Monday 24 August 2015

Ghost Walk

I've lived in Maldon for 22 years now and I've heard (and made up) lots of stories. I love a ghost story and Maldon is perfect for it. It has old pubs, a history of Viking invasions, a monastery and leper hospital, and a spooky miasma rising gently from the Blackwater.

During the Summer a pair of brothers (a historian and an actor) run ghost walks around the town. We had never taken the walk and so as my daughter had come home for the Long Suffering Husband's birthday and it was a gorgeous day we decided to join them for the last walk of the summer. 

It was very good. With a historian on board it was historically accurate and focused very much on the supernatural reports rather than any wild made up stories about headless monks and leprous butchers. The actor brother was a very convincing Victorian Nightwatchman, with wonderful diction and a glottal stop.



It is interesting to take a tour like this with other people (and there was a large crowd on this warm sunny evening). Some were rather skeptical and the overheard comment, "Well that's just bollocks," after the story about the Essex Throttler did make me chuckle. In fact there were lots of laughs throughout the evening, including some my expense. For example when I walked into one of the black metal bollards that are helpfully placed all the way down the High Street and when I jumped out of my skin when a boy racer shouted, "GHOSTS!," from his car. 

If they run the walks again next year I would highly recommend them, although I do think they should start a little later. By the end of the tour 8.30 we were just beginning to get some atmospheric lighting and by the time we walked home from the pub some of the alleys felt truly haunted. 



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