by John Pinkney
Peter Alford concluded his article thus:
On Thursday I asked Am if we could write the story. I expected her to object. Instead she seemed comforted and pleased: ‘So now you believe about the ghosts?’
I said: ‘I don’t not believe as much as I used to.’
Ghosts of Battle
Strange Saga of the Soldier on the Stairs
The phantom of a mortally wounded Australian Gallipoli veteran is haunting a former British hospital. Far from being frightened by Sergeant Thomas Hunter’s spectre, the people of Peterborough, England, have come to regard it as an important, albeit mystical, part of their lives. The council has erected a three-metre-high memorial to the courageous soldier - and war veterans conduct an annual service in his honour: just two of numerous tributes to a spirit that has lingered in the city for 90 years…
THE LETTER, PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE’S Herald Sun on 24 August 2001, was headed Ghost Soldier. Its author, Dorothy Wright, said:
My mother, who is 95 and lives in Peterborough, England, thinks that if you publish the details about the ghost of an Australian soldier who haunts the city’s museum his soul will be able to rest. I guess that when you’re 95 you have such strange thoughts, but maybe it will work. Sgt Thomas Hunter was fighting in the battle of the Somme when he was wounded and shipped across the Channel and taken to Peterborough.
He died in an infirmary, which is now the museum, and staff say they have seen his ghost on the staircase near the old operating theatre…My mother has sent me a clipping from the Peterborough newspaper which shows a computer image of the soldier on the stairs and a photo of the more substantial war veterans who gather each year at a ceremony at his graveside…
Sergeant Thomas Hunter was born in Newcastle. United Kingdom, in 1880. As a young man he immigrated to Australia, where he worked principally as a coalminer in New South Wales. In 1914, at the outbreak of war, he enlisted with the Australian Army and served with the ANZAC force at Gallipoli. He was badly wounded, but survived - to fight in 1916, as a member of 10th Battalion Australian Imperial Force on the Somme. The joint British- French offensive managed to break through German lines, but at immense cost in lives. Hunter was among the gravely injured. A field hospital doctor recommended that he be shipped back to England for specialised care.
Barely conscious, Hunter was transported across the Channel and placed on a hospital train headed north. When his condition worsened the medical supervisor ordered that the train be stopped at the next convenient station - which happened to be Peterborough. From there he was taken to the nearest hospital, the Peterborough Infirmary. But staff could do little for him and the following day - 31 July 1916 - he died. Sergeant Hunter was buried in Broadway cemetery.
But in a sense, he was neither buried nor dead.
The building that would eventually house Peterborough Museum had been erected a century earlier. Initially it served as a grand mansion for local magistrate Thomas Cooke. In 1857, with Cooke long dead, his house was converted into an infirmary which remained on the site until 1931. The former hospital was then transformed into the city’s official museum.
And it was on the Peterborough Museum’s premises that the haunting began.
In the museum’s early years the trustees could afford only two full-time staff members: a Mr and Mrs Yarrow. The couple, acting as caretakers, lived rent-free with their two sons in an upstairs flat. In September 1931, Mr Yarrow and the children went out for the afternoon, leaving Mrs Yarrow alone in the building. At the end of the working day she saw the remaining visitors out, locked the doors and went up to the flat, to prepare the evening meal.
Sergeant Thomas Hunter, an ANZAC veteran who died of wounds sustained on the Somme in 1916, still haunts a former hospital, now the city museum, in Peterborough England.
While cooking she heard a noise on the main staircase. Assuming her husband and sons had returned she went out to greet them. But there was no sign of her family. Instead she encountered a young man, climbing the stairs.
For a moment Mrs Yarrow assumed the stranger was a visitor she had locked in by mistake. However she quickly realised something was seriously amiss. The man’s footsteps were ‘unnaturally loud’ - a physical impossibility as she could now clearly see that he was floating up the stairs’.
The man reached the landing where the caretaker’s wife stood frozen. Seemingly unaware of her presence, he part- walked, part-wafted to within inches of her. Then - without opening them - he passed through a pair of doors and floated down the corridor. At the end of the passage he abruptly vanished. Mrs Yarrow fled the building.
Her bizarre sighting became the talk of Peterborough. Who or what had she seen? And why had the apparition chosen that moment to appear? In the years that followed the ghost appeared to numerous other witnesses, usually in the stairwell and on the landing - and analysts began to piece together a rationale. The haunting was principally concentrated in the vicinity of the old operating theatre. The ghost - the consensus had it - was the spirit of the Australian sergeant, Thomas Hunter: the lonely ANZAC who had died in surgery, far from his Australian home and family, in 1916.
All English cities and towns are aswarm with ghosts. But to the people of Peterborough the ‘Sergeant Hunter Haunting’ has a special poignancy that has resonated through generations. In March 2003, while researching his book on Hunter (The Lonely Anzac: A True Son of Empire),local historian John W. Harvey learned how deeply the city’s emotions ran. Eric Dent, the museum’s heritage manager, rang Harvey to say, ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve found.’ It was a memorial of carved wood and plaster depicting Sergeant Hunter and surmounted by the Australian coat- of-arms. Somehow it had been mislaid in 1931 when the infirmary became a museum. When a newspaper reported the discovery Peterborough citizens immediately lobbied for the plaque to go back on display.
Earlier, a Celtic cross paid for by public appeal had been placed above Tom Hunter’s grave. A memorial in his honour is displayed in Peterborough Cathedral - and on 25 April each year Peterborough, like any Australian town, celebrates Anzac Day.
In 2003 a team from Cambridge University, armed with recorders and motion-sensing cameras, visited the museum to collect data on the phantom, which, after 90 years, is still being blamed for moving furniture and creating cold spots.
One intriguing report centred on a toddler. Museum executive Jo Emmington told me, ‘In 2004 a staff member’s two-year-old daughter was up in our staff room with her dad while he had lunch. The little girl suddenly asked, “Does the soldier want a sandwich, Daddy?” The staff room is directly below the operating theatre where Thomas died.’
My thanks to Peterborough Museum’s Stuart Orme and Jo Emmington for their invaluable help with this story. Should any inaccuracies have been perpetrated, they are mine alone. JP
The Ghost on the River Kwai
Another story of wartime courage - and the haunting that ensued - came to me in 1993 from Bruce McMaugh of Toowoomba, Queensland. He wrote, ‘Last year I went to Thailand for a holiday. While I was there I was astonished to receive three messages which I could only conclude came from an AIF mate who died in 1944.
‘Things started happening shortly after I’d crossed the Bridge on the River Kwai - the structure Allied POWs were forced to build for the Japanese during World War II. Earlier that day I’d been to the Kanchanburi war cemetery where 6900 Allied soldiers are buried. As a tribute I’d placed dried Australian gumleaves on several graves.
‘While I was crossing the bridge I started thinking about four old mates of mine. These were the blokes I’d joined the 2nd AIF with in Townsville more than 50 years before. I couldn’t remember those fellows’ names - and that was ridiculous in the case of one of them, because we’d worked together at the Kalamia sugarmill before joining up.
‘Later, as I sat in my motel unit, I tried hard to remember the name of my friend. Then suddenly my skin started to tingle - and I was aware of someone in the room. I looked around, but there was no o
ne - and I’d heard no footsteps outside. But somebody was in the room all right. I almost jumped out of my skin when a man’s voice, close to my ear, whispered “Welch!” That was the name of my friend who’d died. As soon as the name was spoken I could feel that the presence had left the room.
‘Next morning I got up early. I almost ran across the bridge, past the old Japanese steam engine which had pulled munitions and POWs up and down the Burma Railway. When I arrived at the Kanchanburi cemetery no one was about. I opened the container where the register of burials was kept and looked up the name Welch.
‘To my amazement one of my dried gumleaves was acting as a bookmark - on the exact page recording my friend’s funeral.
‘I wrote down the plot, row and grave numbers, realising he was buried in a part of the cemetery I’d never visited before. Finally I found his grave - on which lay three more of my dried gumleaves, arranged into the shape of the Prince of Wales feathers. I had never been near that grave before and I couldn’t imagine how the leaves had got there - or why they’d been formed into the national crest of Wales.
Then I remembered how my friend had loved playing jokes with words. That Welsh insignia was a play on his own name, Welch. I was shaken, but elated. It was wonderful to know that although he’d died in that POW camp, my mate was still alive somewhere, with his sense of humour intact.’
Haunted Hospitals
Dialogue with a Long-Buried Doctor
Appearances by phantom physicians and spectral nurses have been quietly reported over the years by staff at most Australian hospitals. While some health workers are sceptical, others testify that they have seen strange healers visit wards to comfort distressed and dying patients. The ‘haunted hospital’ syndrome - recognised in every country of the world - has been part of the Australian experience since the days of the first settlers. And sometimes our apparitions have been associated with results that senior doctors simply can’t understand…
IT WAS THE MOST MOVING LETTER I have ever received. Dated 11 February 1990 it was sent to me by a young father, Stephen Partington, of Pt Elliott, South Australia. He described a remarkable incident that had occurred nine years earlier when his daughter was a patient in the Adelaide Children’s Hospital (now the Women’s and Children’s Hospital).
‘Tarena, my second daughter, had been born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus,’ Stephen wrote. ‘The ACH’s doctors told us she wouldn’t live. They warned that even if she did survive she would not have a good life because her brain was saturated with fluid.
‘Knowing Tarena had so little time we sat by her bed as often as we could. One morning at about 3.30 she was at her lowest ebb. I was sitting by her cot, trying to comfort her, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned - and saw that a doctor wearing a long white coat was standing by my chair. He told me to stop worrying - saying that Tarena would not only survive, but would be all right.
‘With a tremendous surge of relief I turned to look down at her. When I swung back again a couple of seconds later the doctor had vanished. I knew it was utterly impossible for him to have left so silently and swiftly. I rushed out into the corridor but no one was there. Then I went to the staff station, which was only 10 feet from Tarena’s ward. When I asked for the name of the doctor I’d just spoken to they gave me puzzled looks. Then they said that no doctor had been on the ward since 9.30 pm, six hours earlier.
‘Our daughter did survive, as that doctor predicted. I’ve often thought since about my encounter with him. And recreating what I saw, I’ve realised that very little of the man was visible to me. I can’t recall seeing a face, hands or even legs. All I remember was a long white coat and his calming voice.’
The ghost of the old Adelaide Children’s Hospital is thought by some staff members to be the spirit of a beloved surgeon who died before World War I.
‘I Remember Her Kind Beautiful Face…’
Jo Vale of Blacktown, New South Wales, told me of a meeting with an ethereal nurse who, she believed, saved her life. Jo told me, ‘While I was seriously ill in a Sydney hospital a nurse paid me what I’d later realise was a very strange visit. I was lying, sleepless and in pain, when she walked into my ward. I had no idea she wasn’t an ordinary member of the hospital staff. What I remember most about her now is her kind and most beautiful face.
‘The nurse leaned down and addressed me in a soft voice, saying, “Don’t worry. I’m here now and you’re going to be all right.” That prediction turned out to be dramatically correct. Overnight I made a recovery so complete the doctors couldn’t believe it. Naturally I asked to speak again to the nurse who had cheered me up so much - but the staff were adamant there was no one of that description in the hospital.
‘And that wasn’t the end of it. That afternoon my daughter admitted to me that she’d dreamed she attended my funeral - which was cancelled at the last minute when I was found to be still alive. I’ve wondered ever since who that nurse was, and whether she did indeed restore the gift of life to me.’
Apparitions of the wards - also known as ‘walkers’ - are an international phenomenon, as many Australian travellers can testify. Jacqueline Hearman, a triple- certificated Adelaide nurse, wrote to me to describe the Grey Lady, the ghost of a long-dead nursing sister which for more than a century has appeared to patients in a London hospital. ‘I learned about the ghost while doing my training,’ Jacqueline said. ‘I never actually saw the phantom, but other nurses and patients encountered her frequently. The Grey Lady usually appeared in patients’ rooms about 24 hours before they passed away. She was thought to be the spirit of a ward sister who had died in the late 19th century.
‘The Grey Lady brought comfort to many people. However, the nurses always found it unnerving when an apparently recovering patient asked, “Who was that lady in grey who sat with me?”’
Echoes of the Dying Room
The Old York Hospital in Northam, Western Australia, was closed in 1963 after 67 years in service. The wards, throughout most of their history, were pervaded by phantasms. And after the doors closed for the last time the haunting continued - even spilling over into surrounding premises.
One recipient of the phantoms’ attentions was Leigh Carmichael, whose Clifford Street house stood directly in front of the old building. He told Northam Independent reporter Ben Robinson (23 September 1997) that hardly a week went by without disturbing phenomena from next door intruding into his rooms. He was more bemused than frightened, until the April night when he and three friends decided to ‘go on a tour’ of the abandoned hospital.
‘From the moment we entered via the top floor my little terrier, who usually bolts ahead, refused to go further,’ Leigh recalled. ‘We went ahead to the “dying room”, with its view of the morgue below. This was the place where terminally ill patients had been kept.
‘We got to the staircase landing and both our torches went off. We then heard a door slamming loudly under the stained glass window. There is no door on that landing. After that we heard footsteps beneath us, as if someone was walking under the staircase…’
For several years the ‘Old York’ was used for school camps, producing reports of paranormal events from teachers and students. The most powerful focus of the haunting was believed to be the nearby maternity ward in which many abortions were performed.
Patients Perplexed by
Phantom Phone Calls
During the 1990s something strange began repeatedly to occur in Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital. Staff and patients received a series of mysterious telephone calls which neither they nor management could explain.
One victim of the phone-bending phenomenon was Mrs M. Miller of Collingwood. ‘I was having physiotherapy when my bedside telephone rang,’ she told me. ‘I picked it up and heard my adult daughter say hello. I explained I was in the middle of physio and said I’d call her back. This annoyed her somewhat. She asked, “What do you mean call back? You’ve just rung ME!”
‘She then informed me that she’d be
en in the kitchen cooking when the sittingroom telephone rang. She picked it up - and there I was. I hung up, absolutely baffled. Then the nursing sister, who’d witnessed the entire incident, astonished me even more. She said these strange phone linkups occurred quite often at St Vincent’s. She added that they always happened to people who were close, like husbands and wives or parents and their offspring.
‘They’d suddenly find themselves in telephone contact - when neither person had dialled the other.’
A senior executive with the hospital confirmed to me that the phenomenon was real, saying, ‘Yes, we have had this odd business with the phones from time to time. A few people on staff believe a ghost’s to blame. I’m sure there’s a more sensible explanation. The only trouble is, no one’s found it.’
Wraith Rattled Nurses
In 1998 security guards rushed to the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s plastic surgery department, after three terrified nurses said they had jointly seen a ghost. The guards, suspecting an intruder was the likelier culprit, hoisted a long ladder into the roof. But they could find no sign either of an apparition or an interloper.
Shortly afterward, however, the impossible happened - when a nurse discovered that the ladder had mysteriously been turned upside-down. The hospital’s public relations manager was open and helpful: ‘For many years staff have been talking about a grey misty figure moving through the building. Some people here believe in the ghost, but others - myself included - think it’s no more than a legend that’s grown on itself.’