Cheltenham Ghosts Part One: University of Gloucestershire Ghosts
It just struck me that I have never written about ghosts of Cheltenham, and considering former SPR President Robert H. Thouless wrote that one of our famous apparitions was among “the best attested in the annals of haunting” I thought I should. It’s tempting to start there, with the famous Cheltenham Ghost, as I have done a lot of original research on the case over the years, but I’m pushed for time today so instead I will write briefly about some other Cheltenham spooks.
A Rosehill Ghost Busted!
It seems fitting, as I first came to Cheltenham to attend the university (then the College of St. Paul and St. Mary) to begin there. Let’s go back to late September/ early October 1987, when I have just arrived and lived on the Rosehill Campus (which no longer exists). I was living in the East Wing Flat of John Priestley House, with a couple of other lads, in Halls of Residence (and shortly thereafter moved to Fullwood Halls on the Park Campus as it happens). I had had my experience at Thetford Priory only a few months before, and another strange experience I rarely tell back in Suffolk. I was very open to ghost stories at this time in my life!
One morning I woke up to find my flat filled with some of the Rec Studies students, big hefty sport lads. Turned out they had fled their rooms in one of the modern brick houses surrounding JPH (also Halls) because of a ghost! In fact I seem to recall some actually stayed in our flat for a few days. My memory is rubbish now, but I do recall the story pretty well though I have not told it as much as I have the Thetford story. If anyone can add more, or correct me, do comment or email me.
It seems that the “ghost ” was actually pretty innocuous – it was the sound of a ball bouncing down the main staircase, heard every night at the same time. At first it had gone unnoticed, until they were told the story of a depressed student who had hanged him or herself by the rather strange method of balancing on a medicine ball at the top of the stairs, and kicking it away, before dying. The ball bounced down the stairs, and that is the sound heard today – so the grim legend went. Of course, it all makes very little sense, but interestingly the witnesses were clearly hearing something.
I was caught up in the first week of college and homesickness, but I found time to make enquiries. No student had committed suicide in the building in question (and indeed any on that campus, and given it was with the exception of JPH fairly modern and the people I asked had all been around before it was built they would know!) and the legend was just that – a story that had arisen to scare Freshers. However, my flatmates and others went and heard a dull thudding sound, as described. In fact I seem to recall I gave them a flat bed Panasonic tape recorder to tape the sound, but whether they did or not I know not. It was getting softer over the two or three days of the phenomena, less audible.
The cause of the spook was now discovered. In the buildings the hot water tank and gas boiler were in a sort of cupboard area under the stairs, safely locked away. The building, empty of students and unheated over the summer holiday had become damp and cold; as the heating came on each evening the stair joists dried out, warmed up and expanded, causing the thudding. No ghost – just building noises. You can always find out of a “ghost” is caused by this by resetting the time your central heating turns on and seeing if the “ghost” follows suit. It only happens normally when you first turn it on for the year, in England in late September/early October, in other words about the time students come back.
Sadly nearby Pittville Campus had no ghost stories I am aware of.
F.C.H Ghosts?
Frances Close Hall really looks like it should be haunted, though doubtless Dean Close chased all the spooks of The Marsh as the area was called before he developed it and built the college around 1849 away. Tennyson called him the “Protestant Pope of Cheltenham” and despised him, and even today his reputation seems to be of an incredibly strong and rather scary religious fanatic, though he was greatly loved by the working people of Cheltenham at the time. I have been all round FCH at every time of day and night and seen and heard nothing, though there was in the late 1980′s a story that the corridor from the main staircase to the library which has a modern faux-Roman mosaic with the Latin phrase for the “legend lives on” was haunted, and students avoided collecting their post at night for fear of what they might encounter. Some said it was the ghost of a Roman legionnaire, which seems rather unlikely given the modern date of the mosaic! I never lived in halls at FCH (no longer a Hall of Residence but still very much a campus) and so am reliant on J.K. and Steve Wood for these vague rumours. If you know more, do email me! While a Roman soldier is out of place at F.C.H it would make perfect sense at Oxstall Campus i believe, but again I know of no alleged hauntings there.
Shaftesbury Ghosts
Again, Hardwick Halls had no ghostly reputation that I am aware of, and neither did The Folley. Shaftesbury Hall did have rumours in it’s declining days after it’s sale by the college when it was being run as a jazz club and community centre in a state of increasing dereliction, but I never found any evidence of any haunts (some of the buildings opposite do have good stories however.) The only story I heard that seemed to have a slight ring of authenticity was stories about the Theatre being the source of loud noises and annoyance to the priests who live nearby after it was derelict and long boarded up and empty. I suspect they were hearing noises from Gas night club (later Chemistry I think) across the road, or the short lives Rhythm Rooms in the old Shaftesbury bar. However there is an interesting ghost story concerning the public passageway which runs behind the former Shaftesbury Campus and St. Greg’s church next door, where you can still walk it being a public footpath. I won’t tell it here now because it is not technically a university ghost, but will return to it later!
Ghosts of the Park Campus
And so we come to the place I know and love the best, the Park Campus. I still recall the legend of the Black Duck of Fullwood, a giant black vampire duck that ate Freshers, invented by Martin Peters I think to take the mickey out of my interest in spooks in 1987. 
It was a running joke. There is one oddity that if I was more inclined to believe my own senses might have been construed as a time-slip. Soon after arriving to live in Fullwood Halls (since demolished; the villas are on the site, but the Refectory and Principal’s House still stand) I wandered down to the lake with my good friend J.K, and turning right we found a lovely paved areas with a bench and little well tended area. A couple of days later we returned, finding the whole place far more overgrown than we remebered, and the bench missing. (if you find the paved spot and look in the water you will see what is probably the legs of it). We remarked at the time that it seemed to have all changed. The most likely explanation is someone threw the bench in the water; still it was replaced, and there is still one there today.
I love the lake and will haunt it one day. Sadly the swans seemed to have gone and been replaced by geese, but I wonder if the 6′ plus catfish still lurks in there? He was immense and monstrous, and it took several sightings by me before my friends believed me after I saw it.
Student Parapsychology Society members at the Rollright Stones, 1997
Fullwood inevitably had a ghost story, told by a porter, though I never tracked the fellow in question down, and I knew many of them. It is recounted in Bob Meredith and Peter Reardon’s little book on local ghosts Cheltenham Town of Shadows, and having not asked for permission I will not repeat it here. You can still find it in some shops or second hand here – I can’t believe people are selling it new for £20 and £70, when it is really a very small booklet! Recommended. Ross Andrew’s Paranormal Cheltenham is well worth picking up – I reviewed it for the SPR here.
Anyway the ghost story took place on I think D South, far above the roofs of the current villas, in the now demolished Fullwood Halls. What the bombs of the Luftwaffe failed to achieve (they damaged the north wing in 1941) improved fire regulations made inevitable, but I knew the area well, and lived on B floor for three years without ever hearing anything of the ghost! Still, we do have one real ghost story where I interviewed the witness myself from the Park Campus, and being pushed for time I shall recount it here and then sign off for today. Here is the story as it appeared at the time on the uni website, written by, as usual, me… I have updayted it in [square brackets] where clarification is needed thirteen years later.
Cheltenham, May 3rd 1996
The SPS is based here at the Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education [today the university of Gloucestershire - CJ], and it is interesting to be able to report our first College ghost story in the society’s history. Pseudonymns have been used throughout, but the facts are all correct. I would like to remind would be ghost-hunters that the College is private property and that trespassers are likely to be eaten by the famous College guard dogs and security officers!
The setting for the sighting is Fullwood Hall of residence, which was my home for three years in the late 80′s. I must state at this point that I have never in my ten-year association with the College heard of any similar sighting, so we must assume this was a one-off…
On Friday 3rd of May 1996 the college staged a ‘May Ball’. It was a fancy dress event, on the theme of 60′s/70′s/80′s music. A good time was had by many.
At about 1.30am Amy and her partner Bill had returned to Amy’s room on ‘D’ West on the third storey of the building. The room’s window overlooks a semi-quadrangle, open at one side, covered in grass and with two trees. [Note: this area is immediately north of the Principal's House, D West being the then designation for student rooms up there. The grass area still exists as far as I recall, near the modern villa's]
Amy was looking out of the window, when she saw a woman standing by a tree. The woman was wearing a white dress, had dark hair, and a broad brimmed white hat with several large white feathers protruding. The style of dress was described by the witness as that of an Edwardian lady.
Amy was interested in the woman and observed her for what she estimates to have been three minutes. The woman then walked around the tree and stared at the [presumably "in the direction of" - the line of vision would be blocked by trees and the rise] lake. The area is very well lit; Amy noted the shadow of the tree but no shadow from the figure, which appeared perfectly solid.
Suddenly panicked she went to call Bill who came to the window – taking perhaps thirty seconds. The figure had vanished. It seems highly unlikely that the figure could have ran out of sight in that time, though the possibility of entering the building by a door or window must be admitted, and in a brief test I was able to sprint up to trees and cover in about twenty seconds.
You can read an account of a poltergeist investigation in a student house I did on my blog here.
The University’s Student Parapsychology Society (Defunct!)
For about a decade the university had a student society, the SPS or Student Parapsychology Society, founded by me and deeply involved in investigating spooks etc. (I’d like to see it reborn – contact me on chrisjensenromer@hotmail.com if you want to talk about this, or tell me a uni or college ghost story, or comment below). I was rather amused to find the old programme of events…
SPS Meetings Spring Term 2000
SPS meetings are held from 5.30pm – 7.30pm every Wednesday of term, and are open to all students. Students should e-mail John Madden for details of lecture locations.
Titles
Wk 1 Careers in Parapsychology… CJ
Wk 2 Theories of the Poltergeist
Wk 3 Experimental Psi Research
Wk 4 Modern Resarch in Survival of Bodily Death
Wk 5 The Case for Survival; A Debate
Wk 6 Investigations in the History of Psychical Research… CJ
Wk 7 Do we need a new Psychical Research?
Wk 8 Guest Lecture… speaker to be announced
Wk 9 Psychiatry and Psychical Research
Wk 10 Christianity and Psychical Research: The Power of Prayer?
Wk 11 The Ley of the land; Parapsychology, Earth Mysteries and Cultural History…CJ
I note with wry amusement that 9 weeks talks were given by me, and they really were lectures with handouts, coursework and everything! Oh how I miss those days with the “spusslings” and our bottles of little dead guy wine – they still sell it in what is now Sainsbury’s Bath Road I noticed today! One grows old so fast. 
Contact Details
If you have any university or otherwise ghost stories do share them with me – chrisjensenromer@hotmail.com, or comment below
cj x
Fresher’s Week in Cheltenham: Six Things I Wish I Had Known
Another year, another Fresher’s Week about to start here in Cheltenham. A friend from the University of Gloucestershire told me the new students arrived today, but it was only when I met some friendly types who started a conversation in a fast food restaurant a few minutes ago that I reflected on the fact this generation of students were not just not born when I first arrived here to study, they were in fact still seven years off it! Yep, twenty five years ago I arrived, in late September 1987, in a Cheltenham which has not really changed all that much in the intervening years. Well there are a huge number more students now, and St. Paul’s is dominated by them rather, and they all seem to go in to town whereas the only reason I ever venture off campus was to visit Waterstones, or to go to Burger Star on the Bath Road or the KFC, but hey, it’s not all that different.
I however was. Younger, far scattier, and prone to weird out accidentally my fellow students, I was a long haired hippy in an age of Rick Astley & Tom Cruise Top Gun era haircuts, when male students wore shirts and jackets to the bar and everything was a lot more yuppy and aspirational than now. That changed within a few years, a indie kids and grunge types arrived, but in 1987 students here were sharp dressing types who were pretty ambitious as I recall. Well a lot of them! I’d just had my ghost experience at Thetford Priory and was pretty freaked out, and I’d spent the previous two years neglecting my ‘A’ levels and playing wargames and roleplaying games, and hanging around at my grandmother’s house with Hugh and Gary McF, and occasionally others. I knew absolutely nothing about girls, and had little interest (I was a slow developer) – well at least till I suddenly started to get interested a few days in to uni – and I was painfully, horribly shy.
I’ve written about Fresher’s Week 1987 many times, because of the very dramatic events which marked mine – a bloodbath, a flood, a ghost investigation, and a mad crush that persisted a while – and it still forms the basis for the uni life novel I return to every few years and never finish. Still despite all the trauma, I had a pretty good time. Some of the facts are recorded in an earlier post on this blog called Family Nights In With Satan if anyone is interested in such things.
So thinking about it – what should I have told those Freshers I met tonight? I think after seeing 25 generations of students arrive I have a few insights – so here are
Six Things I Wish I Had Known as A Fresher in Cheltenham!
1. You may well be horribly horrifically homesick. It is perfectly normal to cry at times, and go home for weekends. You are not giving in. You will miss your friends/parents/dog. Don’t try and stay all the time for fear you will miss out on anything. You are not mad, depressed or failing in some way. You are homesick, like many before you. I was!
2. You may be worried about how hard everything will be academically. Relax – after ‘A’ level, it’s just easier and easier. Anything is easier than ‘A’ levels. You will only fail if you suffer appalling illness, bad luck or are on a truly awful course, and I don’t think there are many here — unless you try. If you work at it anyone can fail any course. It will be a heroic effort, but by failing to hand in work, forgetting exams, being drunk constantly and never once so much as glancing in the direction of a library you might just manage it.
3. Everyone will tell you that you will split up with your boyfriend/girlfriend from back home in under a term. Don’t believe them – I know people who stayed faithful and committed while hundreds of miles apart at different uni’s for all three years. (Because noone else would have them! – no, only joking. 
)
4. Cheltenham is pretty safe, but people do very occasionally get attacked here. Don’t walk home alone, regardless of your gender, and don’t get so drunk you can’t look after yourself. Don’t shout abuse at strangers, or annoy people who might turn nasty. Every year a few students in Fresher’s Week are viciously assaulted through drunkenly waking up locals on their way back from town or even in to town from FCH. This year it will be more, and I’m buying a petrol driven chainsaw tomorrow to make my attacks more memorable and more of a deterrent. Seriously though, there are plenty of very scary people here. Don’t give them a reason to notice you.
5. You may well be incredibly conscientious in your first year – too conscientious. By your third year you will be partying wildly and skipping lectures. This is the wrong way round to do things as unless the system has changed your second and third year marks make up your final degree. You should be having a good time now, just not so good a time you get chucked out. (Sadly burning students at the stake for not doing the seminar readings is no longer policy here).
6. Join the Christian Union. They have coffee, biscuits, and people who know even less about sex and romance than you. You are bound to pull? Or maybe join a society, though sadly the Student Parapsychology Society no longer exists, but hey it had a good ten year innings, ironically disappearing about the time I first got involved with Most Haunted.
That is what I should have told the students, but instead I just made a few bad jokes and was my usual cheerful self. Still, I wish a few people had given me these pointers, so if you do read them and think what a load of cack, sure thing buddy add your own in the comments below, or email me on chrisjensenromer@hotmail.com, and i’ll update this piece – not that any student here will ever have any reason to read it!
cj x
POST SCRIPT: Andrew added this in comments. but as many people will not read comment I think it’s worth adding to main body of the text – what follows is not my advbice, so I will change it to a different colour, but some very good points in there –
Andrew’ s Top Six
… some of which are deliberate counter-arguments to CJ’s just to be amusing/provoke debate, some of which are deadly serious, and most of which are both.
1. Don’t forget to tell your parents if you move house. In today’s era of cheap mobile phones this is less relevant than it was when I moved in 1990. In my first year, I got allocated some pretty shonky “overflow” accommodation at Over Hospital (rat-infested and thankfully now demolished), and after a month I clubbed together with a couple of other first-years and rented a private house. I *completely* forgot to tell my parents for a month – they continued to ring the payphone at the geriatric hospital, further confusing the already confused residents. I’d rung them a couple of times, to say hello, but hadn’t actually remembered to tell them about the move.
2. Do turn up and do hand in your work. That is pretty much all you need to do to get a 3rd or a 2:2. CJ is exactly right about academic ease; ‘A’ Levels are the hardest thing you will ever do and a degree is a walk in the park in comparison to those exams. That said, nobody is going to chase you for work or chase you if you don’t turn up. If you forget, if you can’t be bothered, you will just fail and eventually you WILL get chucked off the course, and that means no more student loan.
2a. Within reason, schedule your lectures around your convenience, not around your lecturers’ convenience. For the larger intake subjects, most lectures are run more than once per week, notably evening classes for those doing part-time courses. You CAN switch. Sometimes you have to justify your request to switch. “I’ve got a clash” used to be my excuse, but I suspect in today’s world of computerised timetabling this is less valid. My real reason was that I do my best work in the late afternoon and evenings, it’s just the time of day when I think better. I told my friends it was because it meant I could have a lie-in after nightclubbing, which was also partially true.
3. Play the field but use protection. I must admit I did a lot of the former and very little of the latter, and somehow managed to avoid infection and pregnancy, but that was just a fluke. THIS is the right time in your life to have lots of relationships. Get it out of your system NOW so that you don’t go and mess up someone else’s life (especially your children’s) by having an affair when you’ve settled down in later life. Now as a fresher you may be thinking that you’re the nerdiest person in the world and you’ll never get any action, but the thing is, you’re at a university that accepted you as a student, ergo almost all the other students are going to be very similar to you. In particular, males, pay attention: The University of Gloucestershire is predominantly an arts, theology and teaching college, which are heavily female-oriented subjects; contrary to traditional belief, girls are just as keen as boys. Just relax, be nice to your preferred gender, be conversational without trying to dominate the conversation and relationships will just fall into your lap. Also, the phrase “Please may I kiss you?” said at an appropriately late point in the evening after a couple of hours of familiarisation is probably the most reliable chat-up line in the world.
4. Never, ever get so drunk (or drugged) that you cannot make sensible decisions, walk, read a bus timetable or call a taxi. Cheltenham is not just “pretty safe”, it is one of the safest towns in the country. Ninety-nine percent of reported “attacks” are actually just arguments between drunk people turned sour. Keep away from really, really drunk people, especially drunk strangers, and do not hang out with anyone who thinks that spiking drinks or taking unlabelled drugs is fun. If you can see a bunch of drunk people arguing in a street, don’t walk down it, find another route, or at least find someone else who is not drunk to walk with. Remember, YOU are responsible for your own actions when you are drunk. If you turn up in court having crashed your car or having vandalized a statue, YOU will be found guilty, not your friends, not the pub that served you, and claiming to have been drunk will not reduce your sentence.
4a. When going out, agree in advance with some friends that you are going to look after each other. This includes telling each other who has had enough to drink and ensuring that everyone goes home safely (not necessarily together, but at least aware of each others’ going-home arrangements). Never, ever get offended when someone tells you “I think you’ve had enough.” They might just be saving your life. Think of it as practice; you can always try to have a little bit more next time, rather than right now.
4b. People who are already drunk or on drugs will not notice if, when they offer you drink or drugs, you pour it into a plant-pot or push it under the sofa cushion.
4c. Girls only walk home with sober people.
4d. Girls, only walk home with sober people.
4e. Note how the addition or removal of a comma in 4c & 4d changes the meaning, but retains the wisdom.
4f. Males are more likely to be attacked in drunken arguments than females. Don’t make smart-arse remarks or aggressive gestures to people who are too drunk to recognise your intellectual or physical superiority.
5. Find out what work contributes how much to your overall degree and put in the effort accordingly. Nobody but YOU will organise this for you. There is no point spending 50% of your work time on something that contributes only 5% of your final degree. Also, you can use this information to tactically plan your socialising; if your marks are evenly distributed throughout years 1,2 and 3 then you can be really conscientious in your first and second year, achieve a pass mark, and then party for most of your third year! Or you might find that only the second half of a module carries any markable work, allowing you to party in safety for the first half.
6. Gloucestershire is a really beautiful place. Get out there and visit it. It really is too easy to spend all your life in town, and even easier to stay in your particular (probably cheap) part of town. No excuses if you don’t have a car; Gloucestershire has a really good bus service. Trips out also make good romantic gestures. My top bus-accessible sights from Cheltenham: Gloucester Cathedral (bus 94), Broadway & Winchcombe (bus 606), Tewkesbury Abbey (bus 41), Gloucester Docks (94), Cirencester (bus 51), Bourton-on-the-Water & Stow-on-the-Wold (bus 801), Leckhampton Hill / Cricklade Hill (busses B, P and Q then footpaths; note that you can book a barbeque pit in advance at Cricklade Hill for a truly superb party). Within Cheltenham itself, Suffolk Road (walking distance from Park Campus, Montpellier or Bath Road) and Charlton Kings (busses B, P and Q) are lovely places to visit and have lots of cool coffee shops with excellent WiFi.
6a. Further afield, Bath and Birmingham are well worth the train fare, and Bristol and Wolverhampton are often on the tour list for some very good bands at some very reasonable ticket prices (Wulfrun Hall and Civic Hall in Wolverhampton; Anson Rooms in Bristol Students’ Union – all of these venues are not-for-profit).
Rather More Sensible Update from Someone Who Should Know…
1) Go to the first session of everything; even if you are hung over. Missing first sessions can be a mistake as the lecturer will often explain what the assessments are, and what the expectations for that particular course or module might be.
2) Use the Moodle site for the module. Depending on your course you will get very few paper handouts, but a lot of the information will be on the Moodle sites. For some courses you will also find the slides that the lecturer uses available for download.
3) Be nice to your neighbours, if you are going to be walking home very late at night don’t shout random things in the street or knock on random doors. Chris and Andrew have already explained Cheltenham is fairly safe, but winding up people late at night might have consequences.
4) Make sure you know how to contact the “Helpzone”.
5) Keep the university up to date with your current address, and check your university email.
6) Enjoy your time at University.
On Thursday I’m Talking Ghosts At Skeptics In the Pub, Cheltenham Science Festival Fringe. Controversy May Ensue :D
A quick update seems in order. It’s Tuesday 12th June and The Times Cheltenham Science Festival is under way. I’m still wondering why the brochure appears to feature a perspex butt plug though? Or is it just Global Melting, like Global Warming but hotter? Anyway so far I have seen no events, simply because I have not yet got up and gone out except for a quick trip to acquire breakfast. Secondly, I have a talk to write!
No, the Festival organisers have not gone mad. Every year however Cheltenham Skeptics In The Pub run a wonderful Fringe programme – last year I saw the Festival of the spoken Nerd and Dr Harry Witchell on the Science of Dating. This year the programme looks just as exciting, and while it gets little attention the Fringe Events are excellent and well worth attending if you are in town for the Science Festival. I was thinking of going through the whole run down, from Dark Matters to Science Show Offs on Saturday, but the website does that better than I can. Also these events are all FREE, with a donations bucket being passed around if you want to give (Being Skeptics it’s a bucket not a collection plate – there may be some subtle symbolism I’m missing?)
So I am trying to write my talk on The Science of Ghosts for Thursday night…
Now most of my friends so far seem to respond with “there isn’t any!”. Given I have spent twenty five years studying it, I think there is — but as a recent row on the Rational Skepticism forum suggests, a lot of people think that when I say “ghosts” I mean “Dead Guys” ( & Dead Gals too). This is unfortunate, because it is all a lot more complicated than that. I could say I take a phenomenological approach, rather than making an ontological claim, but I think people would just look at me funny, and I don’t mean phenomenological in the sense of Philosophy they might also think I’m nuts. So just to be clear, I’m looking at how we study two things: the ghost experience, and the causes thereof. (“Tough on Ghosts, Tough on the Causes of Ghosts”? If you want to be really bored you can read my ASSAP conference talk here: this one will be faster, funnier cover very different ground and have more “science” whatever that means!
Anyhow this year my talk will be mercifully free of asides on the philosophy of science, epistemology and other big words too. In fact it will be a) light hearted, b) loud, c) visual (I’m using a lot of video or whatever you call the digital equivalent) clips and also very hands on. Yes I’m running some little experiments and audience participation events, because well, why ever not? So be prepared for Circle Dancing, Knocking On Wood, learning the Power of Expectation and Suggestion, and I’m even doing a little jokey tribute to Bem’s precognition research, which sounds deadly dull, but isn’t at all, at least in my version I hope.
So is there any Science of Ghosts? Yes, way, way too much to even just list the areas covered in the time I have, unless I over run by a week. I think the best way to go is to keep the first half light hearted and fast moving. I have been through loads of topics I could cover, and have thought about presenting on a little of everything, but in the end I have chosen just two topics for the first bit that I can present well upon and have never given a talk on before, one of which is very suited to hands on experimentation.
One thing that seems to confuse a lot of people is why I am talking at Skeptics In The Pub. Paranormal Believers often seem to regard Skeptics, or as us non-Americans usually call ‘em, Sceptics, as the enemy. (Why do we use the American spelling? Is it to prove we know Greek or something?) Skeptics/Sceptics think people like me who spend our time on parapsychology are all woos, unless they have heard of us (Chris French and Richard Wiseman are exempt from this it seems. Stuart J Ritchie probably still gets called a woo, as he is not yet a household name?). I’m desperately hoping that Professor Brian Cox might show to run a picket line and to tell people I’m an utter nobber, but sadly feel that highly unlikely.:D
Anyway why am I talking at a Skeptic’s meeting? Well I have always regarded myself as a sceptic. Yes I’m a methodological sceptic, and sometimes I come to conclusions that sit uncomfortably with other sceptics, but I do believe firmly that doubt and “rational sceptisicm” are the only way forward and are central to the scientific method, or rather most scientific methods, as I don’t think there is only one. It often amuses me that I am far less certain of many things than self-proclaimed forum sceptics who are absolutely rock solid in their beliefs where I have little more than an ever expanding list questions, a lot of data, and a few tentative, provisional conclusions. I encounter this time and time again on the JREF and other forums: people whose faith is stronger than mine. 
Anyway, enough rambling. I have a talk to write. I’ll let others decide if I am a Fake Sceptic or not. Whatever you think about ghosts and parapsychology, the questions it raises for Science, how we do Science, how we communicate Science and what constitutes real Science are vital, or so I am inclined to think. I hope some of you will come a long and heckle, whether sceptic or believer!
Here are the talk details
When?
Thursday, June 14 2012 at 7:30PM
Where?
D-Fly
40 Clarence St
Cheltenham
GL50 3NX
Who?
Er, em!
What’s the talk about?
Ghosts don’t exist, all skeptics know this, right?. Yet even a skeptic can experience a “ghost”, and when one does all kind of awkward questions arise. That was what happened to CJ, and the story of how he became involved in parapsychology, spent twenty five years investigating hauntings and became embroiled in working in paranormal television for a decade before ending up with far more questions than when he started may amuse and hopefully cause you to question your own deep seated beliefs on the subject. Learn the inside view behind shows like Most Haunted, and why despite everything for CJ at least the serious research must continue.
So can Science really address the ghost experience? For 120 years scientists have wrestled with the question of what is really going on when people think they see ghosts, and in this talk CJ promises to present a whistle stop tour of the science that has been published in the field, good, bad and bogus. Can science finally exorcise our ancient fears of the unquiet dead, and explain the night hag? Are buildings haunted, or is it people? And what should you do if you actually see a spook? If that seems unlikely, come along, and find out how you could 
The event is FREE, but we will be shaking the Skeptic-Bucket to cover costs
cj x
Festival of Science, Cheltenham: Martin Rees on Life in the Cosmos
In terms of UK Science, I can’t think of a bigger name than Martin Rees, or to give him his proper title, Baron Rees of Ludlow. President of the Royal Society, Astronomer Royal, with if you will pardon the pun a stellar career in academia, and author of a number of highly acclaimed books, one of which, Just Six Numbers, I frequently reference and quote as it is so beautifully and clearly written. When it comes to the public understanding of science Lord Rees is a giant, and I think many of my generation accord him the respect my dad holds for Sir Patrick Moore for sheer verve in presentation. Suffice to say I have immense respect for the chap, and when I heard that he was speaking and Dave R offered to buy us both tickets I leapt at the chance.
This was the best attended of all the events I went to all week, held in the EDF tent, and sponsored by Winton Capital, a hedge fund management company about whom I know nothing but am delighted that they chose to sponsor this event so if you have money unlike me I guess you should have a look at their site, and their reputation is very good I was told. The whole Science Festival was also sponsored by Pfizer — while I am known for my distaste for the world of finance and “big business”, I thoroughly applaud and respect those companies who invest in science education so I have taken the time to mention them, and hope you understand and will bear them some good will for their generous corporate sponsorship. Well done to them all for investing in our future.
So anyway, it was very busy, and I was surprised at how the demographic had shifted; the audience was on average older, with a higher proportion of men, but also ranged from maybe 7 to their mid to late 80′s, all united by their love of astronomy. It was heartening to see so many people there, especially given the torrential rain and high winds that buffeted the marquee alarmingly. Indeed after the sunshine of the last few days the Science Festival in the rain was a desolate sight.
A rain swept Cheltenham Science Festival
The talk opened with a picture of Sir Isaac Newton (“a really unattractive man”) and after that laugh was spiced with humour throughout. Newton in the Principia calculated the velocity needed for a cannonball to enter orbit, which I always find hard to envisage as what it is, a kind of endless falling! And then we were off, for a really wide ranging discussion of all kinds of fascinating aspects of space, from the scales of the universe, cosmic inflation, event horizons through Cosmological Fine Tuning (on which Rees was admirably open minded saying the question can not currently be resolved as far as I could make out), manned versus robotic space travel and much much more.
One thing that really shocked me was when Lord Rees pointed out that there is only 66 years from the Wright Brothers first powered flight to the first men walking on the moon, some 42 years ago now. I thought for a moment that our knowledge of space may be stagnating, then I realised as Rees spoke on the tremendous achievements of those 42 years in terms of unmanned space exploration, and thought of my shock on first seeing pictures taken on Mars, and just how far our probes have gone – Voyager is now approaching the edge of the solar system. Still from Kitty Hawk to the moon in less than a single lifetime – indeed my grandmother lived through both events, and long enough to see the Pathfinder missions to Mars, yet as she once told me as a young girls she had disliked aeroplanes believing they would disturb the angels in the clouds! (She remained deeply if unorthodoxly religious, and curious about scientific discoveries, right till her death.)
This is what Rees does so well: he uses brilliant illustrations that make you think. A picture of an Ouroborous showing the cosmic scale of things was really gripping, with humanity falling right in the middle from the atomic scale through to the astronomical. If you have read Just Six Numbers you will be familiar with this, but still nice to see again. Another interesting thought which surprised me was that to today’s kids the moon landings are something old, historic, “like the Wild West”. I was born in the year of the moon landings, and when I was young we were all excited by space travel, and many of my friends wanted to be astronauts when they grew up. ( I hoped to be an archaeologist, and ended up a third-rate ghost hunter. These things happen!) Now few kids would aspire that way — this is one of the themes Marina Benjamin explores in her fascinating little book Rocket Dreams, where she charts with nostalgia how my generations love of Space, the final frontiers has been replaced by a new generation who seek potentialities in the unlimited fantasies and virtual worlds of cyberspace. Well worth reading that book actually.
Lord Rees at the book signing after the event
I did not have a notepad on me to take notes, so I scribbled some phrases on my ticket. One thing I found very interesting was the idea that “nowhere in the solar system is as hospitable as even the top of Everest or the South Pole.” Still Martin Rees remains as always an optimist about our potential, while pessimistic about politics, with I think good cause. “A technological optimist, a political pessimist” was how he put it as I recall.
He ended stating that this century has a special responsibility, as we can finally destroy our evolutionary progress and throw it al away by destroying ourselves, or perhaps move on in to space, or something to that effect. I’m going to end though with my favourite quote of the whole talk, that hopefully I have got right…
It is better to read first-rate science fiction than second-rate science, more entertaining; and no more likely to be wrong
- Martin Rees
It Snowed A Little… Pictures of Cheltenham (but they could be anywhere!) In The Snow
OK, so it snowed, and for a few days now people have seemed to think the world is ending. It might be, but a few inches of snow hardly constitutes a cause for alarm and widespread panic!
Here is the view from my bedroom window yesterday - least interesting photo ever?
OK, so my photo is dull, but by now you have seen a million dramatic photos of people in the snow doing heroic or exciting things. I am to photography what Pooter was to diaries.
Another not enthralling shot from my bedroom window!
OK, look it’s probably more interesting than anything that happens INSIDE my bedroom, ok? Unless you find people reading Ars Magica 5th Edition arousing, in which case seek help (or join the Berkllist, the Ars Magica mailing list.) Actually I could tell a couple of amusing stories about that, but I won’t…
Cheltenham High Street, 3pm today: snow. I bet you predicted this one would have snow in didn't you?
Does not look at all bad in this photo; actually it was pretty unpleasant, the roads were a mushy mess, and the pavements treacherous. Gets better as you get in to the Town centre. Drivers get roads gritted, but pedestrians are left to die in droves*, Hugh says possibly because if they salt the pavements and mess up you get more injury claims?
(* OK, a slight exaggeration. Cheltenham High Street was devoid of corpses when I walked down it: no carnage ensued, and only two people fell over while I was in town. It was hardly Massacre-on-Ice — but with everyone over excited about a sprinkling of snow I thought I could be a bit dramatic. )
How fare the brave inhabitants of Normal Terrace in this icy wilderness? Well none of the cats in the street seem keen on going out, but otherwise business as usual…
The Abominable Postman (Ben?) leaves his track sinb the not so pristine wilderness!
Yeah, we did not get any post for one day, and the bins were not emptied, but bravely we struggle on, displaying that British stiff upper life (and in my case Anglo-Danish sagging belly)
Er, yeah, you guessed it - more snow.
Are you still reading this? Google returns 3,290 hits for “hot babes in bikinis” and you are still reading this? Oh I see – well 6,170,000 hits for hot men in underwear? Or even 531,000 hits for for improving sermons.?
OK you like pictures of snow. I get it..
Well it was sunny today. But yes, there is some snow for you too
Shame I have no talent as a photographer. Or as an ice sculptor come to that. I felt snowmen were sexist,and snow women sound bit dodgy, so I made a snow cat…
Yes, it's a cat, honest! Well more interesting than a snowman. CJ made this, and was quite proud of it!
OK, even I can stand this little longer. Another shot of Normal Terrace…
Chris my neighbour has lived in the street all her life,a nd even she would be bored by yet another photo of our road in the snow
Hey it beats Google Earth! Who wants to look at satellite pictures when you can see Cheltenham back street s in the snow? Well pretty much every one I guess. Let’s go nocturnal…
A bin in the snow. Cheltenham as you never saw it, and never wanted to!
I had a stalker once, many, many years ago, but even she gave up on me because I was so dull. Shame really, she should have just read my blog rather than standing around in the chemist shop doorway across the road from my old flat.
Googling "goats in leather underwear" only gives one hit, and that is my blog. This fact is possibly slightly more interesting than my photo.
Yes, I know you are bored with photos of Normal Terrace in the snow. Here is the next street over, St. Paul’s Street South. It’s not any more interesting though…
St. Paul's open air ice skating rink, brought to you courtesy so fthe weather and Cheltenham Borough Council, featuring lovely lollards - sorry bollards...
And finally a shoggoth eating a car. Oh sorry, not Lovecraft’s horrors from the Mountains of Madness: it’s a bush in Normal Terrace! (You guessed it – in the snow!)
Tekeli-li! Tekeli- li! (and if you get that you are... erudite?)
Well there you go. It’s probably not MUCH more boring than many of my other blog posts, but hey, I think it may possibly be of use to insomniacs, masochists with a taste for people’s holiday photos, and people who like to laugh at the British overreaction to snow. If you read this far, please do comment, if only so I know to turn the lights off and lie on the floor when you come round, as clearly you are dangerously deranged. Anyway, keep warm, keep safe, and enjoy the snow while it lasts!
cj x
A Haunting in Normal Terrace
OK I was watching A Haunting last night as Liz is off back home to Bicester and wanted to chat and watch TV. In the course of it i decided to tell the story of how my house came to be haunted…
Long long ago in the late 19th century the area where my house stands today was a muddy field. One day a builder came along and started to dig foundations. Now it just happened at that time a brand new Indian restaurant (Cheltenham’s first) opened down on the High Street. People flocked form far and wide to taste the exotic cuisine.
Now I am sure many of you are aware that Cheltenham’s reputation for being posh originated with the spa, but it was perpetuated when the town became a fashionable place of retirement for retired colonial administrators and military folk back from service in India.
So when the restaurant opened it was an instant hit. There was only one problem.
The family who ran the restaurant came from Kerala and the cuisine was flavoured extensively with coconut milk, and dessicated coconut. The aging colonels were on the whole more used to Northern Indian cuisine – and so as they hurried home with their takeaways, and en route excitedly tasted the food. Disgusted, many simply hurled the cartons repulsed to one side – and mainly in to the foundations of what became my house.
The restaurant soon closed – it was just too alien to British tastes of the time –even ex-colonial ones– but my house was built on those foundations.
And that is why today my home is haunted - it is built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground.
(And if you believe that you will believe anything!)
cj x
A Cheltenham Poltergeist Investigated
I have only the vaguest recollection of this case now! From the mid-90′s…
A Local Poltergeist?
Tonight I have been privileged to investigate a possible poltergeist case, albeit of a minor nature, which has been troubling a personal friend. I was informed of the case some two weeks ago but owing to other commitments was unable to give it much attention until tonight. I will use a fairly self-explanatory structure in this report, which unfortunately must use pseudonyms.
Persons Present
The Garden (basement) flat (above ground level in the main, from the rear of the house) is home to two students. Cathy, aged 22ish is a English student, and Tom, about the same age is a mathematics- and science-orientated teacher trainee. They share the kitchen of their flat with Simon, who is also a student and does bar work at a local pub, but who has a room in the main (upstairs) part of the house which is occupied by the [[ B]] family. The [[B]] are a couple in their fifties, who live upstairs with their 18 year old daughter who Cath describes as a “sporty type”, quite happy and pleasant enough. The events are as far as we are aware confined to the downstairs flat, Cath having not broached the subject with her landlords.
Cath has been resident in the flat since September ’93, and after a troubled relationship with another girl, who left the flat in February ’94, lived there alone until September ’94 when Tom moved into the house. Relations between Tom and Cath are very good, the couple enjoying a strong platonic relationship. Simon is not communicative with Tom, while not hostile. Apparently he got on better with Cath before Tom moved in.
Layout
The flat consists of four rooms: kitchen, Cath’s room, bathroom, Tom’s room. The kitchen is shared with Simon. All of the rooms connect via Cath’s room, and during the daytime Simon must walk through first Tom’s and then Cath’s room to get to the kitchen, and Tom must pass through Cath’s room to leave the house or enter the kitchen or bathroom. At night Simon walks around the outside of the house to use the kitchen. All the same Cath must get very little privacy, although she does not seem to overly resent this.
The “Haunting”
When Cath first moved into the flat Simon (already resident upstairs) said that he could feel a presence in her room, sitting in a chair. He later admitted this was only to tease and frighten her, in which he succeeded, Cath being fairly timid about such things.
No futher mention was made of the “ghost” until Cath had a schizophrenic friend called Mary come to stay. While Cath was in the toilet and Mary was on the bed in Cath’s room Daphne, Cath’s then flatmate wandered through to the kitchen. On her return she looked startled and asked Mary if she had been on the bed all the time, insisting she had looked and failed to see her there on her way to the kitchen. This amazingly trivial incident seemed full of psychical significance to Mary and Cath who discussed it at great length. I would say it was evidently a perfectly normal case of misperception.
From this point nothing occurred until the Christmas vacation ’93/’94. The next incident was related to Cath and Tom by Simon. Tom and Cath were away, and the [[B]]’s were leaving so Simon would be alone in the house. The building has a burglar alarm which is set and turned off by a key, although the [[B]]’s own two copies. Just before they left they discovered one key was missing.
On New Year’s Eve Simon was working at the pub. On his return in the early hours of New Year morning he was astonished to see the missing key on a table with the container which held the other one, in plain sight. He was sure it was not there when he went out, but he was the only inhabitant in Cheltenham at the time.
At the risk of casting Simon as villain in this suburban melodrama, there is a perfectly rational explanation. Simon is, as we shall hear again, prone to fiddle with things and distractedly carry them about. Is it not likely that he was carrying the other key all the time, having forgot to replace it? He may have been too embarrassed to admit to the family he was still carrying it, but as they asked him to look around for it in their absence he did not need to invent such an extraordinary story. “It was down the back of the sofa!” would have done just as well. Then again, conscious deceit is far from necessary. He could easily have used it to disarm the system without thinking, and then noticed two, not one keys, in front of him. I don’t think I’m too harsh if I say barmen are not renowned for their sobriety in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Then again perhaps this really was Small Object Displacement.
On January 9th Tom and Cath both returned back to the flat. Tom immediately noticed that his set of three juggling balls was missing from it’s usual place on top of the piano. He assumed that Simon had borrowed them and absent mindedly forgotten to return them; Cath also noticed evidence that Simon had entered her room and played some of her music tapes. Two of the balls have since been located; one appeared in the kitchen, and the other on Tom’s bedroom floor. Both were placed in plain sight. Cath believes this piecemeal return makes Simon’s involvement unlikely; he would just have returned them all. Tom is not convinced.
The spot where the balls normally “live” in plain sight is marked with a J on the sketch map. They are just to the right of Tom’s door through which Simon must pass to reach the kitchen, and on top of the upright-style piano are at roughly chest height. The compulsive twiddler Simon probably picked them up absently as he wandered in and out. I have a theory that Simon is not sneakily returning them but simply playing with them as he wanders down to the kitchen and discarding them en route, without thinking. I suspect the missing ball will be returned or another vanish soon. This theory is strengthened by the fact that Cath and Tom have not liked to ask Simon if he’s seen them!
Poltergeist Effects?
The case however, even if we discard the apparent Small Object Displacement must surely be proven or disproven in the two most dramatic incidents, which share several things in common. Both objects apparently moved, both were items of personal significance to Cath and both were in Cath’s room at the time.
The first object may be presumed to have moved during Cath’s absence during the vacation. The item which moved was a photograph of Cath’s mother, which was in a relatively inaccessible postion on a shelf some 6′ off the ground and standing behind two other photo’s which were untouched.
The photograph weighs the 3g and moved about 6″ upwards and 6″ to the left. Although Simon had apparently entered her room and played tapes, etc, etc, during the vacation Cath finds it highly unlikely that he would move a photo of her mother. If he wished to consult the photo albums it is unlikely that he would move the photo; this was simply unecessary. However, I would like to suggest that this explanation, while highly improbable, could be seen as less improbable than invoking poltergeist activity!!!
The relationship between Cath and her mother is at the moment very good, and is generally amiable. Cath noticed the photo had moved shortly after her return, and believes it probably moved during the vacation. Cath is unable to state if she noticed the occurrence on the day of her return or the next day.
The photo (which resides in a cardboard frame) could not have fallen to the face down position in which it was found without having:-
1. Previously been moved to the top of the albums, and then fallen. Cath denies she did this, and that seems reasonable enough.
2. Been physically picked up and moved, presumably by Tom, Simon or Cath. There are no cats or other pets to confuse the issue!
3. Performed a strange and “paranormal” flight!
I personally have to come down in favour of option (b) but do acknowledge that option (c) is interesting. If (c) is the case then I would suggest two further immediate possibilities, being (1) PKE (or psycho-kinetic energy, whatever that may be) generated by a human agent, or (2) a disembodied spirit. Before we consider these options let us look at the two further incidents of “haunting” reported to me.
Perhaps one or two nights after her return Cath was startled awake at 4 a.m. by feeling something falling on her bed. She was frightened by this, not unreasonably, and on turning on the light to investigate found it was a plastic cow wristband which makes a “moo!” sound when a button is depressed. This novelty item was given to Cath just before her return, and was sitting on her bookshelf. It weighs exactly 1 oz and had travelled some twenty inches, in a downward curve (I estimate 8″ horizontally, 12″ down).
The bookcase is open at the back, more of a shelving unit really, and is relatively stable. I bounced up and down all over the floorboards without disturbing anything on it! The “moo-er” had been sitting on a pile of books, and Cath demonstrated that if it had slipped off naturally it would have fallen on the floor. By experiment we discovered the “paranormal” flight could be replicated by pushing it hard from the other side. If this was done the “ghost” would then have had to dash into Tom’s room (door closed), the bathroom (door closed) or the kitchen. In any of these eventualities Cath would have noticed as she was startled awake.
The cow-thing incident is hard to explain, but it is possible that the object merely slipped and that the flight path was more natural than myself or Cath realised. I wouldn’t like to rule out a natural or paranormal explanation for this one….
The next incident is undoubtably the most curious, and pushes back my personal boggle threshold another millimeter or two. On Thursday, 12th January Cath was suicidal. Her depression is rooted in stress of college work and uncertainty as to her direction in life more than any problem with her personal relationships, although she had just chosen to end a relationship with a chap she had been seeing as a “partner”, although neither particularly emotionally or sexually entangled with the aforesaid male. Presumably she had washed her hair, for she was drying her hair when she noticed something extremely odd. The hairdryer was plugged in but the switch was at the off position. The hairdryer continued to function when she unplugged it, completely isolating it from the power supply. She eventually turned the device off, puzzled. Despite many attempts she has never managed to repeat this.
What happened? Well two possibilities immediately spring to mind. One; the incident never happened except in Cath’s mind. Her depression caused her to hallucinate the episode in some way, and this false memory provided a stimulus and mystery which eventually helped jolt her from her ennui and depression. It is of course possible Cath was lying; I have only her testimony for almost all the events although Tom certainly doesn’t believe this to be the case, and neither do I. I think we can rule out conscious falsehood, if only because most of the incidents were of such a trivial character and Cath remains interested in getting to the bottom of them.
That leaves option two; that the hairdryer was operating while disconnected from any obvious electrical current. Rational explanations do not spring readily to mind. Was there a secondary power supply based on batteries, which ran flat before her second attempt? I only briefly examined the offending device, but could find no battery port. Does the hairdryer have capacitors or backup power supply internally? I can’t say but if so would expect Cath to suceed in her attempts to reproduce the effect. Could Cath have been in contact with an exposed wire and powering the hairdryer herself? She should have noticed a continual 240V shock, to say the least! No obvious source for such a “live” wire (literally!) theory could be found….
This does not necessarily invalidate the idea of a (nonlocal) power source. My stereo when sitting idle though plugged in frequently comes to life with taxi cab radio messages. While extremely unlikely, I can not rule out a remote power source.
So what are the possibilities of PKE being behind the events? Cath returned from her vacation on January 9th. She had been staying with a penpal (male) with whom she has a warm relationship via mail, although she finds it harder to communicate in person. The penpal’s home is over one hundred miles from Cheltenham, so if Cath was creating PKE effects during the vacation then the energy decay curve for psycho-kinesis is to say the least interesting! [Roll, 1977 is probably the best authority for this; under his theory this is an impossible action]. There is some evidence that a PKE-field or battery can be created and discharge itself when the focus is no longer present. If forced we could invoke this; however there is no proof that the object moved during the vacation. It could have occurred before Cath left or since she returned.
Now let us consider the well known agent theory for poltergeist activity for a moment. There seem to be three immediately obvious agents for a poltergeist focus, but if the “paranormal” hypothesis is correct who is it?
Is it a) Tom, the mild-mannered flatmate?
If Tom was at the centre of the occurence then why did Cath’s objects move? If he is unconsciously using PKE to apport or SOD objects he is unaware of this latent gift. Tom is highly intelligent, sociable and shows signs of diverse tastes in his reading matter, amidst which I was happy to note H.H. Munro (Saki) and M.R. James. He is scientifically inclined and puts the “haunting” down to Simon fiddling with things. He stated that he was under no particular stress at the moment, though he has been helping Cath through her bad patch.
So what about b) Cath, the sweet student eco-guerilla?
Cath is also highly intelligent, and has a strong interest in things occultish and paranormal. Before you ask, attention seeking can be safely ruled out; I can only offer my personal testimony on this but feel I am the last person Cath would try to demonstrate preternatural abilities to, being well known to her for my cynicism and scepticism. She takes a rational stand on matters paranormal, although she does possess a crystal ball and tarot cards. She is amused by how unpsychic she seems to be, and perhaps a little disappointed.
She offered me the chance to investigate in casual conversation, and in the two weeks before I contacted her made no attempt to raise the subject again. She was happy to participate in the study, and did not seem at all miffed by the fact I remained dubious of paranormality in this instance. She is furthermore a friend of my girlfriend and previous partner and very much part of my social “scene”, and took a risk of ridicule by allowing the investigation to occur at all from these two formidably sceptical ladies.
Cath was following the vacation in a state of deep depression, and college stress was undoubtably partly to blame. She has reached a kind of intellectualised nihilism in which all meanings are negated, and on the day of the hairdryer incident was suicidal. Tom talked her out of this mood. Following this her mood has fortunately improved drastically. She believes that her mental unbalance and depression may underlie the “poltergeist”, and is amused and interested by this.
I have frequently referred to poltergeist activity as a “nervous breakdown taking place outside of the head”, and Cath thinks this is the most likely cause. I am disinclined to agree simply because Simon seems such a perfect villain, but am willing to accept this as a possible cause.
So what of c) the villainous Simon?
Does Simon act as a poltergeist agent? I feel not, although he does certainly have a habit of fiddling with things. I myself have observed Simon pick up and play with small objects as he moves around the flat, and on one occasion he moved a “Cuddly frog” toy from Cath’s bedroom to the kitchen while wandering through. This and other “SOD”, “JOTTLE” or apport type events were ascribed to Simon because he was seen doing it. However Simon was the only person present throughout the time when the purportedly paranormal events, and if we are going to invoke the agent theory of the PKE poltergeist then we really must consider Simon as a primary suspect.
What about the other possibility? It is of course possible that a disincarnate spirit or “ghost” is behind the events. I personally feel it unlikely and offer the following points against:-
1. There is no evidence of an attempt at communication on the part of the ghost, unless it’s mind is totally alien to us.
2. There is no known legend of the house being “haunted” until the comparatively recent events, exceptions noted above.
3. No easy identity can be provided for the apparition, and there is no known person who may wish to haunt the property.
4. There are no sightings of, or sounds of, a “disincarnate” visitor.
I admit that the above is largely negative evidence, and I may well be proved wrong. The “haunting” at first glance seems to be focussed on Cath, but events have also happened to Tom and Simon. I personally believe that it is unlikely that all the events are misperceptions, Simon or other normal causes. It is however extraordinary unlikely that a poltergeist is involved – so I must favour the former. I leave the individual reader to judge for themselves and would welcome comments.
cj x
Pigs might fly: facing a flu pandemic
It all sounds really scary doesn’t it? A flu pandemic, spreading out from Mexico. Even The (Gloucester) Citizen ran a headline story yesterday – two people in quarantine at home. OK, I was surprised when it turned out to be Tony and Kandia of Inkubbus Sukkubus – I had no idea they were gigging in Mexico City, way to go guys! (they are a rather fun local pagan rock band and decent folks) — but I’m more interested than frightened at the moment. Yes that’s right, CJ, Captain Paranoid about Epidemics, is not remotely bothered. Why?
Well the 1968 and 1957 pandemics were before I was born – and hell, I’m pretty certain that to a global economy in trouble, yep, this is seriously bad news. I note the failure to close borders and ban international flights – I agree it would be too late now, shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, and in todays world such isolation would be difficult and I hate to imagine the economic consequences. But while flu pandemic are outside of my life experience, my grandmother Alice lived through all three of the twentieth centuries great flu pandemics, and my parents two of them.
So how bad is it? Well, lets start with worst case scenario. Wiki reminds us of a very sobering fact
As many as 25 million may have been killed in the first 25 weeks; in contrast, HIV/AIDS has killed 25 million in its first 25 years.
Ouch! Yep, up to 5% of the global population may have died in the 1917-1920 pandemic (usually referred to as 1918 flu as I recall. ) A new book came out on it just a few weeks ago — I doubt the author is jubilant, but sales will be GREAT! – not read that one yet, but I have Barry’s The Great Influenza and my favourite book on the subject, Gina Kolata’s wonderful book Flu on my shelves. Why my interest?
Remember I said my grandmother lived through all three pandemics? She was 18 when it struck Bury St Edmunds, in the final weeks of the Great War. Hardwick Heath had a German prisoner of war camp, and I get the impression Alice really liked the handsome young Germans there, and many of the girls were “walking out” with these fine young men. Not exactly patriotic, but I think they worked on local farms and businesses, and security seems to have been pretty lax, and hey romance can bloom in adversity. Then in October or November of 1918, the camp was struck by tragedy. The men, kept in close proximity, contracted the flu, and day after day she reports seeing the coffins of these young, virile men, certainly strong and fit, survivors of trench warfare, as they were taken off for burial. And I recall Alice, then in her late eighties, shedding a silent tear and her voice cracking with emotion as she told me about it. It was the soldiers she said, German and British alike, who died. That and the kids, and the farm girls – the young and the fit…
Hang on? The young and the fit? WTF? Even as a teenager I knew better — infants, the elderly, the asthmatic and those ill, they should hav died. Why “the young and the fit?” What the hell? I assumed Alice was wrong, and then I thought of a solution. 1918 flu hit at a time when NAval Blockade, U boat warfare, and the terrible experience of trench warfare had rendered the population ill equipped. Millions of mern in close proximity on the Western Front, in appalling conditions. Of coure now I know a little better. In fact in terms of public health rationing during the 1950′s actually saw Britian’s population at a fitness peak. I have no idea about the Great War, but it may be similar. And trench warfare, well our understanding of it is deeply flawed, and permaeated with myths. (Mud, Blood & Poppycock is an excellent recent history examining this whole issue of the myths of the Great War. Recommended) So why the young and the fit?
Now of course I had already noted that very fit people can succumb to pneumonia very fast, and there are plenty of theories. Also, one thing that is absolutely clear to me is that depending upon genetic resistance various populations have varying degrees of susceptibility. It could be that outside of the Mexican population this will not prove too virulent – there may be a genetic factor. You can look up genetic variance and casualty rates for the earlier pandemics easily enough the wikipedia link above on Flu pandemics will get you started. A disaese with a 4% fatality rate would be absolutely terrifying – but I think we may be looking at 0.0001% – but who knows, it’s not like we have any accurate figures yet. Any deaths is a tragedy – but huge casualty figures probably will require vast numbers of infections, and most people will get better. It’s nothing like the Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary incredibly panglossian, tactless and blackly comic comment about “ a couple of strepsils” being all that is required to solve the problem – hell I do hope he has put his money where his mouth is and gone on holiday to Mexico City to test this first hand - but he has a pretty good point. If the disease is effecting mainly malnourished people in the slums, and that is where the casualties are, well we might expect that. Unfortunately well nourished and rather well heeled western tourists are succumbing, and one wonders…
This looks a lot like 1918 flu to me. Sorry, it just does. I’m sure it’s not the same virus – we have live cultures I think in America at Fort Derrick, USAMRIID or the CDC have them, excavated from bodies buried in the Arctic permafrost from that outbreak. Pathogenic Archeology – I’m not sure if this is a triumph or just damned scary, but if it was 1918 back I’m thinking we might already have a vaccine – dunno. If instead it’s actually a new mutation, from the incredibly mild in humans Swine Fever, well then six months to vaccine I expect ( I should probably have read the news reports before starting this piece, but what reporting I have seen does not actually fill me with confidence in the accuracy thereof. ) So am I an apostle of doom?
Nah, not a chance. Got tickets to see Girls Aloud at the O2 and want to avoid the risk of crowds? Give ‘em to me. I’m not a huge fan but free concert tickets are not to be sneezed at. To be honest if there was an Inkubus Sukkubus gig tonight I’d not be worried about attending, even knowing the risk. Of course I wouldn’t – no one wants to make their friends and families ill, and I stay away from Andy’s house if I have a cold, rather than infect Mel and Bel. However, I’m not afraid of swine flu. James Blunt – he scares me.
So why has “Captain Doom” got all cheerful about this threat? Because at the moment i don’t see much of one. Remember the Bird Flu threat? Yes, it was real, and yes, it was scary, and we got lucky – it never spread to this stage, human to human contact. We could be facing the End of the World as we know it, but I feel fine, and i don’t think we are. Why? Because the Bird Flu threat made us prepare, and prepare well. Millions of doses of anti-virals, and if pneumonia develops, millions of doses of antibiotics – things the world in 1918 just did not have. I’ve had pneumonia, and I’ve had pleurisy, and I’m still here – whereas in the 1930′s my fthers beloved sister Dolly died of pleurisy, in an age before modern medicine cvould combat the infections.
We understand the importance of infection control, we have major medical advances, and there is no comparison. We are far better prepared than even forty years ago when the last pandemic struck. Don’t worry, be happy…
I’m about to walk down to TESCO, under the railway arch at the bottom of the High Street, and another sobering thought. Few people know that back in the early twentieth century one of Cheltenhams five railway stations was here, and you can still see the bricked up arches. Anyone know it’s history? It closed in the Great War, and never reopened, but in 1918 its empty corridors, now demolished, and waiting rooms and platforms were a temporary morgue for the victims of the flu. There were too many bodies for the morgue, and this was where masked men and women laid out the dead. I think of that every night when I walk through, and mutter a prayer for the dead. I never forget the spectre of the past, and I’m a lot more aware of the 1918 pandemic than most people i think – but with that knowledge comes confidence. I think we be just fine…
If that is not gloomy enough, I’m going to end on a note of real caution, and perhaps strike one alarmist note. You know I said the epidemic of 1918 was really 1917-1920? It actually (off the top of my head) began in the summer of 1917, on the Western Front (exactly where it started, China or Kansas, and if a pig flu or avian flu is heavily disputed by historians and medical experts). The epidemic becomes established in Spain, and in France, and in Germany. And to start with its just a mild flu – a first wave that kills very few, but may have actually inoculated those who had it against the horror to come. Because in October/November 1918 the flu came in a second wave, and it was the grim Reaper we all know of. IF, and I have no understanding of the pathology, this was to happen again, we could be in serious trouble. There is no room for complacency – and stopping the flu now, and obeying any medical directives is vital - but unless a second wave of deadly virulence does appear, for goodness sake don’t we all have enough to worry about without scaring ourselves with media panic about flu? This gloomy prediction of a second wave is CJ talking as a historian, not with any medical authority or knowledge.
My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Mexico City, and I hope an international effort helps them too. And I hope I’m right, and this is nothing to worry about because the second wave theory explains the thing that puzzled me – why the young and the fit? Because the elderly and infirm had already caught the milder sumer 1917 version before it mutated and gained resistance? No idea.
Hey, it’s Beltane today- let’s think of happier things — who can extend their life by a single hour by worrying as the Jewish carpenter said in Galilee on that hill all those years ago.
Have fun guys, and keep well!
cj x
Cycling in Cheltenham
Well it’s been a few more days, and owing to some work which has required my close attention I have not written much for the blog. Oh and I have been playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook… Er, yes, um… OK, I’m a simple man — I deserve simple pleasures.
Also in an attempt to prevent myself from becoming a walrus, I have been out cycling. I only did six miles today, seven on Sunday, nine on Monday, and about four or five I think yesterday. It’s getting easier the more I do, which suggest to me I am slowly a) getting fitter b) learning the Highway Code – I look at it occasionally when I’m on the pc, as I grew up on a farm and most of what I know about how to drive in urban situations I learned from playing Grand Theft Auto — so my cycling does feature a series of Unique Jumps, careering through pedestrians with murderous intent, and drive-bys – only joking! — and c) increased confidence.
And for the majority of my readers who live nowhere near Cheltenham, my apologies. Most of this might actually apply locally to you too, and i’d be interested to hear so do comment as always…
Well I have learned a few really surprising things. Here are my
Top Ten facts about the wonderful world of bicycles in Cheltenham
1. Car drivers are NOT arseholes. Most are very friendly and look positively worried at the prospect of my ungainly bulk meeting their head through their windscreen. Some are so cautious it unnerves me. For the really timid, wide loads, and when it is clear I’m impeding traffic I pull over and let them pass me with a cheery wave. They really seem to appreciate this simple courtesy – after all it costs me seconds and stops them being stuck behind me as my fat arse wobbles across their view of the road. Everyone wins?
2. Car drivers do NOT try to kill you. With the exception of drivers of Range Rovers, who zoom past scaring you senseless, most car drivers and indeed van and lorry drivers are quite content to let you go unmolested so long as you don’t get in their way. Blonde-thirty something women in sports cars seem to wave and smile a lot if you let them out of a turning or pull in on a narrow road (odd breed – maybe it’s the same women I have met three times now?) and most car drivers really don’t have any malevolent intent unless you pull out in front of them (I don’t) or cut them up. (ditto…)
3. You do not need a death wish to cycle. I really was nervous to start with, as everyone kept telling me that cyclists die horribly all the time. I expect the statistics for fatalities and horrible maiming is higher than that of car drivers, but unless like me you actually do want to live forever, well what is worrying you? Seriously, I have not really felt in danger yet, despite making the odd mistake myself. This is the single greatest thing I am told by people who look at me in mild bewilderment when I say I have started cycling. I have no idea when everybody turned in to such utter wusses that the possibility of a little death before sunset dismayed them too much to do something??? Lord help us all!
EDIT: Axel in his comment gave this excellent website on some of the myths of the danger of cycling. It is so good I have added it here to make sure people see it. I keep hearing from people “but you will get squished by a lorry” – well maybe; but as I pointed out in my first blog piece, I am far more likely to die of obesity related illness or heart problems if i don’t stay in shape. Thirty minutes a day equals about 5 miles in these parts (a lot of hills). Anyway I am convinced that cycling is much safer than people realize, and hope this comes across.
4. Wherever you are in Cheltenham you are never far from a cycle path. I was amazed – they are everywhere. All the major arterial roads seem to have them, and I’ll be riding along and suddenly spot a cycle path and slip on to that instead. There are annoying 100 yard bits between them, and if any child or nervous type rides on the pavement between them I certainly won’t blame them (Just beyond Macdonalds on Tewkesbury Road heading down towards Swindon Village is one – cycle path vanished for maybe 200yds, then reappears on opposite side of the road and reappears at Tile City or whatever it’s called… Another example is the Railway Station — the Honeybourne Cycle Path is nice and level and incredibly gradual so the worst bits of living in a town in a valley, well bowl shaped depression are mitigated – but you get to the Railway Station and hey – where now? Lansdown Rd has a good cycle path, yet to explore that though!
There is also an amazing map of the cycle routes, which is free from Tourist Information, some cuycle shops or uni campus receptions, and I note with trepidation that I venture on an “experienced cyclists only” road whenever I leave my street, albeit rather cautiously and for a couple of hundred yards. This looks fantastic, I need to get one!
5. Some people really cycle commute all over Glos, and they are still alive. I have met people who commute to Gloucester, Brockworth, Innsworth and Tewkesbury. Not met them on the road I hasten to add – cyclists never seem to pay any attention to another cyclist, and if there is a secret cyclist handshake that allows you in to the inner circle I’m not initiated yet. Or you get people like my friend Little Paul, who does twenty mile cycle excursions for fun, and recently rode home in the dark after buying a bargain at a closing car boot sale – a crowbar. So he rides home with this crowbar balanced across his handlebars (and a guitar on his back) and while passing police look at him curiously none stop him to ask the obvious questions, till he gets right home and dismounts!
6. There is an inner circle – well a cycling group! I realized there had to be one once I noted that a) Cheltenham supports two bike shops within two minutes ride of my house, and may have more I have not noticed yet, and b) there are cycle paths everywhere. So I guessed there must be a pressure group — and here it is – Cheltenham & Tewkesbury Cycle Campaign and for University of Gloucestershire staff and students the Uni. Glos Bicycyle Users Group.
7. More people are cycling locally. The period 2002 to 2008 saw a 25% increase on bicycle traffic on Cheltenham’s roads. Hopefully this will continue to increase, and we will see less and less of the cyclists on pavements!
More people are cycling!
8. Did I mention people cycling on pavements? Don’t do it, unless you are under thirteen and the road is full of HGV’s or something. Well, maybe, if its up and down outside your house, but seriously, toddlers and dogs can easily be killed by people on bikes being inconsiderate, and really even on designated cycle paths like the Honeybourne you have to be cautious – other people use the path as well. Toddlers in particular seem utterly unpredictable, and I know slow to a crawl if they are running about. Ditto dogs. And as to the number of times I have nearly been knocked flying, or have been injured by morons riding full pelt down the High Street on the pavement, well next time I take out my wrath on them, and push them under a bus. Then I will kill their family, unto the third generation, burn down their houses and sing comic songs on the ruins.- and my singing voice is not something you want to inflict on your mourners, if any. You got that?
There are times when pulling on to the pavement is necessitated by road conditions, and the urge not to be killed. If other people are on the pavement, do what I do – dismount, and push your machine. It may save your life, should you meet me, and that of your immediate kinfolk. More importantly it may prevent pedestrians thinking all cyclists are arses, and glaring at me when I ride down the Pittville Park cycle path.
8. Ah yes, people who vandalize bikes. It has been brought to my attention that my policy of hanging people who vandalize bikes while drunk is considered by some barbaric. I pointed out that lots of people wanted to bring back hanging, and the retort “not publicly” was given. It’s a fair cop guv’nor. I suggest instead we adopt road side crucifixions. There, satisfied? Seriously, you probably need to lock your bike, and not leave it anywhere where students might wander after the pubs shut. Or kill all drunk students –your choice, but I’d roast them well before consumption as you don’t know what they have caught…
9. There are huge bits of Cheltenham I have never seen, despite living here for two decades plus. I found a railway tunnel (blocked up) on an abandoned branch line north of town, a fine modern church – St. Nicholas, Swindon Village, and a huge sex shop. Er, quite. And no idea, did not go in! (it’s at the very top of Swindon Rd, go straight on instead of turning right to Swindon Village.)
10. I may even get fit. Who knows? But I’m, having fun!
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