The Deeping Ghost

The first time that the ghost walks took place in Deeping St James, Paul and I walked through the churchyard to put candles at appropriate places along Church Walk. As we walked back a mist had fallen and it swirled around us, making the atmosphere dank and lonely. Muffled sounds could be heard in the distance. In an hour there would be an expectant crowd, an eagle owl would perch on the back of a gravestone, and Clive the baker would suddenly materialise from the church, holding an umbrella and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, resplendent in a long black cape which flowed behind him.

Seventy years before, three teenage girls had got themselves ready in their best summer frocks and walked together, laughing and chatting, from their homes in Eastgate to the pictures at the old Empire in Market Deeping. Their names were Mitzi, Mary and Nancy. They little thought that this would be a night that they would remember for the rest of their lives. They paid one shilling and thru’pence for their tickets and then enjoyed a full programme: advertising trailers of forthcoming attractions, a feature film and Pathé Gazette news items.

They came to High Locks and passed the bridge, and when they reached the clapper gate by the Manor they decided to take a shortcut down Church Walk instead of going down the street. It was bit eerie beneath the tall trees of the Manor garden; everything looked different in the darkness as they passed Mr Quartermaine’s allotment and the little gate into the park.

Walking by the cemetery they could see someone coming towards them; as he got nearer they were surprised to notice that he was wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a long flowing black cloak, and although it was not raining he had his umbrella up. Strangely enough they were not afraid, though it seemed very peculiar, as they neither heard nor felt any movement of the long cloak as he passed. When he got by they all turned to have a better look at the odd stranger but there was nothing to see - the person had vanished into thin air! The girls all saw the same thing and none of them were scared, although they knew they had seen something extraordinary, supernatural, in fact.

The story was recounted dozens of times over the years. No one ever disbelieved it nor did anyone claim to have seen the dark spectre or to have had any similar sighting.

Many years later Joy Baxter while researching through old papers came across the story of a black ghost that had been seen in 1898. The 28th April issue of the Peterborough Express had a headline:

A Deeping Ghost Mysterious movements of an ‘object in black’

Some amount of excitement has been created in Deeping St James by the report that a ghost has been seen in the main street in the vicinity of the churchyard ... it has also transpired that about a year ago a strange object covered in black was seen by two or three persons early in the morning on two on three occasions. At that time it was described as being of medium height but its exact form could hardly be determined as the witness kept at a respectable distance. The object glided along by a wall and disappeared through some boarden gates.

Newspaper reports of sightings of the apparition came through thick and fast and soon the story was reported as far afield as in the Birmingham Mail.

Back on that summer’s evening in 1936 when the three girls arrived home breathless from running and full of their adventure, Charlie Swift, Nancy’s father, a native of Deeping St James looked up from his paper and said, ‘Why, you have seen the Reverend John George; he looked just like that and he would take a walk up the church path every night.’

Reader Offer

More tales of Nancy’s life in Deeping in the 20s and 30s are available in her book, ‘Swift to Tell,’ available at £5.00 from: judy.stevens1@btopenworld.com

Changing perceptions of design in care homes “ ”

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