Halloween has gone but love of a spooky story remains. I have a few more but something someone posted a couple of pages back has reminded me of another.
In the early 1990s, we were waiting for a house we were about to rent to be ready and as we were technically homeless (had just returned to the UK from abroad) decided to spend our last quids on a 'holiday' - more to distract the kids from a stressful week, than anything.
We dumped our stuff at a family member's house and took ourselves to Scarborough, where I'd gone on holiday every year as a child in the 60s. We found an incredibly cheap hotel where we could afford a few days, on the South Bay.
I was pregnant, and we had two kids under 6. So it was exhausting, walking everywhere (no car) with a pushchair and a little un but we decided to take our minds off all the stress knowing that at the end of it our new house would be ready.
Anyways... one day I decided we'd walk to the North Bay and go to a place I had fond memories of, as a child. Every year when we went my dad's first act had always been to buy us a toy wooden yacht each. And we'd go to the Boating Pond in Peasholme Park. You had to walk through the park and keep going to get to it; a slightly more isolated area, a bit out on a limb. I hadn't been there for well over a decade and was going from memory. It was late afternoon by the time we got to the far end, and entered this bit that memory told me was the boating pond. Only everything was almost unrecognisable now; derelict and abandoned and overgrown. It looked like no kids had played there for years. I was a bit spooked. Despite being early summer, almost no-one was there, too. In fact, no-one at all by the time we got to the boating pond. It was upsetting that the council had utterly neglected it - I still have photos of us there in the 60s, and then it was well kept, full of nice shrubs and flowers, like an oasis. Now it was like Fanghorn Forest - dank, dark and frankly the kind of place you'd expect to get mugged or something.
No point in the kids playing there, we decided to cut our losses and find out way out.
We pressed on, deeper into the dank area (I will bet you it has long been done up and restored or re-purposed but this was 1994).
And there we found a narrow, depressing looking flight of stone steps and I had no memory of them at all, as we'd always gone out another way but I assumed these took us back up to street level and at least out of that place.
As we struggled up the steps with a pushchair and a toddler, my heart sank as I noticed a man was coming down the steps towards us. He was dressed really oddly in a weird, stripey uniform. He was utterly solid and absolutely 'there'. As he got closer I realised we'd have to pass him really close in this dark, confined area and I was scared as he looked terrifying. I also realised there was something about him I hadn't seen since the tramps at Leeds bus station when I was a kid... he was filthy. Not just dirty or unkempty, but visibly very, very filthy. Ah great, I thought. He will stink as well. If he doesn't knife us we still are forced to brush past him and he will reek. But as he passed us... no smell. Nothing. It made no sense.
When we reached the top and street level I looked back but he had disappeared into the dark undergrowth. I asked my husband if he'd seen that - and how on earth had we not smelt him? He said "Smelt who?" I said "There's no way you missed that - he brushed right past us on the stairs." My husband saw no-one. Yet the man was mm away from us. My oldest son saw nothing, either.
Literally the next day I went to the museum and they happened to have a Victorian Wanted! poster from the lock-up in the town. They described the escapee - he was wearing what I'd seen that man wearing. (I'm not assuming the poster was him - they probably had quite a few escape over the course of a century!) I have never forgotten how ingrained the dirt on his skin and clothing was - have never seen anyone that filthy looking ever again. He was solid as you or I. (Not like the other things we saw which were kind of pixellated and transparent).
I realised afterwards the fear had been kind of rising, all the time we were there. So by the time we found the steps we were desperate to get out. I dunno if it is near the old prison, or not?
I described the man to my husband at the time and recall for a fact he claimed he didn't see a thing. Interesting because when HE re-tells this story now, he always claims he saw it too. But he didn't.