Tony Walker [Walker - Cumbrian Ghost Stories

This is a collection of sixteen short stories in different styles and set in different time periods set in the modern county of Cumbria, though the stories acknowledge that once what is Cumbria was Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire North of the Sands and parts of North Yorkshire.

Some are traditional ghost stories, a some are more horror stories of the kind I used to read in the caravan at Allonby on school holidays. These would be The Demon Clock of Mosedale, The Fortunetellers Fate and The Highest Inn in England.

As the collection grew, I began to become interested in using old stories for inspiration. The Little Man of Carlisle, the Bewcastle Fairies and the Mallerstang Boggle are based on actual legends, though I have made them into pieces of fiction that bear little resemblance now.

The Grizedale Wedding is a longer piece which is probably inspired by Angela Carter and The Company of Wolves.

I have tried to cover most of the county, but have left out some places inevitably. I was saying to my partner that I had been to every village in Cumbria but then I went to Little Urswick and the next day to Hethersgill, which Id never been to before, so there is still more to explore.

The Beast of Barrow and The Devils Visit to Kirkby Lonsdale are at the planning stage!

I suppose my influences are mainly three: classic M R James type ghost stories, H P Lovecraft style weird tales and Folk Horror.

I hope that both local Cumbrians and visitors will enjoy the stories and be able to link them to places they know and have visited.

Tony Walker

Maryport

September 2019

John Bragg was a coal-miner. He was a friend of my grandfather William Fell. In the early 1960s, they worked at various pits around the West Cumberland coalfield, moving from one to another as they were closed down. There was a particular pit that he worked at near a village called Siddick on the coast. Theyve landscaped the area now and theres no trace that there was ever a mine there.

Miners are traditionally superstitious men. Their lives hang on a thread when they are underground. There are so many ways they can die by earth as the rock collapses on them, by fire as a spark from their picks ignites the invisible fire-damp gas, by water as the sea breaks in and floods the galleries that run miles out under the sea, and finally by air - as the dreadful sucking gas known as choke-damp steals all their oxygen.

Some men would refrain from washing their whole back as they sat in the tin baths in front of the fire when they came home from work. They said that if your whole back got washed, that was inviting it to get broken as if the bath water would wash its strength away so you couldnt withstand the falling rock.

They were all superstitious but John Bragg had a reputation for being the worst. He always took a scrap of blue silk with him when he went down the pit. It had belonged to his fiance Dorothy. They were due to get married but the Asian Flu took Dorothy. That was years ago, but he wanted no one else. The men he worked with were hard men, and they didnt tolerate weakness in others, but they never mocked John for his bit of silk. They knew how her death had affected him and they knew that even beyond the grave, he still loved her.

There was one gallery deep down in the mine that had a reputation for being haunted: The Ladys Gallery. I suppose that during it being worked men must have died down there but oddly, the reports of the ghost, such as they were, never referred to men. It wasnt dead miners that haunted the gallery but something different. Something that shouldnt ever be down a mine at all.

People used to avoid going down there unless they had a specific job. It was off the main thoroughfare the long tunnel that they took on their way to the coalface way out under the sea. Even though it was out of the way, the Ladys Gallery was a handy place to store things - things like wheels for the bogeys that transported the coal or bricks for building walls or any other structures that they might need underground and general odds and ends that kept the mine ticking. My grand-dad said that what scared the people who went to the Ladys Gallery were the odd noises. They said that the worst was the sound of rustling silk as if someone was rubbing the material between their fingers: always behind you and always in the dark. As if it was standing there in the shadows, just outside where the light reached. As if it was watching you.

Most of the time the thing in the Ladys Gallery was forgotten about. There was a job to do - the coal had to be hewn, and the sea kept out. However, there was an upsurge in interest in the story after one miner reported hearing it when he went to the Ladys Gallery. This man had a reputation as a bit of a clown and so no one took the story seriously. They thought it was just him trying to get some attention. No one took it seriously that is apart from John Bragg. The story of The Ladys Gallery seemed to obsess him. People didnt like to ask him why he was always talking about the story, because he seemed so eager and strange about it.

One time, my grandfather did ask him. He felt he knew him well enough to pull his leg about his fixation on the place, after all they had been boys together. But when William Fell asked him why he seemed able to think of nothing else, John Bragg just smiled a strange smile and said, I know who it is.

Who what is? said William.

Who it is that rustles the silk.

My grandfather half guessed, but asked anyway. And who is it?

John pulled the scrap of blue silk from his pocket where he always kept it and rubbed it between his fingers. Its her; its my Dorothy.

William thought he was half mad and changed the subject.

Then the next day, John tried to persuade him to go to The Ladys Gallery when they had finished their shift.

William said, When Im finished in the pit, Im going home. I spend too many hours in the dark as it is.

John tried to persuade him. If we just waited there, Im sure wed hear it.

If we miss the end of our shift, we might have to wait a long time for the cage to come back below. Id hate them to forget about us down here. He tried to force some humour, despite how uneasy he felt at seeing Johns frantic, eager eyes.

John said, But shes come here for me. I cant ignore her.

Ignore who? said my grandfather, exasperated.

Dorothy. Shes come here to talk to me.

My grandfather looked at him in silence. Could John really believe that his dead bride had returned from grave to meet him in the inky blackness of a coal mine, away from the bustle of the work, in a place so silent itself that the only sounds were men working miles away or the dripping of water from the roof?

You cant be serious. he said finally.

John nodded. I know in my heart, Bill. She comes and whispers to me at night; she tells me to come and meet her down there. And then he looked embarrassed as if hed just disclosed a terrible personal secret. All his hope was in his eyes the hope of a man that death had cheated of love.