ISSUE 2 – JULY/AUGUST 2014 – FREE
Ludlow’s roost returns Paul the vinyl man St Leonard’s fallen tombstones Pint of Guinness with Douglas A gallon of facts about local beer Sandpits’ shoe-string pigeon loft Liz’s allotment Local youth speak out
“...something about spying a lingering shape on the north facing tower steps soon convinces me that my horse-like nerves have not waned” MORE than anything, the thing I aspired to be, when I was 11 going on 12, was a ghost hunter – eagerly hanging in wait for something headless, or horse-drawn. You would find me around the local churches, honing my skills – armed with little more than a Polaroid camera, a common household thermometer, a tub of talc and a general uneasiness that would indeed impress a horse. Aside from conjuring up evermore elaborate reasons for going out only when dark, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened, but this did little to dampen my enthusiasm as
I forever wandered about local bell towers, asking if anybody was there. There wasn’t. Jump ahead thirty years – and I now live a stone’s throw from a walled-up monk, a dead dog walker, and two wafting ladies; which got me thinking.... I’m no better equipped – aside from being able to stay out late without asking mum or dad, and having to climb out of the bedroom window if they said no – so I find myself breaking a three-decade old sabbatical as a ghost hunter without an EVP recorder, EMF meter, motion sensor, or even a thermal camera.
But I did have a willing cameraman, and a wish to wonder once again. “Is there anybody there?” Ludlow castle is home to the town’s most told ghost story, so it seemed pretty obvious to start my most adventurous ghost hunt since puberty in search of the beautiful Marion de Bruer – who, it is said, orchestrated the escape of Sir Arnold de Lys – a castle prisoner at the time. De Lys returned some time later, to romance said lady secretly and with him he brought Walter de Lacy and an army of 100 soldiers. Continued on page 18 >
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