by John Pinkney
I spoke with several staffers who disagreed. ‘She’s as real as I am,’ a senior nurse assured me. I’ve seen her twice: once in 1987, when I came across her standing beside an empty bed - and again in 1996 when I saw her floating inside the doorway of a ward. She gave me a bad jolt both times. She was a grey transparent figure in what looked like a nurse’s uniform. It occurred to me that I could have passed through her, but I was too scared. I just stood there holding my breath till she vanished.’
The visitant was blamed for several outbreaks of poltergeist activity. On one occasion (1991) staff were shocked to find tables and chairs stacked high in the middle of a conference room that had been locked overnight. But the phantom can also, reportedly, be helpful - occasionally providing glasses of water to patients and even filling their drips.
Some employees believe the entity is the spirit of a student nurse who died in the hospital. Year after year she continues her rounds - perhaps unaware that she is long dead.
A similarly conscientious ‘walker’ was Matron Billings, after whom the Adelaide Billings Ward at Brisbane’s Royal Children’s Hospital was named. The ward has now been demolished - and Matron Billings, her phantasmal habitat destroyed, is no longer seen. But older hospital workers say they can still remember her floating through the building at night, checking on her young patients - stroking foreheads, straightening pillows and tucking in bedclothes.
The Spectre and the Dying Sailor
Ruth S. Taylor was a nurse whose interests might have been expected to lean more toward the medical than the paranormal. But in her autobiography Baraio (published 1962) she felt compelled to describe a remarkable experience. Her account reads, in part:
This is a tale of something which I saw with my eyes, but which my mind could not explain.
The incident happened during my second year (of nurse training at Hobart Hospital) when I was doing my first night-duty in charge of the men’s medical floor. Reporting at 9 pm I received my orders from the sister, who finished with, ‘Nurse, there is a young Irish sailor in Ward 5. He was brought in today from HMS Bellerophon and I fear he may already be beyond human aid. Watch him closely.’
I entered Ward 5 at about 9.20, noting that the night- light was very dim. I made my way from bed to bed, speaking to one here and moving another’s drink within reach. About halfway along the ward I saw that a beam of clear moonlight was shining on to the bed that I knew must be occupied by the sailor. Then I stopped suddenly, for kneeling beside him was an old lady in black. The boy was still, except for his laboured breathing, and one arm was flung across the white coverlet. In the moonlight I could see it plainly, a study in black and white except for one spot of colour, a red rose in her old-fashioned bonnet.
My first thought was, ‘Funny, Sister didn’t say he had relations here.’ I stood a moment watching, and saw that tears were running down the woman’s wrinkled cheeks. Here and there a drop turned to silver in the moonlight, though much of her face was in shadow. Her hand was laid on the boy’s and both were still except for his breathing.
I moved towards them and as I did so was startled to realise that the old lady was fading slowly, and when I came around to where she had knelt, there was no sign of her. The lad’s eyes were open and as I laid my fingers on his wrist I asked, ‘How are you?’ He answered, ‘Better, nurse. I’ve just had a lovely dream about my mother.’
Considerably shaken I gave him his drink and treatment and settled him down. He dropped at once into sleep.
When at last the day staff came on duty I gave my report to Sister and then sought afriend who happened to be working in Ward 5 during the day. Without mentioning what I had seen I asked her to coax the sailor to tell her about a dream he had had during the night, if he were well enough.
That evening she told me that Flynn had had his crisis and was quiet and easy. He had told her he dreamed his mother had kneeled beside him, cried over him and begged him to come home. His description tallied exactly with what I had seen, even to the red rose in her bonnet and the small toilworn hand that had rested on his.
Many times as he grew stronger I encouraged him to talk of his mother and her tiny cottage in the south of Ireland. But I could never bring myself to tell him, or anyone else, of what I had seen. The question to which I should have liked an answer was not - Did I see her? but, Why did I see her?
Shadow Children
The Family that Rescued a Little Girl’s Ghost
For more years than anyone could accurately remember, the white glowing apparition of a small female troubled a two-storeyed house in the affluent Melbourne suburb of Canterbury. The intruder was so noisy and irritating that the new owners wanted nothing more than to be rid of her. But then the couple began to renovate - and suddenly understood what was bothering their uncanny visitor. With one small act of kindness they solved the girl’s problem - and simultaneously banished her from their lives…
THE GRAND VICTORIAN HOUSE stood amid old trees in a quiet street of Canterbury, Melbourne. It had long been known in the area that the spacious rooms and broad rose-trellised gardens were haunted. The phantom took the form of a small girl apparently four or five years old, dressed in shimmering white.
The reports did not deter a company director and his wife from lodging the top bid at auction and moving in with their three children. Everyone in the family adored the house and grounds far too much to be daunted by anything as insubstantial as a phantom. Especially as it was sure to be no more than an optical illusion.
But the entity was real - and after several days spent in its company the parents’ patience was exhausted.
Real estate agent David Rafferty, who had sold the property, told me, ‘On the very first night - or more accurately in the early morning hours - they started hearing shufflings and tiny childish footsteps: an experience that had also been reported by previous residents.
‘The ghost was never threatening - just persistent, which probably explains the legend around the area that it was searching for something. It was certainly noisy. My clients complained that it woke them frequently. But there were never any possums on the prowl - and the children slept through everything.
‘Then came the really amazing part. While renovating the owners dismantled an old window seat. Hidden beneath it was a book, Happy Little Children - Their Sayings and Doings. On the flyleaf was a faded handwritten note, “To Dear Nellie, with Father’s Love. 16/4/1902.”
‘The owners placed the book prominently on a shelf in the study - and from that day the manifestations ceased.’
The idea that compassion should be shown to certain ghosts (especially those of children) became prevalent in the mid-20th century and persists today. Many clergymen and mediums will try to end a haunting, not by exorcism but by means of a ‘rescue seance’. In this ceremony the confused spirit - usually thought to believe it is still alive - is gently told it has died and can now move ahead to the next stage of existence.
Dame Mabel’s Encounter -
with a Long-Dead Child
The tireless philanthropist Dame Mabel Brooks, whose music scholarships have enhanced many young Australians’ lives, was a woman of firm beliefs. One of her convictions was that ghosts are as natural a part of the weave of our existence as air and water.
Dame Mabel saw a phantom - the apparition of a child - only once. When I was a young broadcaster, compering the radio series Do You Believe in Ghosts, she described her experience to me:
I was staying as a guest in an old stone-built house at Bacchus Marsh. Late one night I woke up in my bedroom and saw that a young girl - I guessed her age at about 11 - had come into the room. She had her back to me and appeared to be warming her hands at the fire, which was low but still giving out heat.
I assumed at first that the child must be a sleepwalker - and spoke very gently to wake her so she wouldn’t get a shock. She didn’t respond at all, so I decided she must be sleeping really deeply. But when I turned on the bedlamp it was a different story al
together. I could clearly see - quite distinctly see - the decorations on the fireplace through her figure. I’d never seen a transparent human being before - but here she was, absolutely no argument, and I was standing beside the bed now, wide awake and in no doubt about what was going on.
I knew I was looking at the first human spirit form, or wraith, that I’d ever seen. It was such a moment in my life that I simply stood there staring at that girl and at the fireplace and at the dying embers visible through her.
She never walked out of that bedroom. After what was - two minutes, three minutes? - she disappeared. I got back into bed, but of course I couldn’t sleep much for the rest of the night. I kept thinking about the girl, trying to call up everything about her that I could remember. Even today I can still summon a picture of how she was dressed. She was in old-fashioned clothes. High collar, white-edged. Long sleeves. Long, very long hair, partly curled.
The following morning I told our elderly host about what had happened. He said that his older sister had died in that room. She’d been suffering from measles and had fallen out of bed and died on the floor. She was found next morning. Our host believed that it might have been the shock of the way her life ended that was keeping her in the house.
A Tiny Murder Victim ‘Stole Milk’
In 1971 the Catholic Church sent two priests to release a dead child’s spirit from a house in Eight Mile Plains, Queensland. At my request one of the house’s owners, who asked to be identified only as M.C., wrote a chronicle of the extraordinary haunting. It reads, in part:
The house, when we bought it, was two years old. The only people who lived there were myself, my husband Ray and our three-month-old baby Michael. Because I couldn’t breastfeed Michael I gave him bottled milk - and to save every drop for him Ray and I regularly drank our tea black.
One morning I went to the fridge to get the full bottle I’d put there the previous afternoon, and found it was gone. I turned around and saw the precious bottle standing empty on the kitchen table. That was the start of a pattern. Night after night we’d get up to check on strange snufflings and whimperings in adjoining rooms, but no one was ever there. And in the morning we’d find the milk had been drained yet again.
We thought a burglar must be getting in, but wondered why he was interested only in milk, when he could have tried to take money or our TV. I was naturally very scared by all this, and Ray took strong measures to keep the thief out. He sealed all the windows and fixed padlocks to the doors. He also set mousetraps in the passageways. The traps were always sprung next morning, but no mice were ever found.
Finally, hoping to solve the mystery, I started talking to local people. I got a lot of evasion at first (which made it clear they were keeping something from me) but at last I learned the truth. Eighteen months before we’d moved into that house a six-year-old girl had been bashed and murdered in the kitchen. The maniac responsible had put her body in a closet where she had lain undiscovered for 10 days. I was sure the whimpering we’d heard was that poor child crying out for help.
I’d never had dealings with a ghost before, let alone a thirsty one. But the noises and sobbing were distressing us so badly that we finally went to a local priest for advice. He reported the case to his superiors - and a few days later two priests came to the house and conducted a ceremony that seemed to take hours. The exorcism seemed to be a success because the crying and the milk thefts immediately stopped.
I often think of that poor frightened little child and hope she is happy now, wherever she has gone.
Disturbed, by a Drowned Girl’s Phantom
Colin Kingdam wrote to me from Willsdale, New South Wales, to say that he too had been impinged upon by a dead child’s spirit. ‘It happened when a friend, Gary, and I were taking a short holiday at an isolated cottage in Binnaway,’ he said. ‘I’d never stayed there before but Gary knew the place well. One evening we watched TV for several hours, then decided to get some sleep.
‘Before going to bed I visited the outside toilet. While walking back to the house I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. I can still vividly remember the sensation. I went cold all over and my scalp actually crawled. I assumed right away that we had an intruder - but when I looked around the yard was deserted. I hurried inside and (surprisingly when I think back on it) went straight to sleep.
‘Several hours later I was woken by a noise. It was the bedroom doorknob rattling. As the door slowly opened I sat up, pretty scared, to see who it was. For a moment I was relieved, because in the light from the passage I could see it was just a young kid, a girl standing in the doorway. Before I could speak to her she moved away. My scalp started crawling again, but I was also curious - so I got up to look for her. To my puzzlement there was no sign of the child anywhere in the house. My banging and slamming woke Gary, who came out to see what was going on.
‘When I told him what I’d seen he was silent for a moment. Then he told me that about 20 years earlier an 11-year-old girl had fallen to her death down a water-filled mineshaft at the rear of the property. I later learned that the girl’s ghost had also disturbed other people who stayed in that little house.
‘My original reactions of fear, and even revulsion, have long since given way to a profound feeling of pity for that unfortunate girl.’
Animal Entities
The Cats and Dogs that ‘Came Back’
‘The world of the living,’ opined essayist Thomas de Quincey, ‘is a tiny garrison, under constant attack from the countless legions of the dead.’ And as numerous witnesses Australia-wide have testified, not all of those visitants are human…
THE DEATH OF A PET CAN LEAVE an aching emptiness in the house. To open the front door onto silence, when you had absentmindedly expected to be greeted by an excited terrier or an importuning cat, can be a wrenching experience.
But according to many owners with whom I have spoken and corresponded, an animal’s death is not necessarily the end. Lorna Davis of Maroubra, New South Wales, wrote:
Our much-loved Burmese, Mitzi, died of extreme old age in 1982. The children found her one afternoon, stretched out peacefully in her basket - and we buried her with much emotion in the back garden.
As she’d grown older, Mitzi had fallen into the habit of sleeping on our double bed. We always left the bedroom window open so she could come and go as she pleased.
One night, about three weeks after we lost her, I got a real shock. I was lying wide awake, worrying over a problem at work, when I felt something very familiar - a cat leaping up and nestling at my feet. I immediately assumed that a neighbour’s cat had entered through our window - but when I looked both the bedroom door and the window were closed.
And although I could feel the weight quite unmistakably, no cat was visible. It was then (feeling rather foolish) that I whispered the question, ‘Mitzi?’ - and was answered by a familiar purring. I had two more of these visits. They convinced me that Mitzi’s ghost had somehow returned to comfort us. My husband was asleep during the first incident and simply laughed when I told him next morning. But on the next two occasions he was awake, too. The evidence seems to indicate that our cat came back from the dead.
The files of psychical research societies are filled with case histories of animals which allegedly haunted their owners. Bill Courtney of Sarina, Queensland, was in no doubt that the syndrome is real:
Some years back I owned a greyhound bitch of which I was very fond. When we left the country to live in town she became ill and showed all the symptoms of pneumonia. By tempting her with healthy food and spooning milk down her throat I pulled her through the crisis.
But she never really recovered, and after a while began having fits. I was so distressed by her suffering that I thought it kindest to have her put down. The night after she died I was lying awake, grieving, in the sleepout we used to share. My greyhound had been in the habit of staying outside until about 10 o’clock, then coming in to sleep beside me.
At about 10 pm I
heard pattering footsteps come up the front steps, along the verandah, and to my bedside. Then I heard something sink to the floor. I looked, but there was nothing to be seen. Nor was there anything moving in the yard outside, which was brightly lit by streetlamps and the moon.
I was certain that my dear dog had returned, as if to show me I needn’t be sad; and that she was all right, even though we were separated. I stopped worrying and she never came again.
During a visit to the Victorian town of Baxter, I heard a similar story from a local couple, Charles and Maureen Wort. ‘We’re down-to-earth people,’ Maureen said. ‘But we’ll both swear that our cat Ginger seems to have survived death. About 12 weeks after he died we both distinctly heard and felt him lying on our bed, purring.’
Another correspondent convinced that animals have an afterlife was Mrs J. Zwarycz of Broomfield, Victoria:
For my sixteenth birthday my Dad bought me a beautiful Alsatian puppy. My new friend, whom I named Rex, was small and not very active - but I’d chosen him from the litter because I believed he needed a home more than the others. For four days we all loved and cared for him - but then, despite the attentions of a vet, he died. The whole family was upset.
Several weeks later I was lying in bed wide awake when I heard a whimper. Looking toward the door I saw Rex sitting watching me. My mother tried to convince me that I was imagining it all - but I trusted the evidence of my own senses and was in no doubt that Rex had returned.
Some years later, when I married, I had another encounter with a ghostly animal - this time, a cat. My husband and I had just moved into an old house with our two-year-old son. On the second day in our new home, the baby was taking a nap and I was washing up in the kitchen when a huge black cat came up to me, rubbing against my legs. I bent down to stroke him - and discovered to my astonishment that he simply wasn’t there!