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This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Author
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Topic: Weird Things
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 04-23-2003 12:44 PM
Rated G ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
THE DOG
Written by: Harry (Perth, Australia)
This a true story.....
My family were bombed out during the war in Coventry. We got another house in Foleshill, the road was Durbar Avenue.
The living room was often the location of weird happenings. A dog would lie by the fire, although we had no dog. It would come upstairs and pull the bedding off in the middle of the night!! No one had ever seen it, but we heard it and felt it's presence often enough.
To us, it was a happy feeling house, it always seemed bright and so on.
After we moved, about 1951 I think, the chap that bought the house committed suicide there. As did the 3 owners that followed him!!
After making a few enquiries it turned out that the owner before us had also committed suicide!!
As I have said, to us it was a happy house, and don't remember any serious disagreements in it at all, during the 7/8 years we lived there.
Harry
Ex-patriot of Coventry
Now living in Perth, Australia
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 04-23-2003 01:09 PM
Rated G ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Ghost Riders in the Sky......
Written by: Ann Nugent
(Australia)
I saw them riding through the sky, soldiers in red uniforms, with rifles and swords. Indians on horseback too, with full headdresses. They were thundering along. I couldn't take my eyes away from them, even though I was terrified. What if they looked down and saw me what then? But they seemed not to notice anything but each other.
By the look of the uniforms the soldiers were wearing I would say it was from a long time past. How could I be witnessing this site? It was 1990, soldiers didn't wear that sort of garb. The Indians were dressed like they did in the old movies with feathers and long black plaits.
I stayed for the longest time just watching this amazing site. It sort of gave me a thrill to be witness to such a spectacular site. I decided to take some photographs because no one would ever believe me. I reached for my camera, pointed it skywards and the flash went of by mistake.
The soldiers and Indians spotted me and stared right at me. They were all very still, just staring down at me. I was even more terrified by now, but they all turned away from me and rode off into the sky. I saw them getting further and further away until they disappeared.
I was very tired now and decided to lie down on the grass and rest. I must have fallen asleep. I woke up and picked up my camera and went home. I had the film developed and there was one picture of the sky, but it was too blurry to see properly.
Maybe they were ghosts that I saw, who knows ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 04-23-2003 02:16 PM
Rated G
Written by: Ann Morris (Coventry)
My story is a true one. Although you may not believe it. I know it is true, so did my parents when they were alive.
It began in 1958 when my family moved to garage on the Binley Road. Next door lived an old lady who we were warned by everyone around there not to have anything to do with. As we had more compassion than that, we would chat to her when she ventured out to the garden gate. She was a crippled old woman. shabbily dressed and could easily be taken as witch dressed in black.
It was really only Dad and I got to know her well as the garage forecourt was in line with her front gate. We always passed the time of day on the occasions she stood sunning herself at her gate as we served petrol. Then we would stand a few minutes chatting.
We learned that she had a son living down the road and several grandchildren, but they had nothing to do with her. Learning this, we felt so sorry that a family could desert an old lady who could not even walk to the post office the other side of the garage! I ran many messages for her.
Then one day she had a fall in the overgrown front garden. We hastened to help and got her inside her house. She remained quite poorly for a few days, but we looked after her and took her hot dinners etc. all the things a family should have done for her, regardless of their disapproval of her life or ways. It is here that I start what her life was like and what their disapproval was.............
The old lady was a medium. Dad and I had never met one before and she constantly 'chatted' to her dead husband who she said stood at the back of her. We were fascinated! Not at all afraid either. She told us she had three sons living in the area and not one of their family ever visited because they said she was a witch. Her husband, George, died a few years before we met her, but she was so peaceful 'chatting' to him constantly.
As time went by, we never deserted her, but gave her the independence that she liked of making her own meals. Mum would send an apple pie round, or some goodies and always her Sunday dinner. Dad and I visited her a lot. The after a short while she began to 'see' things. She would say 'George, (my dad was George too) watch that man you have just employed, he is going to let you down badly.' Or, 'George, don't sign that contract, it is false.'
There was many occasions she would advise my Dad. Dad would also 'consult' her if he had a business decision he was not sure he should make, or she would 'see' something was going to happen and warn him. Everything she said came true by the way. In fact we learned that medical consultants contacted her regular for many years, sending a ring, or possession of a patient that they did not know what was wrong with them and she could tell them!
One day I visited her, she suddenly burst out 'Ann, you are going to meet a man called Brian. He is a draughtsman at Wickmans and you will marry him'. I was 21 at the time and had a steady boyfriend called Richard. I laughed and said 'Oh yes, we''ll see!'
It was on my 22nd birthday that I met Brian. My dad had a cancer operation and I was tied up with running the garage from 6.0am to 10.00pm for weeks. The foreman said that day 'Ann, it's your birthday, me and the wife will come and look after the garage until closing time, go and have a night out'.
So I went to my usual badminton club to meet up with my friends. After a short while, one friend Alan said 'let's go to my works badminton club, we'll get a better game there, they are more professional'.
So we tripped over to Wickman's. We had a good night, then went for the usual pub crawl and went home. I was introduced during the evening to a lad called Brian, who had just come back from finishing his two years National Service that day and had gone to his work's club. The next day Brian telephoned me asking me for a date. I explained that I could not leave the business to go out and he came and helped me with the garage that evening. That was our very first 'date'.
After a week I could see I liked Brian very much, so I told Richard I could not see him anymore, as I would not two time him. Brian and I began to see each other every evening after that. Then after a while, I took Brian round to meet the old lady. As I stepped in the door she said 'I told you! I told you!' I had not given it a thought for a year! She had said I would meet a 'Brian' and he WAS a draughtsman at Wickmans!
We fell in love and got engaged in the May, just 6 months after meeting. Again we visited her. She said 'Ann, you are going to get married next March.' 'No way, I said, I am going to be a June bride, we have it planned and the house is being built and will be ready in the May'. 'I am telling you Ann' she said ' you will be married in March!'
She died not many months after that. Oh yes, all her relations went to the funeral! They also cleared her dingy house out and found some really good antiques. They were all there visiting for that occasion!
New houses in those days (1963) had to be bought by plans to order. We had ordered a Monsell house in Mount Nod. It was due to be finished in the May, as stated, giving us enough time to get if ready to move in after the wedding in the June, which was all booked.
In the December we received a letter from Monsell saying the house would be ready in the following January! This was a bit early, so we chatted with the two families and decided to bring the wedding forward. We saw the Vicar of Binley church and he had a booking available on the 23rd March.
We were married about two years before we remembered the old lady saying 'I am telling you, you will be married in march!'
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 04-23-2003 02:20 PM
Rated G
George's Last Tram
Written by: Steve Brookes (Blackpool)
A Balloon Tram on the road.
'A low rumble of a tram engine, and then with the sudden squeal of brakes, it all ends'.
On many stormy and wet nights the Blackpool ghost tram has been heard, but no one ever admits to seeing it, and explanations abound as to its origins, ranging from the mundane - 'it is an electrical occurrence due to the salt air creating a short circuit on the aging overhead wires, which sounds like a tram in the wind' - to the more ethereal stories of evil spirits seeking revenge by driving noisy trams past homes of those who destroyed the seclusion of their haunts before Blackpool became famous.
However, one story is more often repeated than any other, and I have created a sequence of events from a couple of versions which seem closer to a ghostly origin than any others, and it concerns a man I will call George, who lived on Whitegate Drive.
It was 1962, and the outlying tram routes in Blackpool were becoming 'surplus' and expensive to maintain. The tramlines were worn and the tarmac hardly touched the rail edges in places and other than a very reduced service to the outer legs of the system, the main timetable only covered trams running from Starr Gate near St Annes and along the promenade and coast through Cleveleys to Fleetwood.
George had been a Blackpool tram fanatic since his childhood, and had, before his heart attack at the age of 55, been a driver on the system. Now, at the age of 62, he watched in sadness the cars and new front entrance buses moving the people along the roads, over the rails he had travelled over the years and finally his home on Whitegate Drive was to see the last of its tram service.
In three days time one of the Balloon double deck cars was to traverse the route as a closing ceremony.
The Balloons were new in 1933 and were the height of luxury and efficiency, and had given the crews a sense of importance when they arrived with their leather seats, speedy acceleration, quite running and the double staircases, which had made them a byword for the tourists who had previously been used to the wooden toastrack seats of the early trams.
George had, by dint of his being one of the first drivers to take control of a Balloon in 1933 been invited to take part in this last journey. He was proud to be asked, and being a widower for many years had only been able to share his pride with a few cronies at the Mitre pub in town.
'Oh well' said most (mainly under their breath) 'The things are outdated and a nuisance' which in the early 60's and increased car ownership they were.
There was little sympathy for George, as the lines in the middle of the road, and the tram stops which meant traffic having to avoid passengers alighting in front of them had become a real problem. But to George, and many like him it was the end of a great era, and a sad end as well, because many of the trams were to be disposed of as surplus to requirements, (an act later regretted by the Transport Department.).
The day arrived, and George was not going to let the side down. He dressed in his best suit, and his shoes shone as befitted his status as senior tram driver. He arrived at Rigby Road tram depot, and saw a crowd gathered around Balloon 712. It was 'his tram' from 1933. It was clean and the chrome gleamed. It stood defiant as though its sad journey was just a phase which would be put to rights.
The crowd boarded, and the bell rang, but 712 did not move. The driver tried but it resisted. And George smiled. He knew that the tram had been stopped at just the point where the wires were spliced and if it was a wet day, it would not move forward.
He moved to the front and whispered to the driver, who being a new hand listened to the old mans advice. He turned to the inspector, 'George knows how to get us going. Ill let him take it.'
The inspector nodded and George proudly moved to the cabin and took the handle and brake lever and let the tram roll back for a few feet. Sparks shot out from the pole, and moving the handle into the first notch up, the tram rolled out onto its final journey.
The whole community seemed to have come out to see 712 roll along its last trip, and the full tram, with George at the control seemed oozed pride. People on the journey felt that man and machine were as one. George drove without one jerk or grind of brakes, and 712 seemed as quiet and smooth as new. But it had to end, and one hour later, 712 and its civic party arrived back at Rigby Road depot, where George applied the brake at the very spot he had taken over. Just where the wires were spliced.
And so the customary champagne was drunk, and memories were shared, and 712 stood, its lights burning brightly. And George looked at 712, his eyes full of tears, and his hand shook with the recent feeling of the grip of 712's driving handle. The civic group slowly moved away, but George didn't. He stood by his tram, and he spoke to it, just like it was his small pet.
'It's ok. You'll be all right. You did all right. It up to you.'
He turned, and walked behind the rear cab of 712. Past the red rear lights, and started to walk toward the doors in the middle of the tram tracks. No one knows why, but the power surge cause the parking brake to come off, and 712 sparked into life, and quietly rolled forward. George should have heard the rumble of a tram engine and the squeal of brakes, but he seemed not to. He was found by the crew under the front of the tram. He had, they say died instantly. 712 was still, its brakes fully on. Its engine quiet.
The rain and wind from the Irish Sea ranged across the entrance of the depot, just like the nights when a rumble and brakes are heard around Rigby Road
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 04-23-2003 02:24 PM
Rated G
GRAYFRIARS BOBBY
Written by: Ann Morris (Coventry)
As a child I spent many school holidays at my grandparent's houses, both in Edinburgh and Uddingston, 9 miles from Glasgow. At my maternal grandmother's I was always fascinated by the warmth of the famous legend of a little dog called Grayfriars Bobby.
Bobby was a Skye Terrier owned by John Gray, an Edinburgh Constable.
When John Gray died in 1858 of TB., he was buried in Grayfriars churchyard. John Gray's family left Edinburgh after his death, but Bobby, so great was his loyalty to his master, refused to leave his master's side.
For over 14 years Bobby watched over his master's grave day and night. During this time Bobby became a much loved local figure, being fed and looked after by locals. A shelter was constructed there for him, and he was given his food regularly in the kitchens of dining rooms nearby. When the question of his licence arose, the Lord Provost of the day paid it personally.
Then when Greyfriar's Bobby died in 1872 he was buried in the churchyard close to his master.
The touching story of the little dog's fidelity spread throughout the land. Travellers went to the churchyard especially to observe the famous Bobby. One of these, the philanthropist Baroness Burdett Coutts, was so impressed that she was instrumental in having the statue sculpted. The monument was unveiled in 1873, not long after Bobby died. He is now buried within the churchyard.
A statue of the terrier is now situated on Candlemakers Row, and is one of the most photographed statues in Edinburgh, if not the whole of Scotland. The dog's collar is on display in the Huntly House Museum in the Canongate stretch of the Royal Mile.
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 05-16-2003 06:32 AM
Rated G
Questionable Judgments
The school board that governs Lombardy, Ontario, acceded to the request of an offended parent in February and removed the word "gun" from a primary school spelling-test list. [Ottawa Citizen, 2-11-03]
Also in February, the head teacher at the Park Road nursery school in West Yorkshire,England, issued instructions that "The Three Little Pigs" and other stories featuring pigs not be used, in order not to offend Muslims.
(The Muslim Council of Britain immediately denounced the decision,and the instructions were rescinded.)
[The Guardian (London), 3-5-03]
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