by John Pinkney
While her husband lay gasping in pain Sharon Nelson rang for an ambulance. That night, at Western General Hospital in Footscray, a surgeon inserted three steel pins into Frank’s fractured ankle. And that was not the end of the ordeal. In the weeks that followed the night noises and other phenomena persisted. The Nelsons, although defiant at first, finally decided to move. Frank said:
‘In our last week at the Clarkefield, two terrifying things happened. First, when we were lying in bed, the doona flew off. Then something woke me in the night. I could feel a hand moving inside the plaster cast and twisting and wrenching at my broken ankle. I was screaming with pain. For Sharon and me, that was the end of it.’
Reverend Tony Russell conducted his investigation during the final days of Frank Nelson’s time as licensee. The clergyman’s support group comprised 21-year-old Tony Russell Jr, audio operators Peter and Cob Simpson and photographer Bill Lawrie. A key moment of the night-long vigil came at 12.22 am when the team heard and recorded ‘whistlings, rustlings and mumbled conversations’ emerging from within the walls and from the air around them. At 12.23 am a ‘deep chill’ descended on the watchers. It felt, says Tony Russell’s report, ‘as though someone had opened a gigantic refrigerator door’. Instinctively Bill Lawrie pointed his Minolta camera at the yawning stairwell.
The result was a photograph of a swirlingly indistinct image resembling a human form, hovering on the stairs. (See photograph.)
At 1.30 am Reverend Russell’s researchers ‘saw a light moving down the stairs and recorded the unmistakable voice of a child. Its words were indistinct, but plaintive and unhappy.’ The report adds, ‘From 2 o’clock onward things were moved about. A blanket was lifted from a stack near the back door and thrown across the hall. At 2.17 one of the microphones was moved several feet from the large dish that had been acting as its stand.’
Steve and Deborah Dudley were the Nelsons’ successors as licensees. When I spoke with them in July 1984 they agreed that the stairwell (down which Frank had fallen) seemed to be the hub of the haunting. ‘Sometimes we feel hot and cold spots on those stairs,’ said Deborah. ‘From one step to the next the temperature can change from oven- hot to freezing cold.’ Particularly puzzling to the Dudleys were the constant water supply failures. ‘The bore water pump stands in a shed with no windows,’ Deborah said. ‘We keep it padlocked at all times and only Steve and I have a key. Every few days, when the taps run dry, we unlock that shed - to find that someone or something has thrown the switch. It’s impossible. It can’t be a human doing it, because no one but us can get in there.’
The Dudleys quit after eight months in the job and were succeeded by licensees who reported similar phenomena. And the hotel’s guests were not immune. Typical was Margaret Hunter of Mt Gravatt, Queensland, who wrote:
I’d never heard of the Clarkefield hotel or of its ghosts. So, for a long time I imagined that the experience I’d undergone there was confined to me.
I was driving from Melbourne to Sydney - and, feeling tired, I decided to book a room for the night. The place I settled on, the Clarkefield, looked cool and pleasant and it wasn’t long before I was ensconced in an upstairs room. I slept soundly and rose at seven the next morning to shower and get on my way.
I was just brushing my hair when I felt a chill, as though someone had flung open the door of a deep-freeze. Deciding to let some warm summer air in I tried to push up the window. It refused to budge. Then something shocking happened. A large jug which had been standing in a washbasin hurtled up into the air and smashed on the floor. What frightened me was that the jug was right at the other end of the room. No movement or vibration from me could have caused it to levitate like that.
The image of that flying jug has engraved itself on my memory. It was a relief to learn in later years that other people have had similar experiences in that hotel.
As happens in many hauntings, the Clarkefield’s disturbed spirits eventually fell silent. But locals still wonder why the quaint old building became so particular a focal point for phantoms. One theory advanced to explain the multiplicity of ghosts reported in hotels is that a far greater number of deaths occur amongst their constantly changing populations than in the average building. Most parapsychologists believe that when a guest, employee or family member dies violently the event can resonate for generations:
In March 1993 staff at the Plough Inn, an old Brisbane hostelry, complained to me that ‘something’ was interfering with pumping equipment in a securely sealed coldroom. ‘Every night, when trading is over, we routinely turn off the main beer taps, then lock the room,’ an employee, Shawn Mullen, said. ‘But puzzlingly, when we’re preparing for opening time next day, we find the taps have quite inexplicably been returned to their “on” positions. We’ve checked it out often - and we all agree there’s no way anyone could be getting into that room overnight.’ (Earlier in this chapter, Clarkefield hotel nominee Deborah Dudley describes a markedly similar case concerning a bore water pump repeatedly switched off inside a locked shed.)
Neither the Plough’s staff nor its owners could imagine what the intruder’s provenance might be - until a postgraduate student reviewed the hotel’s history and offered them something to speculate about. The researcher discovered that the original owners, William and Selina Brown, had tragically lost their teenage daughter in 1893, when she was a drowned in a flood. ‘We tend to think she might be the one who’s still hanging around here and playing the tricks on us,’ Shawn Mullen said.
Another example of violent death resonating within a hotel’s walls was described in Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph (16 February 1997). When one of the city’s earliest inns, the Dundee Arms (built 1849), was incorporated into the Hotel Nikko complex on Sussex Street, the dust and clamour reportedly triggered a tornado of paranormal activity. ‘The work was noisy enough to wake the dead - and it did!’ wrote journalist Phillip Koch. He quoted a staff member, Nadine Mitchell, as saying that the ghost manifested itself in many ways, from unlocking and slamming doors to ripping out air vents and switching on electrical devices.
While seeking a key to the haunting’s history Nadine learned that a brothelkeeper had beaten a 20- year-old prostitute to death in the building during the late 19th century. An architect directing the renovations said he had seen the apparition of a young woman in a shimmering dress floating along a corridor. Sanjay Gandhi, the beverage manager, encountered the entity in a basement, where it manifested itself as a series of loud, invisible footsteps, followed by a gust of icy wind.
Throughout 1986 the infrared alarm system installed in Perth’s Leederville Hotel went off frequently at night, obliging the manager and staff to leave their beds and look for intruders. They could never find anyone. Electricians, summoned to search for faults, invariably reported that the system was in good order. The burgeoning mystery prompted one theorist to speculate that the culprit might be Kanga, the phantom of a betting shop manager who had died in the hotel’s tower bedroom, his home for 30 years. Over the decades, Kanga had manifested himself to countless people in the hotel’s corridors, usually in the reported form of a ‘shadow’ or ‘outline’ - and it seemed conceivable now that he was seeking a little more attention.
The staff, deciding that any idea was worth trying, held a conference at which they compiled a note to Kanga. It read, ‘We know you like to walk around the hotel. We know you like to look and make sure everyone is safe and secure - but please try not to set off the alarms.’ The note, with the ballpoint pen that had written it, was left overnight on a table in Kanga’s tower room. Next morning the pen remained undisturbed, but the pad was gone. From that time the alarms were silent.
* * *
‘Ghost Room’ Ripped From Queensland Church
During the 1960s the Catholic Church hired contrac- tors to remove a room from its long-established church in Ravenswood, Queensland.
The diocese declined to discuss the decision - but rumours swept the town that church officials had been despera
tely trying to ‘get rid of the ghost’ that haunted the small bedroom near the sacristy. So troublesome was the phantom that the bishop of Townsville reportedly sent an exorcist to remove it. But his efforts - like those of the demolitionists - failed. The entity, said to be that of a shuffling priest with a tapping cane, continues to disturb Ravenswood residents to the present day. (The building now is used by a range of religions.)
Talk of the ghost became so widespread that the Townsville Catholic News (December 1961) uncharac- teristically devoted an entire page to it. The report revealed that:
‘A priest, stationed at Ravenswood, rushed one night to a neighbour’s house and banged on the door, yelling to be let in. He was tremb- ling…and appeared to be on the verge of a stroke. He refused to say what was the cause of his fear (but) one fact is certain: he would never again sleep in the sacristy.’
‘One priest (from Charters Towers) brought his dog Bobby…The night at Ravenswood was made comfortable for Bobby: a nice clean bag on the floor in the sacristy just inside the door leading to the Sanctuary of the church. The dog made himself at home, and his master went across the landing to the little lean-to bedroom. The priest woke, hearing noises. He was not alarmed, but waiting for Bobby to bring down the roof with his usual vigorous bark. (But) Bobby rushed out of the sacristy, jumped the landing into the bedroom and dived under his master’s bed.
The priest shone his torch…the dog was trembling, his bristly hair on end and whingeing like a frightened child. This was too much for his master and there was a race for the back yard.’
‘A Redemptorist missioner went to Ravenswood with a high-ranking prelate. They proposed to stay the night and say Mass for the Sisters in the morning. The priest occupied a stretcher in the sacristy. During the night he heard steps (which) came to the sacristy door several times and turned back. Suddenly the steps ceased at the door of the sanctuary and he got the sensation there was someone in the room. The old tripod washbasin moved and there were other noises. At breakfast next morning at the Convent he remarked to his companion, “I thought I heard you walking in the church last night.” Immediately the Sisters were all ears. “Did you see it, Father? Did you speak to it?”
‘“Speak to what?” he asked. “The ghost,” they said.’
In July 2005 I spoke to a retired priest, Father Maurice Casey. ‘In my time the local Ravenswood people and the church authorities were very tightlipped about the phenomenon,’ he said. ‘But as I remember it, that newspaper article was correct. People were always talking about the strange happenings in that room near the sacristy and elsewhere in the church for that matter.
‘I don’t think anyone has actually seen anything - to my knowledge it’s always sounds and sensations. I was connected with a couple of happenings myself. On one occasion I heard footsteps coming down the aisle when no one was visibly there - and then, shuffling sounds like someone getting in and out of their seat.
‘On another occasion, two friends of mine stayed at the old church and ended up fleeing in terror. I’ll never forget the burn one of them suffered. When he and his companion heard the footsteps approaching them, he was so frightened he clamped down on his lighted cigarette. He felt no pain at the time. Only later did he show us the deep burn between his fingers.’
* * *
Spectres of the Sea
Sickness, Death, Stalk a Sinister Shipwreck
In 1963 the notoriously accident-prone freighter Alkimos was ripped apart by reefs on the Western Australian coast. The rusting wreck, standing offshore in shallow water, gradually became a lure for sightseers. But many, having visited once, insisted that they would never go back - citing strange shifting shapes on the decks and uncanny clamourings from below. Tourists who drove down to the beach to photograph the hulk found that their cars refused to start again. News spread that Alkimos was infested by unfriendly entities which brought misfortune to those who ventured near…
ACCORDING TO A MARITIME SUPERSTITION, only ill-luck can result from altering a ship’s name. The vessel that eventually became the Greek freighter Alkimos was renamed twice. Its changes of identity preceded a long series of terrifying events.
Alkimos began life in 1943 as one of 2750 Liberty ships built by the US Government to carry wartime supplies to Allied ports. The shipyards that produced the prefabricated ‘Liberties’ prided themselves on finishing each within 10 days - but the future Alkimos went through six weeks of mishaps before she was complete. Intended for American use she was originally christened the George M. Shriver. But mere days after the name was painted on her hull, military authorities changed their minds and assigned her to the Norwegians, who called her the Viggo Hanstein.
The ship’s troubles began almost immediately. While she rested in port during a blackout a crewman murdered the radio operator, then killed himself. Travelling with U-boat-assailed convoys through the Atlantic she broke down so often that she became a danger to accompanying vessels. When peace was declared in 1945 the United States sold off its Liberty ships. A Greek trading company acquired Viggo Hanstein at a bargain price - renaming her Alkimos.
Between voyages the crew turnover on Alkimos was close to 100 per cent. Sailors believed the ship was jinxed and that it was causing them to fall ill or to suffer bad luck. The decks, they said, were haunted by an evil spirit, which they most commonly described as a huge brooding man in oilskins.
In March 1963, while being towed through calm seas for repairs, the luckless cargo vessel broke away from her tug and drifted onto reefs north of Perth. In its new, permanent home the disembowelled Alkimos slowly degenerated into a rusting hulk with an increasingly evil reputation. Visitors who ventured out to the wreck claimed that the contact had brought them misfortune, ranging from mysterious illnesses to the accidental deaths and suicides of family members.
One ‘victim’ of the wrecked ship was the sporting champion Herbert Voigt, who in March 1969 tried to become the first person to swim the 20 kilometres from Perth to Rottnest. He vanished during the attempt - and an air-sea search failed to find his body. Four years later his skull (identified by dental records) was found lodged in the hull of the Alkimos. His planned route had gone nowhere near the crippled freighter.
Soon after Alkimos ran aground Wayne Morgan, an American exchange student, was employed as caretaker to deter looters. Instead he ended by panicking and locking himself in his cabin. To the medical staff at Geraldton Regional Hospital he described terrifying days and nights in which an immense misty figure walked the deck - and recalled how locked cabin doors had opened and closed unaided. The married couple who succeeded Morgan in the job described similar occurrences. They quit the ship after the pregnant wife fell, losing her baby.
The malign power of Alkimos touched anyone who tried to salvage her. Crewmen suffered burns, broken bones, slipped discs and family deaths far beyond statistical likelihood. In 1969 a fire inexplicably broke out while salvagers were dismantling the hulk, forcing them to swim to safety. Twelve unsuccessful attempts to salvage the wreck were made between 1963 and 1970. Tugs were damaged and burst into flames. Salvage company owners died or went bankrupt.
Perhaps the most impressive evidence concerning the hex-cum-haunting has been gathered by the legendary Perth diver Jack Sue. His association with the wreck began when, as host of the TV program ‘Down Under’ he spent a night aboard the ship with a film crew and several fellow divers. Jack, a doubter at the time, was determined to prove that ‘nothing supernatural was going on’. He and his sceptical friends were quickly forced to change their minds. Early in their visit group-members were astonished to hear footsteps and sneezes resonating from a section of the ship they knew to be empty. One diver felt a man brush past him - then watched, horrified, as a towering, oilskin-clad figure passed through a solid-steel bulkhead. Jack Sue himself, who would subsequently publish a book Ghost of the Alkimos, heard someone rolling over in the empty bunk opposite him.
The divers regretted their night of ghostbusting. One lost his
business. Another’s girlfriend died in a plane crash. Jack Sue collapsed the day after he came ashore from the Alkimos. He subsequently spent almost a year in hospital with an illness doctors could not diagnose. And that was not the end of his baleful association with the ship. In March 1997 - a month that plays a significant role in the haunted freighter’s history - he broke a self-imposed vow to have nothing more to do with the Alkimos. Decades after making the pledge he walked down to the stretch of beach that offered the clearest view of the hulk. Shortly afterward he suffered a severe stroke.
In an interview published in Sydney’s Sun-Herald (18 January 1998) Jack Sue said, ‘It’s probably just coincidence, but you can never tell with the Alkimos. I can’t help thinking of the number of people who’ve driven down that beach in four-wheel drives to photograph the wreck and had their cars break down, or their cameras fail, or their watches stop. That ship is bad luck.’
The Ghost Ship that Haunted
Queensland’s Coast
On 23 March 1911 the luxuriously appointed passenger and freight ship SS Yongala set out from Mackay for Townsville. Aboard were 122 people comprising the 62-year-old master Captain William Knight, his 72 crew and 49 passengers. Amongst the cargo bound for northern ports was a racehorse, Moonshine, and a red Lincolnshire bull.
The Yongala, at Cairns in 1910. Early the following year she sank in a cyclone, drowning 122 passengers and crew.
The ship was still in sight of land when the Mackay signal station received a telegram warning of an approaching cyclone. The previous month the owners, Adelaide Steamship Company, had bought Captain Knight the latest safety equipment: a wireless receiver-transmitter built by the Marconi company in England.