things that go bang in the night

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I’m sitting here with a sore throat, streaming eyes and a slight headache, listening to the Battle of Waterloo local kids’ fireworks. London is bristling with them – even more so than on Thursday, which was actual Guy Fawkes’ Day. Mlle B is I believe at Alexandra Palace, which I can see out my window – but of course, I can’t keep an eye on her. Maybe I’ll see some fireworks later off the balcony, though. I’m here waiting for someone who may never arrive, so badly clogged are the roads with would-be firework-goers – I keep getting rather mournful texts.

All this reminds me that on Tuesday, the night of the full moon, I did something I’ve never done before. I went on a ghost walk. It was in honour of a book I’m actually in (pseudonymously; there are two of us called Katy), as I’ve said before – telling a few of the ghost stories in my vast (and true, however much the reviewers liked to refer to it as ‘true’) repertoire. It’s Andrew Martin’s book, as you can see from the cover, and Andrew led a fascinated group of us on a tour of haunted Mayfair, beginning in Berkeley Square (nightingale-free, but with a maid apparently frightened to death by an apparition at number 50). He took us to the site of the hotel in Jermyn Street where a famous spiritualist, Daniel Douglas Home (pronounced Hume) astonished the seance-going classes with his manifestations and levitations; Arthur Conan Doyle was apparently much impressed, and listed his four separate types of mediumship. Here is one:

He also took us to a particular house in St James’ Place where a woman’s previously deceased sister appeared to her, and to everyone in the house in their separate rooms, as she lay ill on her deathbed. (Andrew is particularly interested in corroborated ghost stories.) Lovely little house, probably worth a few million now. Then we all went for a drink, kindly supplied by his publishers, Short Books.

So what we need now is for some friendly manifestation to clear the traffic between Mile End and here; otherwise I’m cooking dinner for the Dutchman.

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Filed under Shameless Puffs, books

Tags: ghosts, haunted london, fireworks, 50 berkeley square, andrew martin, ghoul britaniia, ghost walk