{"id":986,"date":"2020-03-27T12:17:29","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T12:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=986"},"modified":"2020-03-27T12:17:34","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T12:17:34","slug":"behind-the-story-haunting-inspirations-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=986","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Story: Haunting Inspirations Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What was it that prompted the penning of certain stories?\nRead on to discover what lies behind the seven ghostly tales now gathered\ntogether in A Ghost Story Omnibus<\/a><\/em>. In\nthis first instalment, we take a look at 2018\u2019s The Ghost of Scarside\nBeck<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A newly-wed Cumbrian\nvicar and his wife experience a night like none they could ever have foreseen.\nHe may have answered his calling, but who, or what, is calling her?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So runs the blurb, but what inspired its writing? In short, this is the only story that I have written that was prompted by a real life experience. My wife and I were staying in a remote Lake District hamlet that some of you may know as the location of the \u2018famous\u2019 phone box that features in cult comedy Withnail and I<\/a><\/em> (\u2018Where\u2019s my cigar commercial? What happened to my agent? Bastard must have died!’). Unlike Withnail, we hadn\u2019t exactly \u2018gone on holiday by mistake\u2019, but the weather was so unforgivingly wet and stormy that at times it felt as if we had. However, it was during one of the brief dry interludes that it<\/em> happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to take a stroll to the neighbouring hamlet of\nBampton Grange, where we called into the Church of St. Patrick. It\u2019s a modest and\nunexceptional building of relatively recent provenance, so far as English\nchurches go, but we decided to venture inside out of a combination of curiosity\nand a desire to find shelter from the rawness of the wind. We stayed within for\nno more than five or ten minutes, but it was what happened just before we left \u2013\nsomething quite out of the ordinary and unlike anything that either of us had\never encountered \u2013 that prompted the idea for The Ghost of Scarside Beck<\/a><\/em>,\none of the scenes of which accurately recreates what we experienced. Try as I\nmight, I have not since been able to unearth any reports relating to purported\nhauntings or supernatural activity at the church. An additional element of the\nstory was inspired by some rather characterful vulpine carvings in both stone\nand wood that may be viewed in Hexham Abbey and St. Michael\u2019s Church in the\nSomerset parish of Brent Knoll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, whereas when something of this type happens in either film\nor literature we normally say ‘there’s no way I’d go back after that happened,’\nwe did go back. The church, alas, was locked.<\/p>\n

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