Do You Believe in Ghosts?
My new book, The Prankster and The Ghost, is a fun-filled story about ghosts and practical jokes and friendship. While Prankster is totally made up, it does include some actual ghost stories…
Ghost Story One:
In Prankster, Jamie remembers seeing a strange lady in Edinburgh castle. This is based an actual encounter. My friend was on a tour through Edinburgh Castle and was creeped out by a strange lady in an old-fashioned dress. No one else could see this woman, but the tour guide was not surprised. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘she’s often seen.’
Ghost Story Two:
I’ve worked in hospitals all my working life and thirty years ago there were still many Victorian buildings. There were plenty of tales of figures in white, or unexplained drafts, or a feeling of clutching hands. These old hospitals were the spookiest places; they had long echoing corridors and high dusty ceilings. We didn’t like being called out at night in those wards! But even in modern facilities there are rooms with histories of unexplained figures being seen by patients, and there are still places where staff prefer not to go – especially at night, when the hospital is quiet. I’ve never heard a story of hospital ghosts being violent; it’s more like ghosts are part of the hospital, rather like the furniture.
Ghost Story Three:
In Prankster, Tayla floats out of his body. This is based on something a patient told me – when he’d had a heart attack; he’d floated free his body. He had returned when he was resuscitated. He said it was quite peaceful, and that he’d had no fear or pain (until returning to his body. He didn’t like the resuscitation so much!) I took this idea a little further in Prankster, though – I thought a kid might find floating around intensive care kind of boring. Surely, a floating, invisible boy would do exactly what Tayla did – go straight for the computers!
And now you’ve read this – do you believe in ghosts?
