Kent Urban Legends E-Book

Neil Arnold

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Do motorists pick up a phantom hitchhiker on Blue Bell Hill during stormy nights? Does Satan appear if you dance round the Devil's Bush in the village of Pluckley? Do big cats roam the local woods? And what happens if you manage to count the 'Countless Stones' near Aylesford? For centuries strange urban legends have materialised in the Garden of England. Now, for the first time, folklorist and monster-hunter Neil Arnold looks at these intriguing tales, strips back the layers, and reveals if there is more to these Chinese whispers than meets the eye. Folklore embeds itself into a local community, often to the extent that some people believe all manner of mysteries and take them as fact. Whether they're stories passed around the school playground, through the internet, or round a flickering campfire, urban legends are everywhere. Kent Urban Legends is a quirky and downright spooky ride into the heart of Kent folklore.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to Terry Cameron – a good friend

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

one Bloody Mary

two The Phantom Hitch-hiker

three The Necessary Evils of Modern Technology

four Devilish Legends

five School Legends

six If You Go Down to the Woods (and Water) Today

seven More Strange Urban Legends

Bibliography

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

WITH MANY THANKS to my mum, Paulene; dad, Ron; sister, Vicki; wife, Jemma; nan, Win; granddad, Ron; Sean Tudor; Joe Chester; Terry Cameron; Janet Bord; Fortean Times; Paul Langridge; Kent Online; Evening Post; Chatham Standard; Medway Archives; Richard Freeman; Nick Redfern; The History Press; Corriene Vickers; the Daily Mail; the Sun; the Telegraph; the Guardian; Missy Lindley; Centre For Fortean Zoology; Simon Wyatt; Charlie Ford; the Washington Post; Kent Today; Kentish Express; Jackie Grebby; Gentleman’s Magazine; the Daily Mirror; The Times; East Kent Mercury; Public Ledger; Medway Messenger; South London Times; New York Mirror; Sittingbourne Messenger; Dartford Messenger; Pam Wood; and Alex Wilson.

Illustrations by Simon Wyatt (except those on pp. 28 and 145 which are by the author).

FOREWORD

NEIL ARNOLD’S LATEST book contains many tales that would have seemed extraordinary to me as a child. I grew up in rural Leicestershire in the 1950s and attended a typical village school. We did have our superstitious beliefs, of course, such as holding the corner of your collar if an ambulance raced past (presumably to ensure it didn’t stop for you next time), and not stepping on the cracks in a pavement or walking under a ladder, both of which brought bad luck. But I recall no talk of ‘urban legends’ or ‘foaf-tales’, and the only spooky phenomena I was aware of at that time were ghosts and hauntings. These definitely did intrigue me, but little did I know that one day I would research and write about them!

The best-known haunting in our neighbourhood was the White Lady, who had been seen more than once on the main road which passed the eerie ivy-clad ruins of a nunnery. She was thought to be a phantom nun, and it has been discovered that the nuns there did wear white habits. There have been numerous sightings of her over the years, but strangest of all was the time in 1954 when a bus driver stopped to pick up a lady in white standing at the bus stop opposite the nunnery, who vanished when the door was opened. So we very nearly had our own phantom hitch-hiker – though not nearly so dramatic as some of the hitch-hiker stories told here by Neil.

His chapter on modern technology contains stories that could not possibly have been told in the 1950s, since we had no modern technology at all! If you had a telephone and a television (black and white only, of course), you were considered very advanced; microwaves, computers, mobile phones, etc., would have been the stuff of science fiction. Of course the present-day ease with which everyone can keep in touch and informed probably means that urban legends spread much more quickly than ever before; and new ones are surely being invented all the time by people with lively imaginations. However, the sheer variety of historical tales which Neil also recounts shows that people have always delighted in passing on weird and frightening stories, even when the only means of transmission was word of mouth, and it’s part of human nature to want to frighten people in this way.

Once I started my own research into these fields, beginning with Mysterious Britain in 1972, I soon realised that my childhood reading into the weird and wonderful had not extended very far at all. Apart from some collections of ghost stories, no books on mysteries had come my way, not even through the small local library which I visited weekly. Today’s children are much better served – though whether an early acquaintance with some of the most scary tales is a good thing, I am not at all sure! Over the years I have researched and written about a wide range of mysteries, from the folklore of ancient sites (in The Secret Country and The Atlas of Magical Britain, for example) to reports of mystery animals worldwide (in Alien Animals and Bigfoot Casebook). I don’t think I was hampered by having missed out on reading this kind of material when I was a child; but on the other hand, to have heard about more local mysteries than just the phantom White Lady would have enlivened my childhood no end! Knowing how much research is involved in putting a book like this together, I have to congratulate Neil on the extent of the research he has undertaken, and I am envious of the ease with which the people of Kent can now find out about the wealth of mysteries and spooky places they have close at hand.

Janet Bord, 2013

INTRODUCTION

Now let’s take another story, this one an oral tale of the sort that never has to be written down. It is simply passed mouth to mouth, usually around Boy Scout or Girl Scout campfires after the sun has gone down and marshmallows have been poked onto green sticks to roast above the coals.

Danse Macabre Stephen King

RESEARCHER DAVID EMERY defines an urban legend as ‘An pocryphal, second-hand story told as true and just plausible enough to be believed’. In other words, these friend-of-a-friend tales (foaf-tales) are passed down through generations and told as fact, despite a lack of evidence to support them. I spent thirty years of my life growing up in the town of Chatham, in Kent, and such local legends were rife – as they are all across the world – and the most amazing thing about some of the more bizarre stories was the fact that people actually believed them, despite the tales being full of holes. In turn, the believability of such yarns meant that they became embedded in local history and folklore, tattooed on the human psyche for generations to come. These tales (some more credible than others) depicted unusual events, ranging from the downright comical to the horrifying and absurd. Some legends were complex in their nature, others short and simple, and yet each one was potent enough to squirm into the subconscious mind, where it would lay dormant until the next time some rumour or incident ignited its spark.

Urban legends are powerful because one seemingly banal story can last not just a few days but a few decades, rolling off the tongue of many a storyteller in varying guises. Urban legends don’t just have the ability to take over a household, but an entire town, as, like Chinese whispers, they are passed from person to person and gradually altered over time to fit in with the current climate. Urban legends can cause panic, hysteria and confusion. For example, one of the best-known urban legends worldwide concerns a phantom known as The Hook. This story is predominant in American legend and spooked me as a kid. It is told as follows:

A young couple are driving late at night, hoping to find a secluded spot to ‘make out’. They reach an isolated area – a dark, wood-enshrouded lane – and pull over into a lay-by. The couple start to chat, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. The moon is leering down, bathing the vehicle in an eerie glow, the spindly trees reaching towards the vehicle. The young woman is rather spooked by the surroundings, despite the close affections of her aspirant lover. She tells him that there’s been a rumour throughout High School that some of the more deserted spots of the town are being frequented by a prowler who has a hook in place of one of his hands – hence the name, The Hook. According to the tale, the sinister stranger (possibly an asylum escapee) lingers outside parked vehicles occupied by young, cavorting couples. Of course, the hot-blooded male scoffs at such a story, and attempts to make a move on the young woman. She asks, for the sake of comfort, if they can have the radio on; the silence outside is making the looming shadows all the more eerie. The male obliges, flicking on the radio and adjusting the dial to find a suitable station. Suddenly, they hear on the radio a story concerning a man – with a hook for a hand – who has been seen in the neighbourhood where they are now parked. Naturally, the news terrifies the girl, and, according to the urban legend, the couple suddenly hear a sound outside the car – a tap, tapping on the window maybe? The young lady is so unnerved that the man decides to drive her home. He starts the car and they head off into the night. But when the woman slips out of the car, she notices, to her utmost horror, a hook dangling from the door handle. And so it seems that the couple had a lucky escape from the phantom.

Now, this is quite a creepy story, and one passed round American high schools, colleges, and the like for many years, mainly since the 1950s. However, the story of The Hook is nothing more than an urban legend; a tale that has slipped through several generations as a warning to couples not to make out in remote corners of their respective counties. Although such a tale would make for a great horror film, the facts of the legend are absent as it is always difficult, if not impossible, to find an actual couple that this has happened to. But when this myth was being circulated, you could guarantee that there was always someone who knew someone else who knew a couple who allegedly had experienced it. And that is the power of the legend. Another thing that always baffled me about The Hook story was the detail concerning the actual hook, often said to have been found dangling from the door handle. If a serial killer or local weirdo had such an artificial limb, then why on earth in every case would he leave it hanging from a car door? Even as a sinister calling card, the discarded hook would suggest that this elusive character had a cupboard full of hooks to replace those he left dangling! However, in the case of The Hook we are not meant to dwell on such details but instead revel in the absolute dread the tale causes.

Over the years, and throughout the world, the tale of The Hook has varied. I recall in the 1980s a similar story from Kent. It was a vague incident recalled by a friend of a friend, who stated that one stormy night – as is always the case – around Halloween (which also helps the atmosphere of the yarn!) a couple were parked up on a remote country lane somewhere in rural Ashford. The young, testosterone-fuelled male was eager for more than a kiss on this blustery night, but his lover had heard rumours of a masked man who liked to sit in the woods alongside this stretch of road and watch couples canoodling in their vehicles. Of course, in the story, the young man is quick to quash any such tales and is eager to make a move on his date for the night. However, after a few minutes the woman notices a fleeting shadow outside the car window and so the man, being very brave in order to impress the woman, decides to investigate the surrounding foliage. As in many a horror film, the young man doesn’t return and the woman becomes very scared – especially when she hears a banging sound on the roof of the car (in other versions the woman is said to hear a scratching/scraping noise on the roof).

The woman is terrified, but to her relief a police car pulls up fifty or so yards away. An officer climbs out of the vehicle and, with a megaphone, orders the woman to get out of the car slowly but to not look back. The woman leaves the car, tears streaming down her face, but despite her fit of terror she cannot resist and, when a few yards away from the car, she decides to look back. Now, there are two ends to this urban legend, depending on who you hear it from. Both are macabre. In one version – which I heard – the young woman looks back and sees the corpse of her lover hanging from a tree above the car; in the wind his mutilated body is swaying and his toes are just about caressing the roof of the vehicle, making a scraping noise. In the more over-the-top version of the legend, the woman looks back and sees a serial killer (or, in more dramatic versions, a monster) on top of the car, smashing the head of her boyfriend onto the roof. All very morbid, and all untrue, but what a great story!

And so, this is how an urban legend works, and if powerful and detailed enough such a yarn can last for several generations. The Boyfriend’s Death and The Hook seem to walk hand-in-hand with their grim appeal. The story is made believable when the storyteller mentions that he knows someone it happened to, but often the location is rather vague; if you ask the narrator where it happened, in most cases they will respond, ‘On a dark rural lane not far from here…’, without ever giving the name of a road or nearby location. The vagueness still adds to the atmosphere of the story because, let’s face it, woods, country roads and the darkest corners of our hometowns are perfect for ghost and horror stories.

Many people ask if there is any truth behind the stories and in most cases the answer to this would be a resounding no. But I’ve often thought that surely such bizarre stories must have an origin, and not all can be the product of a storyteller. One American story which really spooked me as a youngster concerns a terrifying legend known as the Bunnyman. Okay, so the name doesn’t sound as eerie as the dreaded Hook, but bear with me. The Bunnyman legend concerned a railroad overpass situated in Fairfax County, Virginia, where every year, or so they say, local teenagers would gather at a spot known as Bunnyman Bridge. On dark nights the gangs would smoke, drink, and generally do what a lot of teenagers do, and as the area succumbed to darkness they would spin campfire tales of the dreaded Bunnyman. The Bunnyman was said to be a sum of many grisly parts. The phantom, according to some, was a recluse who lived in the woods somewhere and practised black magic. The hermit was said to have killed animals and often wore their fur (hence the name Bunnyman); he was eventually admitted to a lunatic asylum. Legend has it that the man escaped the ward and returned to the deep thickets of Fairfax County, where, adorned in rabbit skins, he would pick off local teenagers and campers with an axe. A more surreal version states that some parents in the area believed the Bunnyman to be a giant rabbit that approached children and gave them candy.

Hysterical parents, who’d grown up with tales of the Bunnyman, told their children not to trespass in the deep woods because the Bunnyman would get them. Anyone caught by the maniac would find themselves strung up dead in the trees like a morbid Christmas decoration. Another version of the Bunnyman legend states that one Easter, many years ago, a boy dressed up as an Easter bunny and killed all his family before hanging himself from the local bridge. Teenagers who tell this story claim that the legend dates back to the early 1900s and that more than thirty people over the years have been found hanging from the bridge on stormy nights. This version has, gradually, changed into another account which claims that a local hermit once killed a couple of children after he caught them trespassing on his land. Legend has it that their bodies were found hanging from the bridge.

Bunnyman has many different origins attached to it – mainly because it’s not true – and one can see why it has stood the test of time, and yet bizarrely, during the autumn of 1970, the Washington Post reported ‘Man in bunny suit sought in Fairfax’, after a man – you guessed it, dressed in a white bunny outfit – allegedly attacked vehicles by throwing hatchets through the windows! The newspaper added that an Air Force Academy Cadet named Robert Bennett was sitting in his car with his fiancée in Guinea Road when ‘a man dressed in a white suit with long bunny ears’ emerged from the undergrowth and screamed at the car, ‘You’re on private property and I have your tag number.’

The ‘rabbit’ then threw a wooden-handled hatchet at the car, smashing the window on the right-hand side. Weirder still, two weeks later a man dressed in a bunny suit and wielding an axe was seen chopping away at the roof support of a new house built on Guinea Road. Again, the Bunnyman warned onlookers that people should not be trespassing.

Although the legend of the Bunnyman may have originated many years previously, it’s intriguing how one or two unusual incidents can add to an already boiling cauldron of curiosity. Like many urban legends, there seems to be a moral. Whatever you do, don’t trespass in the woods or the Bunnyman will get you! Teenagers who know of the legend also state that on no occasion should you say the name of the Bunnyman more than three times, or he will track you down. This version was echoed in a 1992 American horror film called Candyman. The promotional poster for the film read: ‘We dare you to say his name five times.’

Although we don’t realise it, such legends are around us all the time, and from a young age. Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, and the Yawning Man are four mythical figures which, in a sense, are legends passed down through generations. For instance, Father Christmas may seem to be a nice, cosy, rosy-cheeked chap keen to deliver presents on Christmas Eve, but the moral of such a legend is that if you don’t behave then Santa will not come. In the case of the Tooth Fairy, parents always said that, when a tooth fell out, one should put it under the pillow; the next day, in place of the grisly item, there’d be a shiny penny. It may be my imagination but I hated the Tooth Fairy as a child. I envisaged the night creature not as an archetypal fairy with wings, a whitish hue and a wand, but in fact a black, spindly figure holding a sack full of gory, bloody teeth. I didn’t want to leave my teeth for that despicable wraith because I did not want to wake in the morning knowing that the hideous thing had been in my room rummaging under my pillow. The fact that today I still have all my browning milk teeth in a little box is proof that I never trusted the Tooth Fairy!

I never trusted the Sandman either – some ghoulish entity my parents told me about which would frequent the bedrooms of children and sprinkle sand in their eyes. I also recall that if my sister, when she was little, was half-tired of a night but fighting against it, my dad would sing, whilst pretending to yawn, the following lines:

I am the Yawning Man, the Yawning Man

I yawn and I yawn all day … oh oh oh

Apparently, singing this made people yawn and want their bed. My sister and I always saw the Yawning Man as another anti-hero bogeyman, crawling from the closet into our nightmares, and we preferred to stay awake!

In more macabre urban legends the keyword is certainly ‘bogeyman’, and, as you will read in this book, the bogeyman pops up in many different guises, because to some extent the point of the urban legend is to warn us, and keep us safe from tragedy, misadventure and horror. A selection of modern films have used the urban legend scenario to great effect, the eeriest of these being the flick Ring, released in 1998. The film draws inspiration from a Japanese folk tale concerning a videotape passed between teenagers. In the film, those who view the disturbing video (which shows a female apparition rising from an old well), receive a phone call afterwards and are then found dead, frozen with fear, killed by some supernatural force. The best way to avoid death is not to view the tape, but it seems that many people are too engrossed by the legend not to believe it and so the idea of this horror is passed on, spreading like wildfire. Another film which looked at varying urban legends, also released in 1998, was the aptly named Urban Legend. In this American movie, a serial killer uses different urban legends to act out his grim fantasy. American urban legends such as The Killer in the Backseat, The Boyfriend’s Death, and numerous others are highlighted.

Of course, not all urban legends are scary; some are fun and some are seemingly pointless – as you’ll read. I’ve written this book as a glimpse into the urban legends that have littered the county of Kent. Some stories are very similar to those mentioned in American folklore; others are possibly unique to England. Hopefully this book will show how urban legends – and there are literally hundreds of them – are around us all the time; in our homes, schools and sprawling from the dark woods, and also in the most unlikely locations, whether it’s the garage forecourt or the school playground. I’m sure too that by the time you’ve finished reading this book you’ll relate to quite a few of the stories and probably be slightly disappointed that some of the ‘true’ tales you’ve been told, by a friend of a friend, are nothing more than legend after all – though in some cases it would appear that the facts are far stranger than the fiction! In the case of each urban legend I’ve attempted to present the myth and then explain the facts behind it.

So, the next time someone comes up to you and begins a story with the lines, ‘Did you hear about the…’ I recommend you take it with a large pinch of salt. But don’t forget to throw the salt over your left shoulder afterwards, just in case the Devil is loitering there…

Neil Arnold, 2013

Neil Arnold is a full-time monster-hunter, folklorist, author and lecturer. He has written numerous books, including: Haunted Rochester; Haunted Ashford; Haunted Maidstone; Haunted Chatham; Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Kent; Monster!: The A-Z Of Zooform Phenomena; Mystery Animals of the British Isles: London; Paranormal Kent; and Shadows in the Sky: The Haunted Airways of Britain.

1

BLOODY MARY

… the story exists for one reason and one reason alone: to scare the s**t out of the little kids after the sun goes down.