disaster.

It was freezing outside, I could see Derek through the window, at the very end of the platform, lit up like a Christmas tree beneath the brightest full moon I ever saw. Surrounded by his own breath that hung close to him in the windless night as he checked the battery on his digital camera. What good the camera would do I had no idea, but I had faith in his judgement. This was my first trip with Derek, but he was a seasoned traveler, and I was only allowed to join him because I’d promised to follow his list of rules.

Do everything he says
Don’t touch anything
Don’t talk to anyone
Watch where I step
Don’t ask stupid questions
Don’t wander off

Somewhere up the line was the very late 15:25 from Glasgow to London, it wouldn’t stop here, but would carry on south through the freezing night, until somewhere just south of Preston, frozen points would misroute the train into the back of the local Liverpool service. Twenty people would die this evening, were it not for the brave intervention of one time travelling train spotter. My skin tingled, excited to see what Derek would do stop it happening, to rewrite history.

I looked at the clock above the fire. It was one minute before eight. A whistle, miles away, heralded the approach of the 15:25. It was delayed at Carlisle by a snow drift blocking the line and was trying to make up time. It got louder and louder as it approached, the train was now slowing for the curve, and by now the pistons were audible, Chuff Chuff Chuff. The blanket of snow muffled most of noises of the town, but the oncoming train grew louder and louder. Chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff.

Derek hadn’t moved at all. Still standing at the edge of the platform, anxiously fiddling with his camera. What was he planning?

The train drew closer. The whistle sounded. It was very near.

I tore myself from the fire and left the warmth of the cafe, out into the frozen wilds of Cornfirth Platform One. It was almost upon us. Looking up the track I could see its silhouette against the snow covered whiteness of the embankment, smoke bellowing out from its chimney. It was slowing down. I looked the other way to where Derek stood, the signal set to caution. Was that Derek’s doing?

The whistle blew again as the doomed train entered the station. I had yet to work out Derek’s plan, but he must have been confident. He was taking pictures of the fateful last journey as it went on its way, gaining speed now. The driver opening up the regulator in response to the clear road granted by the signalman, the station filled with smoke.

I looked into the well lit carriages as the train steamed through the station. Through the condensation on the windows, I could see the passengers, oblivious to their fate, I saw every single face on that train, everyone of them made eye contact, meeting my gaze with their long dead piercing eyes, glaring at me, as if they knew, as if I was responsible. It seemed a lifetime before the guards van passed at the very rear of the train and faded in to the night.

Now I was confused. Derek seemed to have done nothing. I followed the train up the platform, a flashing red light marking its position as it slowly accelerated in to the fateful night. I marched up to Derek. He was wearing one of his wider grins, the self satisfied one.

“Did you do it?” I asked him, anxiously. I could still see the passengers in my minds eye.

“I Sure did” Derek replied, proudly, “I got exactly what we came here for” and he offered his camera to me to see the screen. “46603, look at those shots…”

“And the crash? Did you stop the crash?”

Derek looked at me blankly. Like I was speaking Urdu or something.

“Don’t be daft lad” he said “The crash already happened long before we were born, can’t change that“

“Then why are we even here?” I said, flapping somewhat.

“Here, in the past the past you mean?” He said, “Why do you think?”

“Beats me” I said, and I shrugged my shoulders.

“I’m a trainspotter, I’m here for the numbers” he said, “That’s all”

04/09/2019 6

The Tunnel

There were some weird goings on in Stanfax Tunnel, inexplicable, spooky, things. When it comes to railway maintenance and safety, weird things can’t go on being unexplained, and as I was the Electrical Engineer responsible for that patch of track, it was my job to find that explanation.

The electrification on this line was completed and energised in May this year, and within five days of going live I’d received no less than six incident reports from train crew, and all of them involved some sort of electrical fault.

At first glance, this was the depot’s responsibility, and I forwarded each incident report to the Traction Manager in the plainest English that I could politely use. My line was brand new, plain track, copper conduit throughout the tunnel, load tested, bank tested, resistance tested, you name it. The line was signed off by every expert in the region and cleared just days before the first services used it.

The trains though, they were 1980’s hand me downs with a fresh lick of purple paint. If there was a fault to be found, it could only be on the clapped out 319s they were running. In all fairness, the depot agreed with me, but they insisted that their kit checked out, but as the incidents continued, they reasoned that it must be the hardware in the tunnel itself.

Sometimes the lights would flicker, sometimes the whole tunnel would light up with the electrical blue of twenty five thousand volts arcing across the circuits, and in one instance, a train lost all power and coasted for about one hundred meters in the dark before powering up again. Either way, it was getting ridiculous, and to allay concerns I requested that the Network Management Train, Doctor Yellow, pass through the affected section of tunnel with a full diagnostic survey. As expected the line checked out immaculately and again, attention turned back to the ancient 319s, which at that time were the only electric units using the line. The diesels that operated most of the services were unaffected, which, unfortunately for me, indicated that the problem had to related to the electrics.

Things seemed to settle down though and a few weeks passed without incident; I thought that I had heard the last of the matter. The problem had been resolved maybe, or that they had just decided to suck it up until the new trains were in service, the first batch was due any day. Either way, I had enough going on to happily let this one go.

But then I received an angry phone call, all the way from the Director of Electrical Line Safety. There had been an incident in Stanfax Tunnel, no one hurt, no thanks to me, that much was made clear, and that this was now my number one priority.

Apparently, a class 333, borrowed from the neighbouring Airedale line, had been passing through the tunnel that very morning, the first of its type to do so, when it unexpectedly lost all power. The emergency brakes applied themselves, and, inexplicably, all of the doors opened, on both sides of the train; at the exact same place as the other reported problems. Had this happened on a service train, with commuters crammed in and resting against the doors, let’s just say we were bloody lucky.

For safety, all of the electric trains on the route were stopped immediately, and fortunately that was only a handful. Replacement buses were put on for the passengers where necessary, and I paid a visit to the depot where the trains are maintained to begin a thorough investigation before the press inevitably got involved.

It was good to put a name to a face, and after eight years exchanging emails and conference calls, I finally met Jon Johnson, Traction Manager at Harold’s Heath Maintenance Depot. To be honest, I was expecting a fight, but a kindlier grounded northern bloke you will not find, and not in the least bit confrontational; he was simply relieved that someone ‘upstairs’ was on the case and that the problem was been taken seriously.

‘Stripped it bare I have’ he told me, ‘you name it; I’ve had it off, cleaned it, checked it and had it replaced. These old things are a bit frayed at the edges I’ll grant you, but I can guarantee it’s absolutely one hundred percent electrically sound’.

He took me past a long line of stabled trains, all out of service while the investigation took place, and in to one of the small meeting rooms that lined the workshops. Six of the drivers and a few fitters were sat waiting for me with a desk full of diagrams and technical specifications, schematics, print outs, note pads, laptops and tablet devices. They’d done their homework, and so had I. I came well prepared to thrash this out and that’s exactly what we did.

I won’t labour the technical details, but we looked at everything and anything. If it was electrical, and even if it wasn’t, it had been tested, and they had the documents and reports to prove it. As did I; everything that could go wrong with the power supply I’d checked; every connection was brand new and working properly, the only thing left undone was to take a cab ride in to the tunnel and see the problem for myself, and as all electric trains were suspended from service, we had to make special arrangements.

It took a few phone calls and form filling and faxing, but a return trip through the tunnel was soon authorised at short notice by the Control Centre, and then the discussion turned odd.

‘Maybe you’ll see the ghost while you’re in there too’. I looked across the table to see one of the drivers grinning mischievously

‘Not this again lads, we’re all professionals in here, we don’t do ghosts’ Jon’s eyes rolled right round his belief barren head as he tried to nip the discord in the bud, but it was too late, the genie was out of the proverbial worm can

‘Sommat amiss in that bore if you ask me’ another driver piped up.

‘No one asked you Ahmed!’ Jon was doing his best, but it was too late.

‘Aye, keep an eye out for Towelly’

‘Towelly?’ I said; my interest piqued. I knew I couldn’t officially put the problem down to supernatural interference, fun as that would be. Though I wasn’t naturally prone to flights of fancy, I knew only too well the tricks the mind could play, and how in the dim light of the damp tunnels, the light and draughts could fool you; I had stories of my own to tell, but though I’d never suggest anything but a scientific explanation.

I cut my own engineering teeth on the London Underground, and for ten years I worked the night shift down there, walking the tracks with nothing but a flash light to work by. I could be down there for hours by myself, tinkering in some electrical cabinet or other to locate a fault and repair it.

There were breezes that danced across your skin, tickling your hairs, shadows stretched and shrank at the whim of the torchlight, as if elasticated, but the real scare for me wasn’t the loneliness or the dark; you were never really alone. The best word to describe this fear, in the dark, was scurry, there were rats everywhere.

I’m a rational guy, a logical guy, I can focus on the task in hand, but even I had a crazy story to tell. Down in the tunnels near Kings Cross, I had been assigned to a conduit in need of replacement. I was prepping the connectors ready for the new section when I heard a whisper; a distinctly female voice spoke my name. When you’re on your own, underground, in a deep dark, empty tunnel, and when all of your co-workers are men, you take note of something like that. I paused; my breath bated, and listened for any repeat.

The first time I heard it, it was projected, as if a hushed voiced called softly down the tunnel from some small distance, and it echoed gently against the cast iron lining.

My neck hairs stood on end, muscles tensed; I shone the torch about me. Despite the curvature of the tunnel, anyone that near to me should have been visible, lit up by the halogen rig; but all I saw was the tall shadow of a lone rat scurrying by cast against the tunnel wall.

I waited about a minute in absolute silence before I relaxed; normal breathing resumed, but as I exhaled that long held breath, there was a scrape behind me; a foot on the loose stones, and I froze again, and heard my own name whispered, this time in to my ear.

A cold rotten breath chilled my face, and an icy hand touched upon my shoulder, it was more than enough to get me running, and I sped down the track wailing like a banshee.

It feels ridiculous now, and I don’t for a minute believe that whatever it was down there that night was supernatural; everyone in the Night Gang was accounted for, so there was no room for a prankster, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a physical explanation.

No matter how ridiculous these guy’s stories may have sounded to me, I know how easy it can be to believe.

‘Aye’ Another driver said, ‘Towelly’

‘Did you not hear about it last week? Young lass were in the toilet when the lights went out, said she saw someone in the mirror, a man with a towel pulled over his head’…

‘A man with a towel on his head?’ I tried not to laugh.

‘Not the first time neither,’ the same man said.

‘Come off it lads’ Jon said again, ‘that’s enough. Do you want a reputation for the place?’

‘We’ll come off it Jon’ said one of the drivers, ‘If you can say you’ve seen nowt either’

Jon blushed, but said nothing.

We took one of the old 319 units for a quick spin through the tunnel, and even at full speed, it was two minutes before we would reach the mid point.

‘Half a minute’ the driver said, and my heart began to race at the thought of what might happen. I half hoped nothing would happen and I could put the fault back with the depot, but I also hoped this ghost would show make an appearance.

25, 24, 23, I counted down our approach; adjusted my balance and stared intently at the dark track ahead. 15, 14, 13, my scalp tightened. 3, 2, 1…

Right on schedule, the lights flickered before they blacked out completely, and the motors cut out. The only sound was the train itself, rolling smoothly along the steel rails. We coasted like that for a few second only, and then the train powered up and we continued as normal.

‘See?’ The driver said

‘That shouldn’t happen’ I said. ‘Aren’t the lights powered from the battery?’

‘Yup’

‘There’s something wrong here’ I said

‘That’s what we’ve been saying’

‘I can’t explain it’

‘We’ve been saying that as well’

The depot was right; the problem had to be in the tunnel itself, not the trains. The trouble now was that I would need to inspect the equipment up close, and that would mean turning off the power, which meant the line would have to close, which meant I would have to return in the middle of the night.

At short notice, I was granted an hour’s tunnel possession that night to carry out my initial inspection, and, on account of the power being off, given one of those old diesel rail buses, and a driver, called Harry. We entered the tunnel a few minutes before 1 am of the Sunday morning. I had no idea what I was looking for, so aside from a few of my basic tools and a high intensity flash light, I was travelling light. I’d hoped something obvious would present itself on the spot; everything else we’d tried had drawn a blank.

At our reduced speed it took about fifteen minutes to reach the affected area. And during that time, a cold wind seemed to blow through the draughty gaps in the battered old doors.

About halfway in, and without any warning, Harry brought the train to a screeching halt. I found myself thrown from my seat and against the driver’s console.

‘Sorry about that’ Harry said, ‘I thought I saw someone on the track’

Those hairs of mine stood on end again, and the driver and I exchanged a worried look.

‘Gone now‘ he added

‘What did he look like?’ I said.

‘Couldn’t really see much‘ he said, ‘just an outline, a figure on the track…’

Harry and I peered out through the window on either side of the cab, and I shone my halogen light about the tunnel. There was no place in there for anyone to hide from its glare, but we saw no one, and we both returned to our seats.

‘We’re gonna have to report it’ I said, ‘potential trespasser, vandal maybe’

‘Down here though‘, Harry said, ‘at this time of night?’

‘I know, unlikely, but…’

‘Have they nothing better to do?’

‘Do you want to draw up to the affected spot‘ I said, turning our attention back to the immediate task. I pulled out my notes with the exact location ‘let’s get it over with‘

‘We are there‘ he said, ‘this is where the reports are coming from‘

‘This exact spot?’

‘To the exact chain’ he said. ‘What do you make of that?’

I didn’t want to procrastinate, there were better places to be at 1 am on Sunday morning. So, with a deep breath, I climbed down from the passenger compartment and on to the track. This was no different to any other tunnel, and I’d spent enough hours in them over the last thirty years to know.

Admittedly, I had no idea what I was looking for, but I shone my flashlight about the place, looking for anything that might have seemed out of place; everything looked fine. I walked down the length of the train, inspecting the contact wire as I went. No sign of damage, and nothing out of place. There was little more that I could do, and I turned back to face the train I arrived on.

At that moment I heard a cough from behind me, a deep dry asthmatic retching, as of someone clutching onto their last breath. But in the time it took to swing round and shine my light, it had stopped, and except for the driver and me, and the diesel train, with its reassuring engine ticking over, the tunnel was empty. Harry was stood by the train; I could see him clearly in the bright red glow of the tail lamp. If Harry had coughed, I could not have heard it over the engine. It must have been my imagination.

I had seen enough though, there was nothing out of the ordinary, and I walked back toward to train. The power problem would have to be referred back to the contractors that installed the kit. There was nothing more I could do.

On the way back to the train; I noticed a large recess in the tunnel wall that I hadn’t registered before, perhaps a meter deep by three meters long. This was no surprise, most tunnels had recesses and portals built in to the sides for operational and maintenance reasons, or sometimes for construction purposes. Usually, they allowed refuge for anyone down on the track while a train passed by, though they were usually smaller than this one, and the tunnel lining looked to have been fitted with sturdy iron brackets, suggesting a wooden structure had been installed here at some point, but removed long ago.

I double checked the recessed area, in case the mystery trespasser was hiding there, but against the sheer brick wall, there simply wasn’t anywhere that someone could hide. We were most certainly alone down here.

I met with driver by the door.

‘Are we done?‘ he said.

‘Definitely‘ I said, ‘let’s get out of here, its fruitless‘

We climbed the short ladder that took us aboard and closed the door behind us. It was normal procedure to remove the door release key from the access panel and lock it out of use. The doors would not open without the key in the turned position, and it would stay in my back pocket now until we got to the depot.

‘Too right’ Harry said, ‘please tell me that was you coughing‘

‘No‘ I said, ‘you heard it too?‘

‘Yeah, right in my ear‘

I felt my stomach and knees weaken a little. ‘What’s the top speed on this thing?’

‘Not enough‘ Harry replied, and we threw ourselves in to our seats.

Harry nudged the power lever forward, but just before we could move, there was a thud, as if someone banged their fist against the outside of the cab, and the driver eased off the throttle.

It was coming from his side, to the driver’s right, beneath the cab window.

There was another thud, and we both looked over to the back corner. The position had moved.

‘Is that?’ I said, ‘someone knocking outside?’

‘Sounds like it’ and the tapping continued. Harry slid open the glass window and peered out. A blast of cold air barged in, and the rapping stopped. ‘There’s no one out there’.

But as soon he sat back in his seat, the banging started again, and now seemed to move backwards toward to the flimsy bus style passenger doors, they shook violently. Something seemed to be trying to get aboard, and the four leaf folding door offered little protection from anything determined enough to get through.

‘What are you waiting for?‘ I said, somewhat urgently, ‘step on it!’

To my surprise, Harry stood up and walked to the door. ‘Can’t go anywhere with someone on the track!‘ he said with a gulp, and that flimsy door rattled again with increased urgency as he inched his way toward it.

The flight instinct clutched me by the chest, but the driver was right. We were professionals; there was someone on the track, and we couldn’t leave until the tunnel was clear, not if we wanted to keep our jobs.

The right thing to do was to keep a cool head and thoroughly check the outside, and I stood up to join him by the door. The shaking stopped once we were by the door, and there was no sign of any one on the outside.

Somewhat reluctantly now, I took the access key from my back pocket, unlocked the panel, and inserted the turn key and give power to doors. The open button lit up with a bright green glow, and the train stalled.

With a stutter and a sputter, the sound of the engine died to nothing, and the lights blinked out. With my torch still in the cab, we were, but for a small green square of light by the doors, in absolute pitch black darkness. There was a crunching scraping sound on the ballast outside, footsteps.

‘The doors are still powered…’ Harry said, his voice failing him, as he tailed off and fumbled his way back to the cab. The engine roared back in to life, the lights flickered back on, and the vibration of the engine reassured me. We were on our way, the engine screeched as it toiled to meet its maximum speed just as we burst out of the tunnel and in to the Lancashire nightscape. Orange argon street lamps had never looked so beautiful.

I had no idea how I would write this up, and we exchanged no words until we were approaching Harold’s Heath, where I looked forward to passing this problem on to someone else, but before we arrived I had to ask the driver what he knew of the large recess in the tunnel.

‘Must have been where the old signal box was‘ he said I could sense an epiphany within him, ‘That must be it; dead centre of the tunnel, constant smoke and steam and soot, they had to wear a wet towel on their face just to breath, must have been hell down there…‘

‘There’s no such thing as Ghosts’ I said, ‘especially not ones called Towelly’.

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