Meet my main characters - Jean Francis - HIGH SPIRITS

Here’s your chance to get to know the main characters in HIGH SPIRITS

So, what’s HIGH SPIRITS all about?

1944 – ALEC EDWARDS’ world was opened up when he fell in love with JEAN FRANCIS. From the quiet confines of his orderly museum where everything was catalogued, labelled and recorded, he had been propelled into the chaotic realms of romantic attachment. This was during the Second World War, a time of air raids, bombings and rationing. Then the ‘worst’ happened. Alec and Jean were in the museum after hours when the air raid sirens went. Alec, ever the vigilant curator, was loathed to leave his precious collections out of its case and vulnerable and insisted on finishing the job. Jean is less than impressed and a dispute ensued and just as she is in the middle of delivering a right royal ear bashing when the bomb lands…..

It’s 70 something years since the bomb fell and the museum is staging an anniversary exhibition. Part of the original bomb, which caused extensive damage to a wing of the museum is going on display, alongside objects relating to the life and work of Alec. BETHAN ANDREWS is at her wit's end. As the curator of the museum she is leading on the exhibition but there is one small problem – Alec’s life was dedicated to the curation and collection of objects and little is known in the museum about him personally. The museum’s board of trustees has insisted on the anniversary being recognized so in desperation she puts out a public plea for help via the local paper. PATRICK HARMAN, Alec’s great-great nephew, responds.

In the meantime, the local rag has pricked up its ears. Alerted by Bethan’s call for help, a reporter has unearthed a long forgotten tale of ghostly lights and apparitions in the museum; of dead curators seeking their lost treasure. This led to the wealthy but totally batty BASTIAN HEDGES, the producer of the global phenomenon The Ghost Doctor ©, to bribe the Trustees with a big fat cheque, in return for filming his Midsummer Special in the museum.

Patrick arrives with his grandfather, POP, a cantankerous old man, at the museum with memorabilia. Much to Bethan’s horror, she realizes that she and Patrick have crossed paths before as students, in particular at the Student Summer Ball, when Bethan threw her principles to the wind and had a drunken night of passion with Patrick. She is relieved when he appears not to recall her at all. However, she shouldn’t relax. He is just being a gentleman and not letting on! For him, rather than being a blur of alcohol and regret, he rather liked her but then the cold light of day dawn and Bethan was in denial. Now they are thrown back together.

What none of them could realise is…the ghost stories are true; the curator does haunt the museum. The day the bomb dropped, it did more than just damage the wing, it killed Alec and Jean and they’ve spent the past 70 years watching the world go by aided and abetted by a much older ghost, that of POL, an eleven-year-old girl from the Iron Age.

The stage is now set for some ghostly intervention and for love to conquer all.

In this post, we’re going to meet JEAN FRANCIS

What is the name of your character?

Meet Jean Francis Born, lived and died in Plimpton Market, a town set in the rolling South Downs.

When and where is the story set?

The story begins during the war with the prologue to set the scene as to how Alec and Jean met and fell in love before their untimely demise. It then moves onto the present day and picks up on the characters that work in the museum – Bethan, Patrick, Sal, Billy, and Seth. Unbeknown to them, their every move is being observed by three very mischievous ghosts.

What should we know about her?

Jean loves life. She’s only 21 and had a job as a secretary in the law firm of Clipper, Clipper and Boughton. She likes to go to the Roxy on a Saturday night and dance, although it’s not what it was before the war! She enjoys putting on a special dress and doing her hair for a night out. She’s from one of the prominent families in Plimpton Market, although they have been somewhat snubbed due to a scandal decades before.

She doesn’t take to dying very easily (well, who does?) and feels lost and out of place in the museum – which by her own admission, she’d never stepped foot in prior to her courtship with Alec.

What is the main conflict?

It’s taken Jean some time to adjust to eternity especially as Alec revels in being in his beloved museum 24/7. Her transition has been helped by the presence of Pol and gradually she began to view the museum as her home into which she welcomed visitors –even if those visitors couldn’t see her.

She often wonders about her relationship with Alec and whether she would have managed his proclivities if they’d lived. Sometimes, she wishes she could move on.

What are her personal relationships like and how do they shape her character?

Jean had been brought up in the knowledge that her family, although with a stain on their reputation due to the affair of an ancestor, were something in the town. Her parents were of independent means, although her father expected both her and her sister, Violet, to earn a living. She’d been given the job of secretary on the back of her father being a member of the local Freemasons lodge so she’d never really experienced hardship

Her relationship with Alec came as a surprise to her friends and was frowned upon by her family who hoped that one of the daughters would marry into one of the still socially respectable families and thus restore their own reputation by association.

Alec really wasn’t the type that one would image Jean being attached to but there you go – love is blind!

Seventy-something years have not dulled her love of Alec but revealing herself to Bethan opens her world up far more than if she had lived and given her something to hold onto.

How do I get a copy?

HIGH SPIRITS is now available to download from across the Amazon market to your Kindle or Kindle apps for £3.99 or in paperback for £9.99

Flash Sale - starts tomorrow!

To celebrate the release of HIGH SPIRITS on January 6th I'm discounting Since You've Been Gone and Tales for the Fireside (ebooks) to 99p for 48 hours over the weekend 15-16 December.

Find out more by visiting my Facebook page or visit my webpage

Haunted Mansions - part four

My final haunted mansion is Michelham Priory.

Michelham Priory, founded in 1229, was in service to the church up until the Desolation of the Monasteries in the 16th Century.

The church was subsequently demolished, and the main building was turned into a home.

The most notable ghost to haunt the site is that of Thomas Sackville, a prior owner of the site. In life, he was an unpleasant man and continued his disagreeable behaviour in death. He takes great delight in upsetting visitors by pushing or striking them, and it is rumoured that another spirit that of a young girl is so scared of him that she takes refuge at the top of the stairs.

Of course, no respectable haunted house would be without a lady whether they be white, grey or any other colour. Michelham Priory has its own Grey Lady. She is often seen wandering by the bridge and the gatehouse. Sometimes, she is reported to have been seen staring mournfully into the waters of the moat, perhaps grieving for the loss of a child who drowned therein. Slightly more unnerving are the reports of her staring into the faces of sleeping guests.

Poltergeist activity has also been reported with doors and windows which slam seemingly of their own accord.

In my forthcoming novel HIGH SPIRITS which will be published on January 6, 2018, the young ghost called Pol is exceedingly scared of an unknown entity that roams the museum. Through the power of her longevity, she is able to keep him at bay and away from Alec and Jean but as her two friends, emboldened by their new friendship with Bethan, exercise powers of their own, the malevolent spirit becomes increasingly hostile.

Well, this ends my short series on haunted mansions, but I’d like to finish by telling you about my own experiences of working in haunted buildings.

For many years I worked at Dover Castle, probably one of the finest medieval castles in the world.

The most famous ghost is that of the Headless Drummer Boy who reputedly haunts the battlements near the Constable Tower.

Like all of these things, this tale has grown over the years.

In 1945 the Dover Express reported:

Dover Express - Friday 02 March 1945

And Now a Ghost!

The latest stunt about Dover is the "discovery" of a ghost story for the Castle. Until this year people - to whom the Castle has been a familiar friend for years - had never heard about "The Headless Drummer." The "Evening News" this week published an elaboration of the story published a month ago. The gist of this story is that in battles or skirmishes 200 years ago near the Castle a drummer had his head shot off, and that, as it could not be found, he was buried without it, and now his ghost patrols the moat on the night of each full moon, and then disappears with his drum into an underground passage.

To begin with, there were no battles or skirmishes near the Castle 200 years ago. The "Evening News" story about this ghost declares that at the end of the last century a young Guards officer spent a night in "the haunted underground passages," and in the morning had become a gibbering, white-haired madman, unable to give any account his experiences. We have recently been told that an article appeared in the "Strand Magazine" describing this episode. It should be easy, if this be true, to produce the date of the article and the name of the young Guards officer. Not a single writer on the Castle appears to have heard about this 200 years old ghost, of which stories suddenly turn up in 1945!

On Tuesday, the "News Chronicle" produced a new version the Headless Drummer's fate. This story is that he was murdered whilst in charge of the Regiment's pay. This bears a suspicious resemblance to the Ingoldsby Legend of the "Dead Drummer." But that gruesome episode occurred on Salisbury Plain. The “Daily Mail," on Wednesday, reported that the Brigadier at Dover had stopped the Ghost Hunt which was the latest development of this ghost stunt. The "Mail" describes the story as the most persistent legend in Dover. Till a month ago, no one had heard of it. The Brigadier was right to stop the Castle being made a laughing stock.

Dover Express - Friday 13 July 1945

CASTLE GHOST NONSENSE.

The "Daily Express," on Friday last, contained in its Hickey's column a nonsensical account of alleged manifestations by the recently invented "Headless Drummer." This is what the "Daily Express" published:-

"Legpull - not so gentle - reported from Dover Castle, where the superstitious think that dreary drummer boy's ghost is walking again. The Castle's new Deputy Constable, Brigadier H. E. Pickering, M.C., is living in the Constable's Tower, a few yards from where the drummer boy is supposed to take his stroll. In the past 24 hours, says a soldier in the garrison these things have happened to the unhappy brigadier:— "His monocle has been snatched from his eye and discovered underneath him; his silk dressing-gown has torn itself to shreds; his spectacles have disappeared from his pocket; his walking-stick disappeared; then, in the afternoon, the brigadier's personal pennant slowly lowered itself, and the missing stick appeared in its place... Drummer boy will get confined to barracks if he doesn't watch out."

[The story of a Drummer Boy's ghost appears to be a war-time invention for the delectation and horrification of our wartime guests and pandering Pressmen, to whom any stunt is acceptable. The Editor of this paper has been a constant visitor to the Castle for many years, and never heard word of this legend from guides, who certainly were expansive in their talks. Not a word of it has appeared in any published Castle folklore.]

Over the course of 12 years at Dover Castle, I have heard reports of ghostly experiences from trusted colleagues. One such was the sighting of a gentleman dressed in 17th century clothing seen by one of my former colleagues as she swept the basement.

Many experiences were centred on the tunnels under the castle. One visitor complemented me and a colleague on the marvellous sound effects in the Underground Works, a series of medieval and Napoleonic tunnels. We informed him that no such effects were used down there and he went very pale. Concerned that someone had found their way into the lower levels we investigated but found nothing.

My own experience may have been a trick of the eye but upon closing up the keep (now grandly called The Great Tower), I thought I spotted a man entering what was then known as the King’s bedroom. I had been tasked with clearing the second floor along with a colleague, a rather tall, thin chap. As I turned, I thought I saw him going into this room, but only the lower part of his leg from below the knee, as it lifted off the ground to mount up into the room. Naturally, I called out that I had already checked that room only to find my colleague appear from another direction. Quickly, he checked the room but found no one and the only way out was through the door.

This tale was taken up (without credit to me, I might add!) on the popular television programme Most Haunted where the medium declared that the chap was called Michael and was some kind of high ranking servant to the king.

Hmmm…well, okay, if you say so!

Again, the tale has got bigger with each telling.

This was how it was reported on the pages of paranormal group who visited the castle for a night vigil in 1991:

On another occasion very recently, two female members of staff saw the lower half of a man's body crossing the doorway of the King's bedchamber during the evening search of the keep. The two witnesses followed the figure into the chamber only to find he had disappeared, and there was no other exit. Other members of staff were close by in the main hall at the time.

Well, nearly right, I suppose!

Sometimes, the half a leg is a whole leg and climbing the spiral stairs…

Moving on from Dover Castle, I next spent 13 years in the employ of the Colchester Museum Service (now Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service).

For the keep itself (misleadingly called Colchester Castle) I never felt much in the way of bad vibes. Even in the prison area.

In the Hollytrees Museum, a former home to the Gray and Round families, perfume and the smell of cooking could be sensed wafting through the house before any visitors had been in.

One day, a colleague came down from doing a patrol of the rooms to report that she wasn’t overly keen on the gentleman she’d seen at the top of the house. She’d said ‘hello’ but he’d glared at her.

It took a while but then I realised we’d only had about half a dozen visitors that day, being as it was winter and looking back on the videotape all were accounted for except a man - we’d had no men visiting us that day.

Feeling less than brave, we summoned a colleague from the castle who checked the whole house to make sure this man hadn’t secreted himself away somewhere. As the only way in and out was by the front desk, we could not explain it.

I personally, have heard what sounded like heavy footsteps pacing up and down in the room above where I was sitting at the front desk. Whilst two of my former colleagues both saw what looked like a lady in a dress, or rather the train of her dress, go by along what was once a corridor but is now blocked by the lift.

I think the only place I ever felt very uncomfortable in was the Natural History Museum in Colchester which is housed in a redundant church – All Saints.

All Saints parish is tiny; tucked at the end of the High Street. The church is surrounded by a small graveyard and underneath is a crypt into which the wealthier members of the parish were buried including Charles Grey, one-time owner of Hollytrees and the castle and its grounds.

One day, I and another member of staff were asked to go to the museum as the staff member on duty had reported a problem, possibly with the roof. Now, this gentleman is one of the calmest, most pragmatic people I ever knew so when he said that he heard a loud noise that sounded like slates falling from the roof, we believed him.

Neither myself nor my colleague could see any damage to the roof. To put things into perspective, the interior of the church is open to the roof and sound carries in very strange ways, but our colleague was insistent and, to be honest, he wasn’t one prone to histrionics. He described it as sounding like the tiles were slipping then crashing to the ground.

Another check confirmed that all tiles were intact.

About a year or so later, I was in the museum alone save for two elderly persons. All of a sudden there was a terrific noise which sounded like something sliding down the roof followed by an enormous crash. Just as my colleague had described. The two visitors also heard the noise and wondered about it.

Again, no external damage was found.

An interesting theory was put forward – not knowing how the crypt underneath was laid out, could it be possible that a coffin, perhaps sitting on a wooden shelf which had given way, had landed on a coffin below (this would account for the sliding and crashing sound) and that finally, unable to bear the weight any longer that coffin had finally fallen? Without being able to access the crypt, we can’t tell but it was a truly weird experience.

Haunted Mansion Part Three

Welcome back to my tour of haunted mansions.

In this post I've selected three wonderful buildings.

The first is Belgrave Hall, a Queen Anne-style Grade II* mansion, constructed as a family home for Edmund and Ann Craddock in 1709 in the city of Leicester. John Ellis, a businessman with connections to the Midland Counties Railways, purchased the mansion in 1847 as a home for him and his family of seven daughters.

The White Lady reputedly haunts the rooms of Belgrave Hall and is said to be one of these daughters, Charlotte.

Other apparitions seem to favour the Victorian garb, with one receiving the nickname 'Victorian Lady', whilst another is called 'the Green Lady' and 'the Grey Lady'.

Often, sightings are accompanied by smells of fresh bread and gingerbread.

After one of these spirits was caught on camera, a Paranormal Society was brought in to investigate and reportedly encountered a hostile male spirit, a child who had died of tuberculosis and a man who had died in a fall.

Another interesting sighting is a ghost from before the Hall was built.

Excerpt

Pol, on the other hand, had completely come to terms with her death. She’d been here before the Romans had found a use for the river; at a time when the Ancient Britons ruled the land.

For over two thousand years she’d been here, trapped inside various structures or none at all but tethered to the place she had lost her life at the age of eleven.

She’d witnessed the building of Partridge Hall, and the comings and goings of the families therein. She’d sat around their firesides of an evening watching the women sewing, or reading.

She’d sat on the landing when the balls were held, watching in wonder at the changing fashions until the last Partridge had departed this earth.

She had been at his bedside, as he took his final breath, she’d greeted his spirit as it left his body, not to linger, as she had done, but to rise up and be greeted by his long-gone relatives.

She had witnessed the transformation from family home to a museum, and she’d ached with longing for the days of laughter, of small children rushing through the room, of the singing around the piano at Christmas. For the first time, in a long, time, she’d felt alone – until that fateful night.

Next up: Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, Suffolk.

Christchurch Mansion, originally called 'Withipoll House' by its owner, is a Grade I listed Tudor era mansion which now serves as a museum.

The ghosts of Christchurch Mansion include a young Edwardian lady who witnesses describe as dancing and laughing in the upper picture gallery. Some even say she is accompanied by two young children.

Downstairs, a female spirit is seen. Described as a lady in grey who suddenly appears from nowhere and is recognisable by the swishing of her gown.

A third ghost, that of a young servant girl is said to have been seen in the property having passed away under mysterious circumstances.

Excerpt

“Have I ever told you, how beautiful you are?” he said.

Jean smiled.

Alec stood and held out his hands in an invite to dance. Jean placed her hand on his shoulder, and he cupped her other hand inside his and waltzed around the room. As they gathered momentum, the lights in the office began to flicker, as if someone were turning the switches on and off. Jean threw back her head and laughed as Alec guided her steps in a dance all their own.

Lastly, let's hear about Chillingham Castle in Northumberland, the seat of the Grey and Bennet families from the 15th century until the 1980s.

Originally a monastery, it commanded a strategic position between England and Scotland.

Today, Chillingham Castle enjoys the reputation as one of England’s most haunted castle.

From the White Pantry Ghost to the Voices in the Chapel, Chillingham has a chilling history of hauntings.

The White Pantry Ghost is that of a frail woman who appeared one nigh to the footman whose job it was to sleep in the inner pantry where the silver was kept.

He was about to turn in for the night when a woman in white begged him for some water. At first the man believed it to be a castle guest then realising that he’d locked the door, he quickly realised that it was not possible.

The pale figure is still seen to this day, begging for water leading some to believe that she was poisoned.

A dark creeping sensation has been felt in one of the chambers, leading to an oppressive atmosphere. Something unseen yet moving lurks therein.

In the Chapel beside the Great Hall, visitors often hear two men talking. Those who try and follow the sound of the voices soon find that the men have disappeared.

Excerpt

Pol had spotted the shadow, and her eyes grew wide with fear.

“I can’t,” her voice trembled. “He’s coming.”

Bethan followed Pol’s petrified stare. Some of the audience members closest to the wall looked down and could see the swirling mass.

Instinctively, they leapt back, causing their chairs to tip and in the attempt to not topple, they did topple into the laps of their neighbours who also jumped to get out of the way. The domino effect caused people to fall between chairs and then scramble to their feet. The chairs scraped against the tile flooring, causing gauges as the audience tried to get away from the creature that now had some shape, like a human on all fours, sniffing at the ground, blind to what it was trying to find.

“Pol,” said Bethan, trying to get the girl to focus, “Pol, listen to me, you must focus okay, we have to end this now!”

Pol nodded. “He took a pig skull into the store; its smell helped to mask the gas.”

The shadow began to rise, taking a new form, that of a man, with clothes that hung loosely on his gaunt frame.

Haunted Mansion - part two

In this post I'm taking a look at 50 Berkeley Square. Now, I don't know if this was the influence behind the name of 'The Ghosts of Berkeley Square' but if it's not then that's a bit coincidental, don't you think?

Berkeley Square sits in Mayfair, Central London, in a highly exclusive area. In the middle is a large green space around which is ranged the houses. Within walking distance is Hyde Park, The Mall, St James's Palace and Buckingham Palace.

It feels like a wildly unlikely place to find a haunting, amidst the bustle of life in the capital.

Charles Harper in Haunted Houses, published in 1907 stated that

“… It seems that a Something or Other, very terrible indeed, haunts or did haunt a particular room. This unnamed Raw Head and Bloody Bones, or whatever it is, has been sufficiently awful to have caused the death, in convulsions, of at least two foolhardy persons who have dared to sleep in that chamber…”

The challenge of sleeping in the haunting room was taken up by an unnamed man. A little after midnight, the bell the man had agreed to ring, to summon assistance was heard. Rushing to his aid, his friends found him rigid with terror, unable to tell them what he had seen. He died shortly afterwards.

The house remained empty for a number of years but not necessarily uninhabited. Passers-by told of flickering lights, disembodied screams, and the sound of a body being dragged down the stairs.

The source of the haunting was speculated to be the brother of a former owner, Mr Du Pre. This poor unfortunate was locked in a room for his own safety and was reputedly fed through a hole in the door.

Another contender was a gentleman by the name of Myers who was jilted at the altar and took to be a recluse. The sound of footsteps could be his as he wanders the house by candlelight.

In more recent times, people in the building have experienced the sense of something standing behind them, only finding nothing there.

An employee working in the accounts department of a firm that had the haunted room, reported seeing a column of brown mist that moved quickly across the room.

In my forthcoming novel HIGH SPIRITS, stories abound of lights seen flickering from room to room and local legend tell of a ghostly curator who prowls the Hall at night searching for his lost treasure.

Excerpt

Tommy Pearson was having a good few days off work. He had been in the pub since lunchtime and was now strolling through the park, taking a shortcut to his digs at the lower end of town.

He felt particularly mellow on this warm evening. He’d played the fruit machines and won, got a girl’s phone number, and was looking forward to a lie in tomorrow. Life was sweet.

As he passed by the mansion, he glanced up and saw a light moving from window to window, and his beer-addled brain suddenly recalled something he’d recently read. His first instinct was to run and, always being one to follow his gut; he did just that.

Arriving this autumn

I'm pleased to say that the first draft of my next novel 'High Spirits' is now 2/3 complete and in good shape.

I'm aiming to have it on Kindle in the autumn, muse and time permitting.

To celebrate, here's a look at the artwork.