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Tell your friends about us!House of Ghosts
- Thread starter Wiener
- Start date
Wiener
Active Member
The history of this ghost is, perhaps, not as dramatic as the image suggests! But I have fond memories of this house as it once was. My best friend from Primary School (5 to 11 year olds) lived here. His father worked on the farm on which this little house sits, and indeed the house would most likely have come with the job, with free rent as part of his salary. This was very common in Scotland, although I think the tradition has more-or-less died out during the last quarter-century.
What I have particularly fond memories of was watching television here. My father, for reasons that I still can't quite understand, was dead against the concept of television in the home, so I used to head off to this house to poison my brain with whatever I was allowed to watch there!
Saturday afternoon wrestling, Lost in Space, Dr. Who, The Man from Uncle, The Avengers...I particularly liked a feature which ran late on Friday nights called 'The Hammer House of Horror'. This featured (in glorious black and white), horror films starring Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and many others that I can no longer remember. The atmosphere was perfect there for such films...it was very dark outside in the country, away from the lights of the village where I lived. The house was also the home to families of mice which nibbled and scratched inside the walls as we watched the horror films. Afterwards I can still so clearly remember cycling home with my little legs flying round as fast as they would go, whilst the moon cast big black shadows beneath the trees which I had to pass to get back to the safety of the village...
Anyway, I guess the house fell into disrepair when my friend’s parents retired and had to leave the house. Farms were becoming increasingly mechanised at that time, so farm workers were required less and less. It was a bad time for farm cottages. Now, many have been modernised and used for holiday or other lets to give the landowners more income. I have no idea why this one was deemed unsuitable for modernisation. Perhaps it was just to complicated, as it was originally two houses. Indeed, when you were in the upstairs room on one side of the house, you had to go down one stair and then up the other one to get across!
My friend’s parents both died many years ago, as indeed did my friend; quite how he died I never did discover. All I know is that it happened in New Zealand where he had been working as psychiatric nurse.
This was my first visit back to the ‘house of ghosts’ since 1974. Although in poor shape, it still possesses so many memories…
Andy
What I have particularly fond memories of was watching television here. My father, for reasons that I still can't quite understand, was dead against the concept of television in the home, so I used to head off to this house to poison my brain with whatever I was allowed to watch there!
Saturday afternoon wrestling, Lost in Space, Dr. Who, The Man from Uncle, The Avengers...I particularly liked a feature which ran late on Friday nights called 'The Hammer House of Horror'. This featured (in glorious black and white), horror films starring Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and many others that I can no longer remember. The atmosphere was perfect there for such films...it was very dark outside in the country, away from the lights of the village where I lived. The house was also the home to families of mice which nibbled and scratched inside the walls as we watched the horror films. Afterwards I can still so clearly remember cycling home with my little legs flying round as fast as they would go, whilst the moon cast big black shadows beneath the trees which I had to pass to get back to the safety of the village...
Anyway, I guess the house fell into disrepair when my friend’s parents retired and had to leave the house. Farms were becoming increasingly mechanised at that time, so farm workers were required less and less. It was a bad time for farm cottages. Now, many have been modernised and used for holiday or other lets to give the landowners more income. I have no idea why this one was deemed unsuitable for modernisation. Perhaps it was just to complicated, as it was originally two houses. Indeed, when you were in the upstairs room on one side of the house, you had to go down one stair and then up the other one to get across!
My friend’s parents both died many years ago, as indeed did my friend; quite how he died I never did discover. All I know is that it happened in New Zealand where he had been working as psychiatric nurse.
This was my first visit back to the ‘house of ghosts’ since 1974. Although in poor shape, it still possesses so many memories…
Andy