Great Australian Ghost Stories

by Richard Davis

  The cadet told how he had gone to bed early to get a good night’s sleep before his exams, but had been awakened in the middle of the night by a scratching sound and a faint light that filled his room. ‘I rolled over in bed and found this joker sitting at my table with his back to me. He had my pencil box open and he was writing, using the fountain pen my mum gave me for my sixteenth birthday.’

  The cadet sat up in bed and was about to challenge the intruder when he realised that he could see through the strange figure and that the light was coming from it. ‘It was a human figure — a man — but he looked like he was made of thick, smoky glass; the kind you can just see through but which distorts shapes behind it. I could make out the calendar on the wall behind the figure, but all the letters and numbers were blurred. And there was this “halo” of light around him; a soft, shimmering band of yellow that cast a warm glow over the room and over me. The light made the white sheet covering my legs look mustard-coloured and the skin on my hands and arms looked jaundiced.’

  The cadet was too frightened to speak or cry out and watched in stunned silence until ‘Charlie’ (for this surely was his ghost), finished scribbling, folded the paper he had been writing on, put away the pen and placed the pencil box over the paper to serve as a paperweight. The ghost turned its head and smiled at the cadet, showing discoloured teeth with many gaps, then slowly faded away. With it went the light, velvety blackness reclaiming the room.

  Cautiously the cadet reached for the lamp beside his bed and switched it on. Everything in the room looked normal and instinct told the young man he was quite alone. He climbed out of bed, crossed over to the table, moved the pencil box and nervously picked up the paper. As he unfolded it he realised it was not one sheet but three all covered in crudely scrawled words.

  Some of what the cadet read was familiar to him and some was not. It was not until the following day when he was issued with his examination papers that he realised that what he had read were the correct answers to every question on the exam.

  The cadet might have been wiser to have kept quiet about his nocturnal visitor and the reason he did so well in the exam, for the officers investigating the claims of cheating were not inclined to believe a word of his explanation. ‘And where is this miraculous epistle?’ a senior officer asked.

  ‘In my room, sir,’ the cadet replied, ‘pinned to the back of my calendar.’

  ‘Well, sir, you had better go and get it then!’ the officer retorted.

  Under guard the cadet was marched to his room, retrieved the sheets of paper and presented them to the investigating officers. Remarkably the paper, the ink and the writing seemed to have aged overnight. The paper was now yellowed and brittle, the blue ink turned brown and the writing faded, but the content of the words was still convincingly clear. The investigators decided to give the cadet the benefit of the doubt and he passed his examination — top of the class.

  So numerous were the reports of Charlie’s activities that an investigation was undertaken in 1972 by two lieutenant colonels from the Australian army with the stated aim: To obtain first-hand information for possible handling of situation when press find out — which was a bit late, considering the press had been reporting the ghostly goings-on at the barracks for at least the previous ninety years. As one might expect the investigating officers’ official findings suggested hallucinations, coincidences, pranks, electrical faults, etc., but at least one of them became a devout believer in Charlie’s ghost.

  In 1975 the prison where Charlie ended his life was closed and became the barracks museum but without interruption to his ghost’s activities. To this day he flits about among the exhibits at night, startling security guards, alarming guard dogs and trying, so far unsuccessfully, to trap unsuspecting victims in the cells by closing the heavy steel doors.

  In 1988 the army was again obliged to acknowledge the existence of ghosts in one of its historic establishments — this time Fortuna Villa, at Bendigo, Victoria, headquarters of DIGO, the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation, where millions of useful maps had been produced during and since World War Two.

  A zealous patriot who had read a magazine article about ghosts at Fortuna wrote to inquire what action the army was taking to eliminate the threat to our national security from our enemies finding out that Australian service personnel believed in ghosts. A spokesperson for the army very sensibly wrote back to say no action was being taken on those grounds and pointing out that soldiers are no different to anyone else in the community and prone to fear the unknown — whether it be supernatural or otherwise.

  Fortuna Villa was once the home of the mining magnate Sir George Lansell, known as the Quartz King for introducing deep-shaft mining to the Bendigo goldfields. Lansell spent a fortune enlarging the house and gardens, installing ornamental lakes, a Roman-style bathing house, valuable art works, swathes of stained glass and all the latest ‘mod-cons’ of the Victorian era. In 1942 Fortuna was taken over by the army and stories of ghostly activity came thick and fast — attested to by numerous officers and men who served there.

  In 1998 retired Major John Bloor vividly recalled the cold winter morning twenty years earlier when he came up the stairs near the ornamental lake and spotted a filmy figure in a white shroud peering into the kitchen window. The apparition sensed Bloor’s approach and turned. The living and the dead stared at each other for about fifteen seconds, then the apparition faded away. When the Major met up with someone a few minutes later they said: ‘What’s up, John? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I have,’ he replied.

  Footsteps are heard in what was once Sir George Lansell’s bedroom and in the adjoining bathroom; also in the billiard room, which became the Officers’ Mess. So often were these slow, thumping sounds heard by rank and file that they ceased to cause alarm and were dismissed with casual remarks like ‘There’s old George banging around again.’

  Female voices are clearly audible in Mrs Lansell’s former bedroom at night when the room is supposedly empty; and a sergeant who put his head inside to investigate one night was asked very brusquely: ‘What are you doing here?’ The identity of this ghost is less clear. She may be ‘old Bedella’ or ‘old Edith’ for there were two Mrs Lansells: the first an uneducated Irish lass who did not cope well with her husband’s social climbing and reportedly drank herself to death; and the second, a formidable English woman who lived on at Fortuna like a dowager queen until the 1920s.

  The ghosts of a little boy in a sailor suit and a girl in a late-Victorian tea gown have also been spotted, but not all the ghosts of Fortuna Villa are necessarily of the Lansells’ time. Major Bloor was told by another officer about a tragic event that occurred there during World War Two and which may account for at least one ghost. A group of soldiers were playing cards one day when a comrade walked in and asked casually if any of them had a piece of rope.

  ‘What for?’ one of the group asked.

  ‘To hang meself, o’ course,’ the first soldier said and they all laughed.

  ‘There’s a bit in my kit,’ said another soldier, helpfully. Half an hour later they found the first soldier’s dead body dangling from ‘the bit’ of rope.

  Fortuna was the Ancient Roman goddess of good fortune, but it seems Fortuna Villa has not always enjoyed her protection.

  32.

  The Headmistress’s Ghost

  Now droops the milk white peacock like a ghost

  And like a ghost, she glimmers on me.

  The Princess, Alfred Lord Tennyson (English poet, 1809–1892)

  Rockhampton Girls’ Grammar School has a long and distinguished history. Founded in 1892 to provide a superior education for the daughters of wealthy pastoralists and the city’s leading citizens, the school prospered from the outset. This was due largely to the first headmistress, an English spinster named Helen E. Downs. Miss Downs was a character; a free thinker with progressive views on female education, women’s emancipation and most other subjects. At a speech day
in 1898 she reminded parents that the senior classes in her school were for training cultured women who would exert an uplifting influence in social matters — and not waste their time on prettiness.

  ‘Prettiness’ was one of Miss Downs’s chief dislikes. She was not pretty herself and was possibly slightly lame. She refused to allow staff or students to restrict their bodies with corsets or ‘paint’ their faces. Sensible clothes, sensible diet, fresh air, exercise and lots of soap and water were her recipe for building sturdy bodies and sound minds.

  Helen Downs’s unconventional ideas probably shocked and upset many people, but the academic achievements of her students reached such heights that she was tolerated by her critics and encouraged by the liberal-minded. The impression one gets reading about her 100-plus years later is of boundless energy, a brilliant mind and total dedication to her vocation.

  It is not surprising that such a strong and controversial character should still exert a powerful influence over the school she founded, but the form that influence takes is quite unexpected. According to school legend Miss Downs’s ghost lives in the school bell tower and comes down from her eyrie once a year, at 11 pm on 11 November. The ghost makes its way through the girls’ dormitories, selects the girl with the longest blonde hair, produces a pair of spectral scissors and hacks off her victim’s tresses.

  If you don’t believe this story, ask the girls (and former girls). They will tell you that they believe in the ghost of Miss Downs — and watch the mixture of excitement, embarrassment, pride and fear on their faces as they recount their experiences and express their views.

  We had our mattresses in the middle of E dorm, on the night of 11 November 1995. Another girl who lives in H dorm, and had the longest, blondest hair came into our room — she was really scared that the ghost was going to chop off her beloved hair. At 11 p.m. we heard a noise in the roof. We all screamed. A mistress came in and quietened us. She said there was no such thing as ghosts and that it was probably a bandicoot in the roof. A bandicoot in the roof? I’m sure it was Miss Downs!

  Miss Downs comes drifting down from her hideout and scares the living daylights out of new and old boarders. If the girl she selects puts up a fight the ghost will drag her up and down the stairs till her hair falls out — but wait, there’s more. We have three student ghosts as well. One is a girl who died of scarlet fever and another is Miss Downs’s first victim. She wanders up and down the stairs trying to warn us.

  I was told Miss Downs was a nice ghost who goes around at night checking that we are looking after her school, tucks us in and gives us a kiss on the cheek. I think she is far too nice to hurt anyone.

  The story of the ghost of Helen Downs was first published in another book of mine in 1998 and soon after that I received a letter from an old lady who had been a pupil at Rockhampton Girls’ Grammar in the 1930s. She wrote that she had read with interest my account of the ghost’s activities and the impressions of the current batch of students, but felt that it was unlikely any of these younger girls had actually seen the ghost. She, on the other hand, had — or so she assured me.

  The lady explained that she remembered taking part in the annual ritual on 11 November every year while she was a boarder at the school, getting (like all her classmates) overexcited with anticipation and fear when the fateful hour approached and then, in her case, deeply disappointed because she did not get to see the spectre charging down the stairs wielding a giant pair of scissors and shearing off golden locks from screaming little girls.

  By her second or third year at the school, my correspondent said she was convinced the whole story was a myth — a great way for impressionable girls to ‘let off steam’ — but nothing more. Then, she said, in her third year at the school and 200-odd kilometres from Rockhampton something happened which made her change her mind.

  A few days after her thirteenth birthday, the lady said, she was summoned to the principal’s office and the news broken to her that her father had died as the result of an accident on their family property near Emerald, west of Rockhampton. It was also explained that it had been arranged for her to go home for a few days, to be with her mother and her siblings and to attend her father’s funeral. A teacher, the principal told her, had been assigned to take her to the Rockhampton railway station the following day and put her on the Emerald train and that her mother or another relative would be waiting for her at the other end.

  The girl was very upset at her father’s death and she knew that the next few days would be an ordeal for her and for the rest of her family. She cried much and slept little that night. The following morning a teacher drove her to the station, helped her board the train and stow her bag in the overhead luggage rack then farewelled her.

  The train was only sparsely filled and just before it pulled out of the station another woman got into the same carriage. The young girl noticed her, but did not pay her much attention. The woman smiled as she passed and the young girl thought the woman’s face seemed vaguely familiar.

  The journey took several hours and on arrival at Emerald the girl was met by her two older brothers and driven home. The next few days were taken up with all the activities that surround a death in any family — visits from relatives and friends, funeral arrangements, choosing flowers, choosing mourning clothes, a lot of handshaking and hugging and many tears. The young girl thought no more about the woman on the train or about school or her classmates, who at the time seemed far away and belonging to a different world.

  The funeral was held in the Anglican church in a little town outside Emerald. The day was hot and the air filled with smoke from distant bushfires.

  The church was packed and for every seated mourner there were a hundred buzzing flies. The flowers on the altar and on the coffin wilted. Men discreetly loosened their collars and ladies fanned themselves with prayer books when they thought no one was looking. The minister sweltered in his robes and had rivulets of sweat running down his forehead, cheeks and jowls.

  The young girl from Rockhampton Girls’ Grammar had been brave during the preceding days, but with the sudden realisation that her father’s dead body lay in a box just metres away from her and that she would never see him again made her eyes fill with unbidden tears. At almost the same moment her brothers and her mother (all sitting on her left) also began to weep, setting up a chorus of quiet sniffling.

  Through her tears the young woman noticed a figure moving rapidly down the outside aisle of the church. The figure stopped at the end of the family’s pew and slid in beside her. A gentle hand reached out and took the girl’s and a quiet voice whispered: ‘Be brave, little one, I’m here for you.’

  The girl recognised the lady who had smiled at her on the train and now, at close range, she also recognised the face from an old portrait she had seen at school. She swallowed her tears and whispered: ‘You’re Miss Downs, aren’t you?’ The lady smiled and nodded. Then the young girl’s expression changed to alarm.

  ‘You haven’t come to cut off my hair, have you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not, my dear,’ came the gentle reply.

  At that moment the service began and for the next thirty minutes the ghost of Helen Downs sat quietly beside the girl, her presence bestowing courage and a warm sense of solace on the child. When hymns were announced the kind spirit helped the girl to her feet and joined in the singing with a soft, deep voice.

  After six local lads carried the coffin from the church to be loaded onto a hearse and taken to the cemetery, the minister gathered the family together to offer his condolences and accept their thanks for the service. The girl’s mother introduced her to the minister, explaining that she was a pupil of Rockhampton Girls’ Grammar and had come home to be with the family.

  The minister reached out and put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and said he felt sure both her father and her school would have been proud of how splendidly she had conducted herself during the service. ‘You were a model of propriety, my dear,’ he said.

&nb
sp; At the first opportunity the girl turned to where her companion had been sitting, but the pew was empty. As is the custom, no one left the church until the family did. Miss Downs had not ‘left’; she had simply vanished and it seemed from conversations the girl had with others after the funeral that she had not made herself visible to anyone else.

  Even now, more than sixty years later’ my correspondent wrote, I feel a fool for having asked Miss Downs if she had come to cut off my hair, but I’m sure she didn’t mind. She was too kind and too understanding to take offence at that. I never saw her again, but I sincerely hope her spirit is still lingering around Rockhampton Girls’ Grammar, keeping an eye on the welfare of her girls and probably having a good chuckle on the eleventh of November every year.

  33.

  The Luna Park Ghost: Not a Joking Matter

  If a ghost is really the spirit of a dead man, then it ought to appear nude because garments have no spirits.

  Wang Ch’ung (Chinese philosopher, first century AD)

  For generations of Melburnians, Luna Park at St Kilda has epitomised all that was fun and carefree; it’s a place where they can leave inhibitions behind and abandon themselves to pleasure. There were, however, stories of a terrifying, joker-like spectre prowling the park a little over half a century ago, materialising in the path of cars on the roller coaster, sharing cages with patrons on the Ferris wheel and causing general panic. Most people thought the Joker was a publicity stunt, but not those who encountered it.

  One such couple had a terrifying story to tell after they encountered the Joker on the Ferris wheel. The year was 1957 and the young man, Roy, and his girlfriend, Heather, were both nineteen. Their families lived a few streets apart in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray and Roy had invited Heather to Luna Park to celebrate a pay rise he had received.