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.
Dunwich, Anno Domini 1988!
OK, tonight’s Ars Magica roleplaying game session revolved around the Siege of Dunwich, Suffolk in 1173. I then remembered all the work I put in to this . I was writing for my Mage the Awakening campaign, and I wanted a setting outside of my current home county of Gloucestershire, but in the UK. I finally decided I would use a fictional setting. While this can be restrictive to players, I felt that could be overcome by allowing the players to help me create and imagine the setting.
Being very fond of my home county of Suffolk I toyed with the idea of a Suffolk setting. Unfortunately Suffolk has few large towns – really only Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Felixstowe. I had used Bury St Edmunds for my Changeling Chronicle “Three Crowns” and in several Ars Magica sagas, so I wanted something different. Also I lived in Bury St Edmunds in the time the game is set, and I wanted to avoid running a game which used my friend and old rpg group as NPCs. It was fun in Changeling but I wanted Mage to feel different.
Then I thought of Dunwich. Dunwich is still remembered in the titles of the local diocese, and in the 13th century was a major town, prospering at a time when Ipswich was in recession. The Great Storm of 1287 silted up the harbour, and the town went in to a terminal decline. Then as the years passed, the coastal defences were not maintained, and the town was lost to the sea as the cliffs eroded.
There is practically nothing left of the old town of Dunwich today, just a gravestone from the last Church to vanish. The village of Dunwich still exists a little inland as I recall, and I took the Student Parapsychology Society to the site of Dunwich a few years back, but there is really little to see.
However, as well inspiring the name of Lovecraft’s fictional Dunwich, Massachusetts (which gives the name an eerie and gothic tone immediately) Dunwich has become home to all kinds of legends and stories. While marine archaeologists and historians deny it was ever the great city with fifty churches one reads about in romantic Victorian books, it certainly was a major town, and if it had not been for the gret storm of 1287 would today be a major East Anglian port and cathedral city.
In my World of Darkness, that is exactly what happened. I have set about recreating Dunwich for the game, but Dunwich as it might have been, in 1988! I am not sure what use a fictional history of a lost town is anyone, but if anyone wants to join in by creating more places, personalities, or lift some of it for a game they are running feel free. The yuppie-era Vampire game exploring Thatcherism from the bloodsuckers perspective may happen yet – and this might amuse anyone who has ever tried to create a fictional town!
Central Dunwich as-it-never-was; in 1987 or at any other time!
A History of (fictional) Dunwich
In which CJ makes a very peculiar blend of truth and fiction for the setting of his Vampire game – bet you can’t work out which is which!!! Dunwich (pronounced Dun-Itch) is a seaport and seaside resort in the county of Suffolk in England, with a natural harbour formed by the mouths of the River Blyth and the River Dunwich. Dunwich is today one of the largest ports in eastern England, with a population of around 53,000 (1988), though it is less important as an international port than nearby Harwich and Felixstowe. Initially settled by the Romans who built a now lost fort here called Sitomagus here (“the place of the Magi”), Dunwich grew large because its position as a convenient harbour on the North Sea made it attractive to Saxon settlers, who had founded a town here by 600AD. Further down the coast is the site where the Sutton Hoo treasure was found, and the area is rich in finds of Anglo-Saxon artefacts. In the Norman period the town continued to prosper, and an entry exists in the 1086 Domesday Book.
The twelfth century saw the construction of the great walls of Dunwich, some of which still stand to this day, by Hugh de Burgh. Tragically 1191 saw a shameful episode when following a blood libel, (claims they sacrificed Christian boy named Guy whose body was found in a well) there was a massacre of forty citizens, despite the best effort of Bishop Grace to prevent the massacre. This followed similar pogroms against the Jews at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and King’s Lynn, Norfolk. Following the revolt of Hugh de Burgh against the King the small motte and bailey castle was slighted, and it was never to be rebuilt, though the impressive earth mound Castle Hill still towers over the estuary and town, surmounted by a small wood and Girsham’s Folly, an eighteenth century mock ruined tower built by a minor member of the Hellfire Club in 1775.
King John granted Dunwich its Charter in 1208, which provided for the Thursday Market, and in the next four centuries it made most of its wealth trading Suffolk woollen cloth with the Continent, while maintaining a strong fishing fleet which rivalled those of Ipswich and Great Yarmouth. Other main exports were grain, and the main imports were fish, furs and timber from Iceland and the Baltic region, cloth from the Netherlands, and wine from France.
During the Middle Ages the cathedral was a popular pilgrimage destination, and attracted a number of royal pilgrims. Bishop Reginald Catchpole, the son of a wealthy local lawyer, was born in Dunwich about 1479. One of Henry VIII’s court, he founded the college of St Bartholomew in the town in 1528, which is now known as St Bartholomew’s, Dunwich, a co-educational boarding school which stands in beautiful early Victorian gothic revival buildings to this day . He remains one of the town’s most famed figures and a statue of Bishop Catchpole can be seen in the Elizabethan Thursday Market. Following Catchpole’s fall from grace he was beheaded at Tower Hill, London, on May 12th, 1535. Henry VIII was also responsible for the closure of both the Greyfriar’s Priory and the Blackfriars Priory and St. Anna’s convent, and dispersal of the monks during the Reformation. The King’s men were extremely vindictive: they even burned the last Prior of Blackfriars, Richard Grey,in the Monday Market, while accusing the monks of “gross blasphemy.foul sorceries and heathenish rites”.
The Thursday Market was also the site of the burning of the five Dunwich Martyrs in 1555, who suffered the stake for their Protestant beliefs and who are commemorated by the market cross which marks the location of this grisly event. 1645 saw the hanging of 12 women accused of Witchcraft here during the reign of terror of the notorious Matthew Hopkins, following the Dunwich Assize. Hopkins is said to have cursed the town as a “sinful bed of fornicators, wytches and braggarts, which should have fallen in to the sea.” Many occult and ghostly legends cluster around Dunwich.
In the 17th century Dunwich was a major centre for emigration to New England. This was organised by the Town Lecturer, Obadiah Whateley. Another resident, born in born in 1805 was Nathaniel Ward –Phillips, a prominent New England minister who is best known for his work Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-England Canaan. The 17th and 18th century also saw the rise of Smuggling in the town,and there are continued rumours of a system of hidden smugglers tunnels linking churches, old inns and the caves which mark th cliffs dating from this period. The painters John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough both visited and painted scenes around Dunwich in the 18th century, and other famous sometime residents include Horatio Nelson and the novelist H Rider-Haggard. Short story writer MR James, noted for his supernatural fiction, was also a frequent visitor to Dunwich – scholars dispute whether Dunwich or nearby Aldeburgh was the inspiration for the fictional town of Seaburgh in his short story Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad and A Warning to the Curious.
Modern Dunwich
An attractive East Anglian port city, best known for it’s historic Cathedral, Dunwich is still a popular seaside resort in season, and a commercially successful harbour town, returning an MP and a Euro MP in Dunwich (sometimes referred to as Coastal Suffolk) constituency. In 1988 the post is held by Arthur Murray-Fforbes, who represents the Conservative Party and was elected by a majority of 12,000. The Town Council represent 12 wards in the Borough, with 7 Conservatives, 3 Labour, one Liberal and an Independent councillor. The current mayor is Councillor Geraldine Mournley (Con). Dunwich Centre contains a mix of architectural styles, from well preserved medieval buildings like St. Crispin’s Guildhouse to Elizabethan black and white timbered buildings, through to the modern concrete glass and gleaming metal of the office buildings, bus station and mall. Much of the town centre architecture is Georgian, though the outlying housing tends to be Victorian as are the houses which overlook the front on Cliffview Road, many of which are today boarding houses catering to the tourist industry. The whole town is dominated by the towering Gothic Cathedral, one of the finest examples of medieval Gothic in Britain, the exterior largely untouched except fo r the Victorian Gotchic extension to the Nave, which fortunately complements the existing building. The second oldest building in Dunwich is St.Werburgha’s the current structure dating from 1077, and the medieval St. Crispin’s Guildhouse, which dates to 1421.
Dunwich has undergone an extensive gentrification programme in recent years, principally centred around the waterfront. This has turned a run-down dock area into an emerging residential and commercial centre, with Cafe bars, restaurants, speciality shopping and many pubs and night clubs.
Industry
Dunwich is still a flourishing port today, handling just under a million tonnes of cargo each year. It is the site of three breweries, belonging to Tolly Cobbold,Greene King and Adnams, which are major employers, as is the Dunwich Sugar Beet Factory, whose concrete silos dominate the skyline. The pumping of treated waste from this factory in to the North Sea by the concrete encased outflow pipe remains controversial, but the “White Pier” can be walked some two hundred yards in to the North Sea by the foolhardy who risk being washed away by surging waves. The outflow pipe was built in 1974 following complaints from locals about the smell of sugar beet waste.Industry around Dunwich has had a strong agricultural bias with the sugar beet factory and with Gartons (manufacturers of combine harvesters and specialist agricultural machinery) still a major employer, and the cattle market held in the Monday Market as it has been for centuries. There are light industrial units in the two trading estates which lie to the south and east of Dunwich proper.
Sport
Dunwich has never had much luck with its football team, Dunwich City Football Club. Established in 1898, the team enjoyed little success, with a history of Third and Fourth Division success at best. Playing in green, grey and White striped shirts at the London Road Stadium, their main rivals are Norwich City F.C. and Ipswich Town F.C, both notably better teams. Dunwich has a more successful Speedway team, the Dunwich Devils, who are based at their Catchpole Stadium track, on the outskirts of Dunwich, for over 50 years. Greyhound Racing also takes place at the Catchpole Stadium, and is often better attended.
Dunwich Heath, a gorse covered sandy area just to the west of the town filled with small woods proves a popular recreational area, both for locals and tourists. It is popularly said to be haunted by the spirit of an executed 18th century soldier, the drummer “Black Toby”, and by “Black Shuck”, the folkloric hell hound of East Anglia. The remains of the gibbet mentioned by James in his travelogue may have led rise to such stories.
Ghosts of Dunwich
DUNWICH: A lost city, Dunwich was one of the major ports of medieval England. The usual phantom monks prowl the ruins of Greyfriar’s monastery.
On the beach you may well see a young man clad in the bright clothing of an Elizabethan sailor. Don’t hail him; he is another of Dunwich’s many ghosts…
Inland of modern Dunwich lie Dunwich Heath and the woods. If you go down to these woods tonight you could be in for a very big surprise, for they are roamed by not one but two ghosts! The first has a pretty story attached. In life he was the brother of the Lord of the manor who wished for nothing more than to be allowed to marry his true love. Sadly this was not allowed for she was a mere serving maid and his brother expressly forbade them to marry. Furthermore he was never allowed to see the girl again. In despair he took to wandering the path that leads through the woods hoping for a glimpse of her, but alas this was not to be. One day he could stand it no longer and dropped dead of a broken heart. So the story goes; I personally suspect pneumonia caught from the biting cold wind off the sea more than a heavy heart as the reason for this romantic heroes demise! At least today he has more company of equal social stature, for the other apparition is that of a Victorian squire galloping through the woods on a fine Arab horse, doubtless off to evict some poor widow into the snow or tie an innocent hearted maid to a railway track, moustache twiddling as he does. Well it’s a nice idea anyway…
No ghost book is complete without a shaggy dog story and Old Shuck, eyes as big as saucers pads his way down to Dunwich headland to scare to death those unfortunate enough to see him cross their path. )Adapted from my Suffolk Ghost Book, Spectral Suffolk)
Libraries & Research in (fictional) Dunwich
It is likely the players will want to grub around and look stuff up. This means they need to consider access to the various libraries, newspapers and museums of Dunwich. Unfortunately lots of documentation is distributed in different archives and collections, but dedicated effort can pay off…
Libraries
Newspapers
East Anglia in 1988 has two major regional daily newspapers…The East Anglian Daily Times, always called the EADT by locals which maintains a small Dunwich Office on the High Street above Clarks Shoe Shop, and the Eastern Daily Press referred to as the EDP which maintains a small office on the Thursday Market. The EDP has more of an East Suffolk and Norfolk emphasis to my mind, the EADT more inclined to reports from Essex and the west of the County, though it prints an East Suffolk edition for Dunwich, Ipswich and Lowestoft readers. (NB: in 2005 the EDP concentrates on Norfolk, the EADT on Suffolk and Essex).
The Eastern Daily Press dates back to October 10th, 1870, and the EADT to 1890. Both are fully archived at the Record Office in Keble Street.
A third regional newspaper, The Suffolk Free Press existed from 1850 to 1951, before closing. It’s local version, the Dunwich Free Press still comes out each Thursday, and is the primary newspaper read for local news by Dunwich folk who choose to buy a paper. A thick weekly almost anything happening in the Dunwich region is worthy of some attention, and the often sermonising editorials and deeply conservative columnists are often amusing to an outsider. Local headlines include such past classics as “Garden bonfire gets out of control”, “Frost killed Prize Marrow” and “Woman has Purse Stolen” (it subsequently turned up in her handbag). The large offices and Press are based on Walberswick Road, and the News Room welcome stories.
The DFP offices also publishes the Dunwich Gazette, a weekly freebie delivered on Mondays throughout the town and 90% advertising. The Gazette is rivalled by the Dunwich Eye published on Wednesdays, and distributed wherever paperboys do not throw it in the Estuary, by Pickman Group Papers of Ipswich.
The Historian may be interested in these newspapers available at Dunwich Record Office (and largely based on real newspapers)-
The following are (fictitious, based on Ipswich) past Dunwich papers…
The Nightlife of (fictional) Dunwich
Dunwich supports quite a varied night life, because of the student population (ok, only 1,570 but still more than most Suffolk towns), the large hinterland of villages, and the summer tourist population. While pubs predominate there are a few nightclubs, bars and restaurants.
Nightclubs of Dunwich
While Dunwich is not a major resort town, there are several small clubs.
Dancing In The Dark is a converted cinema on the High Street. The downstairs is today Anglian Windows, and the side door always flanked by bouncers leads to a steep staircase which winds up to the large bar space and dancefloor. The club is decorated in smoked black glass and polished metal, with russet furnishings. Comfortable, fairly spacious and with a sprung wood dancefloor the carpets are inevitably sticky from the traditional student drink of Snakebite and Black.
It’s open several nights, with Friday and Saturday traditionally townie nights, and students dominating Mondays and Wednesdays. The schedule is
Cowboy Joes Really just a bar with a late license, open Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Wild West decor, minute dance floor, and both types of music, Country and Western, washed down with generous helpings of rock n roll nostalgia on Saturday nights, and Elvis every night. The bouncers are from the family who own it, and brook absolutely no nonsense, and the average age is thirties and up. Students will probably not get through the door, unless with their parents.
Discotheque 1999 – on the Pier, this is really what it sounds like. Glitterballs,loads of ‘futuristic’ metallic foil, staff in “space age” foil uniforms. Closed n off season (from mid-September to April) so fairly irrelevant to the game, but horror stories are told of it. Caters exclusively to tourists of all ages, and often has minor TV celebrity guest dj’s. It look like a metal portacabin, and the sp[ace theme is done to death in a really tasteless fashion. If only it were summer you could enjoy the nightly wet tee shirt contests. Just thank your lucky stars karaoke is still to come to England!
Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!
Dunwich is a seaside resort town, albeit a small one. Since the 1970's and the advent of cheap package holidays and the fashion for holidaying abroad, the seafront has slipped in to decline, and its faded grandeur is in places, well tatty. The college year opens in late September, when the cutting wind off the North Sea and seasonal sea fog has driven all but the hardiest of tourists away, and as a result the Front is closed, shuttered and often partially deserted.
I shall describe a few of the landmarks of the Front here. Imagine them rainswept, grey and littered with the rubbish of the summer holidaymakers...
The Beach
The sandy beach at Dunwich is the reason for the tourism, and while it has not won any awards for cleanliness in years, and the water quality is dubious, some people do swim heres till. The currents can be treacherous, and the flag system is operated from May to October, warning when it is dangerous to go out. The beach is relatively wide, but the drop off under water is sudden, and summer bathing fatalities are not unknown. The council does make a dedicated effort to clean the beach of rubbish however, and litter pickers operate each evening at sunset, even off season, just as beachcombers greet each dawn all year round. Fishermen are not uncommon, using rod and line rather than the crab fishing one sees in the harbour.
The beach is never empty during the day except in rainstorms, or unless one walks up all the way to where it peters out among the cliffs. Great black groynes break it up,sticking in to the sea, and a line of tiny beach huts can provide shelter from the wind, flanked by the desolate shuttered ice cream and fish and chip sheds, closed for the winter. The eerie shrieks of circling seagulls resonate across the wintry sands; but then living in Dunwich, the crawk of the seagull is the soundtrack to dy to day life. Out at sea great passenger ferries bound for Scandinavia sail stately past, bound for or just out of Harwich, and on a clear night one can just about make out the flares of far away oil rigs on the Dogger Bank.
A strip of grass separates The Promenade from the beach, and it has a small Victorian public toilets, open all night, and a number of park benches set among attractive flowers dying with the frosts. Ten pence will allow use of the Telescope mounted at the viewpoint, which allows a wonderful look at the expanse of grey heaving icy water, and the freezing white foaming waves. If you are lucky you might see a porpoise or even a seal, but they are uncommon here now, and the seals never beach.
The smell of rotting seaweed, dead fish and salt water permeates everything. When the weather is poor, a beach out of season is a godforsaken, desolate place.
The Pier
The Victorian Pier projects from close to Bryant Bros. Amusement Park for a hundred and fifty yards out in to the North Sea. Few fall off it, owing to the iron fence which runs along the edge, but standing looking over the edge the twelve foot down in to the raging sea can be unnerving.
The entrance is a large gaudy wood and iron frontage, with two turnstiles, a locked fire exit gate, a small ticket office and a kitchen/toilet for staff. In winter the decrepit caretaker Herbert Wrongdon appears at dawn to unlock, and locks up again an hour after dusk, taking £3 from anglers for a days fishing from the end of the pier. At night security guards are paid to visit, and occasionally drive up, and more irregularly unlock and wander round with flashlights.
The Pier can be divided in to three sections.
The Bryant Bros. Amusements Park
Churches of (fictional) Dunwich
Churches
The Medieval Guilds of Dunwich (which persist to this day in the form of businessmens clubs and dominate the local Chamber of Commerce) derive their names from the major parish churches of Dunwich. The most important ecclesiastical building is clearly the Gothic Cathedral dedicated to Our Lady Stella Maris (Star of the Sea). The current Bishop of Dunwich is the Right Reverend Robert Curtaigne, who sits in the House of Lords, and the Dean is the Rev. Harold Wyke. The Cathedral was established by Saint Felix. The Bishop of Dunwich appointed by Sigebert, he met Sigebert in France. The Pope Honorius authorised Felix as Bishop of East Anglia. He is an obscure saint, but his cult was popular in Soham, Cambridgeshire, from where his remains were taken out of East Anglia during a relic raid by a rival monastery in the Middle Ages. A Native Burgundian his own copy of the gospel, written in Lombard characters, was held at Eye for centuries and oaths sworn upon it - it was known as the Red Book of Eye. His feast day is March 8th.
The Cathedral also contains the Shrine of St. Sigebert, King of East Anglia, who retired to the monastic life at Bury St Edmunds in 635. When the pagan King of the Mercians, Penda, invaded, he was forced against his will to lead the army. He chose to ride unarmed but for an ash wand, and was slain on the field of battle, a true and holy pacificistic martyr. His feast day is January 25th, and he is patron Saint of Dunwich.
The Cathedral is worthy of its own entry, which will follow when I find the time.
Other Churches.
King George Dock and North Quay District
The King George Dock was opened in 1923 because the Old Docks were no longer able to handle the increasing larger cargo ships. It can accommodate ships of 800ft in length, 100ft in breadth and with a maximum draught of 40ft. Large, four storey reinforced concrete warehouses - built in linear style - line the sides of the North Quay and there is a rail link between it and the King George Dock. There are also about a dozen rail mounted cranes, each 115ft tall and installed in the 1970's, alongside the Dock itself as well as the railway marshaling yard and turntable. These last two are located between the Dock and Quay as is the container yard that covers several acres.
The King George Dock was the scene of the Dunwich Explosion in 1942 when a munitions vessel, the S.S. Elsinore Castle, exploded killing 27 people.
There is a rail link from the marshaling yard to Dunwich, which crosses the entrance of the Dock via a steel lattice swing bridge. This was originally powered by diesel engines, but was converted to electic drive in 1952.
Marine Parade, which runs along the east side of North Quay, was built in 1921-23 and is incoporated into the elevated concrete and rock causeway forming the modern sea defences. This was built to not only provide vehicular access to the the ferry terminal at the the northern end of the Quay, but to improve on the cast-iron Victorian groynes, which were considered inadequate by the 1920's. The Art Deco ferry terminal was completed in 1925 and steamers ran a service from Dunwich to Copenhagen, Gothenburg and Rotterdam until 1963, when cheap foreign holidays finally forced it to close. It now houses the Dunwich Harbour Master's office and a local Customs & Excise office.
Two jetties jutting out on the seaward side of Marine Parade and adjacent to the ferry terminal, enabled ferries to tie up. These are now used by private craft such as yachts. Pleasure steamers could also dock at the Quay itself. Further down the coast is the pleasure pier built in 1896. As you'd expect for the period, it is a very ornate iron construction with wooden decking.
Business has declined since World War II, now the docks only handle 500,000 tons of cargo a year and Harwich has taken over the North Sea ferry traffic due to the relative remoteness of Dunwich.
At night the Docks and North Quay are almost deserted, though patrolled by pairs of security guards, and with a skeleton night staff. Most of the modern warehouses are 24 hour however, and if you looked inside you would find a scene of bustling activity, as betrayed by the occasional container lorry coming in and out. The whole area is guarded by barbed wire and chain link fence like a modern industrial estate, and some floodlights cover busy thoroughfares and the carparks.There are two entrance gates, though entry by boat, swimming or walking along the railroad tracks is an easy way round the fence.
Donovan's Burgers provides coffee and Burgers from 12 midnight till 2am, and from 8am to 2pm, and is a small caravan parked in the car park. Workers from different warehouses or busy unloading a night arrival in port sometimes gather here to fraternize. The Harbour Masters office is also open 24/7, with at least two staff, on duty, and usually two Dunwich pilots playing darts on standby as well. During the day heavy lorries, busy warehouse workers and gangs of dockers make this quite a busy area, and security is fairly lax.
Naseby House, Hall of Residence
A self catering hall of residence on King's Road, Dunwich. Home to 17 students and one member of staff, the warden Donald, who is a new lecturer in Cultural Studies. Relatiely expensive, and a good 15 minute walk from the main campus.
1988 Residents
Basement - Warden's Flat (Donald), Launderette, bathrooms, boiler room, cleaner's cupboard.
Ground floor
Ed - room 1 - 2nd year, from Farnborough,sports student.
Laura - ( 3rd year senior Student) - room 2, plays hockey and lacrosse. Verry attractive.
Kate - room 3 - 2nd year, new ager, irritable, indeed most say bitchy. Incense and her kimono her trademarks.
Frank - room 4, 2nd year from Ely, muscular, religion student. Handsome
They have the largest kitchen, and Laura's room has a en suite toilet and shower.
First Floor
Louis Clutterbuck- room 1 - mature student (back right)[Kev]
veronica Isabella Dee- room 2 (front right) [Luke]
Clovis Lockwood- room 3 – [DC] (front left)
Clare Mayfair- room 4 [Ben] (back left)
Has a kitchen and toilet.
Second Floor
The Sports student girls
Nessie- room 1 – sports student, leader of these ladies, from Macclesfield.
Evelyn- room 2 – sports student, sings along loudly to various awful bands.
- room 3
Dora – room 4 – sports student, very strong.
Liz – room 5 – sports student, friendly.
This floor has its own bathrooms and toilet as well as small kitchen.
Third Floor
The Christian Union Girls
Room 1 – Belinda, from Coventry, 2nd year Religion
Room 2 – Diane, from Aylesury, doing History/religion in 2nd year
Room 3 – Amy from Dartmouth doing geography. Very pretty. 2nd year.
Room 4 – Clare from Birmingham doing 2nd year religion.
Room 5 – Severina Harris in theory, 2nd year religion student. rarely if ever sleeps in halls though, but pays the fees.
There is a toilet at top of stairs, and a reasonable kitchen.
The Attic
Off limits to students, and heavily locked, the door is on the front left of the third floor.
That’s as far as I got in the background rather than plot and NPC. Thought might amuse somebody!
cj x
CJ is scared of a ghost – in his dreams
How odd, I actually woke up last night in the middle of the night, startled awake by a nightmare. And I was startled awake by the one thing I would never expect to scare me at all – a dream about ghosts…
My memory is that it was a highly visual dream – for years people have asked me, do you dream in colour, to which I reply, no, “I dream in text”. The dreams that I recall when I awake are just that – as if I have been reading a book, formatted and grammatically correct. Last night I had a full blown technicolour “as if I was there” dream – and it managed to frighten me!
Now the details probably are not interesting to anyone, but the dream geography was exact and consistent – I was in Australia, staying in a hotel built in the 19th century, adjacent to a vineyard. The terrain was rocky and not at all what I would expect from Oz, but with well watered lush gardens. The building complex featured small gatehouse or “castle” built in the 19th century, which served as a hotel, then a large house where a number of my friends were staying, in th centre of the grounds, then a larger, possibly larger bungalow I think – but that gives no concept of the buildings scale or magnificence – I’d say it was a fine modern house, a mansion in fact. The ground sloped up, from gatehouse to bungalow, and I was investigating spook claims in the top house. I had one male colleague staying with me, I forget who, and within a few hours we had been forced out by the phenomena – I recall frantically trying to fix the fuses when the lights blew, and a real sense of mounting terror. We retreated to the middle property, where we met Amanda a girl who I knew at college, among other members of the old Student Parapsychology Society, then all retreated to the gatehouse.
So the point of the dream seemed to be “CJ gets defeated by a genuine ghost.” Of course it was a modern ghost – because that is what I find scary. Not Victorian maidens rustling around staircases wailing, but the ghosts of the years I have been alive. There is nothing like a haunted shopping mall or a haunted service station to be creepy when stuff kicks off. Still, odd I should be so disconcerted and forced awake by nothing more than a dream! 
cj x
CJ on uni life…
I was slightly disappointed today to find the Rev whose blog I commented on (and disagreed with) over family nights – see has turned his blog off –see http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/family-nights-in-with-satan/ — but as he was giving up blogging for Lent that was probably why. He could have just deleted my comment if too risque, though it was a honest historical account of my time at the University of Gloucestershire as is – perhaps more similar to a Dennis Wheatley novel filmed by Andy Warhol with a Velvet Underground and Jefferson Airplane soundtrack than the official version promoted by the Prospectus, but hey, that was exactly what my student experience was like. It was 1987-90 after all.
I seem to remember one of the few times I ever gained strong official displeasure was at an Open Day event for students and parents I was asked to speak at in the early 90′s where I was asked what the college (as was) drug scene was like. “Practically nonexistent” I replied, “maybe try somewhere else if that is your thing?” Sure I knew where you could get cannabis in town – skunk still had not arrived and it was all hash, and as the very smell of the stuff makes me queasy I was not that excited by the prospect -and I loathe skunk – but honestly there was no real drug scene in the uni in those days. That was to change I guess – after ’92 or so I had no interest. Anyway this earned me a telling off — I won’t say who from — for putting students off!
Still those were different times… I did my undergrad dissertation on A Comparison of the Mystical and Psychedelic Drug Induced Experience, had long hair and wore a painted leather jacket (with quotes from Laibach and Marinetti’s 1909 Futurist Manifesto on!) and hung around with a tweedy conservative, a pipe smoking public school boy given to manic folk dancing to punk classics, a northern football obsessed romantic poet, a Marillion fan who drank like a maniac, and of course a gay nazi wizard. In short much like most people’s uni experience I’m guessing? Oh, and Beast Rabban, so add some beastliness in to the mix, and play it out in the Christian Union, Student Ghosthunting Society, and SU bar of the countries only Christian University from 1987 to the birth of the new millennium. It probably does not make however for the kind of blog comments on uni life todays clergy approve of…
Anyway this has got me thinking about the church, Trinity, St. Peters, St. Pauls, and my relationship with such. I think this will make an interesting theme to write on – but for today, well I have to dash out. I think an awful lot of my friends (barring Beast, H and Liz of course my fellow Christians) are bemused by my Christianity, and even more so by my work in apologetics and the mission field. I wonder where else they would expect to find me but on the intellectual front line? Hey, that’s a future blog post! Time to go…
cj x
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