Ghost Story

I wrote this ghost story some while ago. 

I did actually find the grave of the young girl in Mile End Cemetery which is also a nature reserve, and I was so moved by it to place flowers there.
While running a pony trekking business in Mid Wales n the 70s, we ran out of water and I discovered a ram pump nearby that had the ability to deliver water uphill from a stream. Later we fitted it at the local Youth Hostel where I hope it is still working. Ram pumps uses to be depicted on ordinance survey maps but probably they have been forgotten now. If you are ever in the country listen out for them. They never die and will give the occasional thump in the hope that someone, somewhere, will benefit - the ultimate, altruistic, machine, of almost perpetual motion.

The Blue Dress.

I am not at all certain that I should be setting this down on paper but it has been on my mind for a very long time and I hope that by telling the tale, I will in some sense, at least, disperse the feeling of dread I still experience when I enter that part of the world. Of course it would be better, some would argue, if I avoided the place at all cost, but I am strangely drawn there, some times through unavoidable circumstances  connected with my profession. 

I work as  a technical officer for Ordnance Survey. I won’t go into the various projects I have to undertake but a great deal of it is checking on previously amassed data sometimes in libraries and more often out in the field. I love walking and the open air and often congratulate myself on my luck in pursuing a profession that sometimes seems to be more of a holiday rather than a job. Of course there are days when routine sets in and I long to be out there away from the stuffy office but all in all they are quite few.

My region, the area I am responsible for, is what is know as the Welsh Marches which in medieval times divided England from Wales, a collection of giant gaunt castles and mysterious dark villages that were neither Welsh or English and where  in the dark ages, their inhabitants lived a strange in-between life of intrigue and deception and ultimate survival. I was, on the whole, very content with the area that I had under my control; it was well documented and the history was fascinating but of course my job did not concern the history of the area as such but only the records that had been amassed over the years concerning what my boss referred to as the ‘attributes’; the footpaths, ancient rights of way, the green roads and the old tracks, long vanished in the bracken and newly grown copses of silver birch that obliterated anything that spoke of a another age, a different way of life. I carried with me a digitised collection of early maps from the 1840s and more often than not my predecessors had done a fine job in recording strange diversions and antiquities but every so often I made a discovery and that was the excitement of the job; it wasn’t as if that revelation would ever bear my name as a botanist might experience in discovering a new species but nevertheless it was an achievement.

 It was a lonely job and often I would spend a day without seeing another soul; sometimes I slept in inns rather than to return to my local office in Shrewsbury. It was very much a part of England that still held distinct echoes of the distant past and often after a day alone one could be excused for imagining that one had slipped into another age. 

One of my interests were ram pumps; I had an ear for them and they were much more prolific than one imagined. In fact they were of very little consequence in the general run of things but they were worth recording and were usually to be found by necessity quite close to an old dwelling that in itself had long disappeared even as far back to the early 1800s. These simple metal machines often worked on regardless of any need  still fed by an upland stream  thudding rhythmically on with a deep throbbing sound. I won’t go into the the simple mechanics of the machine and how it supplies water upwards for some miles for that would be straying away from the direction of this narrative. They were invented in 1790 and James Easton of Easton and Amos purchased the patent in the early 1800s and distributed them all over England; later they were improved by Green and Carter but it was possible to still find these very early examples, possible but in truth very rarely did they come to the surface; they were buried deep beneath years of fallen leaves and shifting soil and their thudding hearts had long ceased to function. You could find them in museums but they were extremely rare and my dream was to one day come across one in my wanderings.

I mention this interest in ram pumps simply because it was what ultimately led me to the burial ground.

It was a dark day with heavy black clouds scudding low overhead and the occasional short sharp icy shower. I had stayed in a 16th century inn some twenty miles south of Ludlow; it was an area that I had neglected, difficult to reach by train and bus, my usual form of transports. I left the car at home as it, to my mind  inhibited exploration, being too easy to pass things by and return to. 

At the Inn over a hearty breakfast in front of a roaring log fire I argued that it would be sensible on such a day to return to Shrewsbury by the earliest train and work on the material I had already gathered, such as it was. I do though have a stubborn streak, or so my wife tells me and I felt a need to complete my survey. I was due a holiday and I was aware that I had been overworking; trying to complete an area that had so far eluded me; parcel it up in a box and store it away; this on reflection may have been the reason for my experience that day; over tiredness. But who knows? I have a feeling that it was out there waiting for me and had always been so. 

Once a long time ago when I was in my early twenties I came across a large ornamental headstone in a cemetery in London; a young girl of thirteen years who had died in 1755; her name was Harriet Verity. It had been dreadfully neglected. The inscription read - ‘She who loved this earth so much is now at peace with it and in her makers hands.’ I was so moved by this that for some time during my stay in London I visited the grave and placed flowers upon it. In fact I became a little obsessed as is my wont and dug out all the information I could find on Harriet Verity. It seemed that she was the only daughter of a very rich family who had resided in Ludlow and had moved to London in 1750. Particularly beautiful and talented her life had been cut off cruelly by diphtheria. There was a large Manor house near Ludlow that was marked on the  OS map and had, in the 1600s to 1700s, been the residence of the Verity family. It was now in National Trusts hands and an oil painting of Harriet when she was ten years old by Richard Wilson was on show with her parents. On that day I stood for some time in front of it noting the light in her eyes and the expectation of life ahead which she must have been feeling; it made the occasion all the more sad but in a strange way a culmination of all that had gone before. Little did I think on that dark day, all those years later when I set out from the ‘ The Black Lion that I would meet Harriet Verity not exactly in the flesh but of some diaphanous substance. 

It was some four hours later. I had followed an old green way that led into thickly wooded hills when I heard the ram pump; just an occasional thud. I studied my map and saw that there was no record of one or of a dwelling nearby ancient or otherwise. Excitement mounting I made my way through thick undergrowth and then glimpsed the top of the ram glistening with a recent shower just emerging through the autumn leaves; part of the river bank had slipped away with the recent rain and had left it partly exposed.  I fumbled in my rucksack and slipped a pair of gardening gloves on, that I always carried with me. I dug around the spherical dome; every now and then it vibrated as the water built up inside it and caused the valve to open releasing its load upwards to some mysterious destination. To my amazement and utter joy the legend ‘James Easton and Amos’ appeared in bold letters. I stared at it for some minutes my heart beating uncomfortably determined that I would return another day and somehow excruciate it from the earth and take it home. Then it occurred to me that it had at one time been the only supply of fresh water to some cottage or other and that first I must find out if the cottage still existed. I uncovered the supply pipe and noting in which direction it was travelling made my way slowly and with great difficulty through the undergrowth, briars clinging to my legs and pulling at my clothes as if to deter me, at all cost, to continue my quest. As I progressed uphill stumbling over hidden roots I was suddenly aware that an uncanny silence had fallen around me and a sense of uneasiness came over me. I was after all miles from anywhere and it was unlikely that there was any habitation nearby, despite the presence of the ram pump. This sense of uneasiness increased as I struggled on and I was in half a mind to turn back. They say that in humans there is an innate sense of evil an innate sense of disaster looming that protects us. Some of the soldiers in the First World War experienced such an emotion and put it down to saving their lives.

This sense of evil, I can say now, was nothing that I had ever experienced before and hope to never again. How can I describe it? Like a black creeping icy mist rising ever higher around one’s body taking ones breath chilling ones very bones. I stopped and listened; still not a sound now; the wind that had been quite blustery all morning had dropped.; the only movement were of leaves dropping off the trees. Another few steps and I was in a small clearing and in front of me a ruined church and a graveyard.  

It was then that I saw her standing by a tombstone. I called out her name as if I had known her all my life and she turned towards me her pale face full of foreboding. She was dressed like her portrait in a long satin blue dress; her hair golden tumbling over her shoulders; she shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her breast as if in warning and gradually faded away leaving me shocked and breathless; suddenly there were sounds all around me as if soldiers were moving through the trees, the occasional clank of swords and armour. I turned and ran in terror as well as I was able back through the way I had come sustaining much bruising and scratches to my face and arms before I was once more back in the lane. A blackbird alarmed nearby and a robin sang and soon calmness and the sense of well being was restored.

There was no record of what had happened there many years ago; perhaps no-one had remained alive to tell the tale. The church and the ram pump did not exist on any map and I decided to leave it that way.  I visit the ram pump occasionally. It is best left where it is. It is now ten years since I discovered it and I am due for retirement. Occasionally there is the intermittent thud as I stand over it admiring it’s sleekness and antiquity but they are becoming less and soon I know it’s heart  will stop for ever. The last time I went I covered it over so that it would never be discovered and torn  from the ground; it will remain my secret and of course Harriets. Something we can share. 

I never saw Harriet again; once standing by the ram pump I imagined I caught a flash of a blue dress through the trees but I couldn’t be sure. I like to think that she is looking out for me in my old age.

Fieldfare