Author
DR Rob Gandy I UK
Visitors to the GBoomer website will hopefully have read the various pieces that I have written and found them to be of helpful and of interest. In particular I regularly encourage everyone to lead active lives and “add life to their years as well as years to their life”. It is often said that when people retire then they should have a hobby. “Hobby” is such a pejorative word – it conjures up images of old men with their train sets or spending time in the shed at the bottom of the garden doing whatever takes their fancy. I would rather use the words “outside interests” – which can cover anything and sounds far more dynamic and acceptable.
So I admit that I have my own “outside interest” that involves strange phenomena that people experience or witness. And my favourite topic amongst all of these is phantom hitchhikers and road ghosts. You will no doubt have heard the classic urban legend where a motorist sees a young woman hitchhiking late at night? He offers her a lift and she gives him an address in the nearby town but otherwise remains silent. Just as he turns into the road indicated he looks and finds that she has disappeared from the passenger seat! He cannot explain how she could have left the car, and so goes up and knocks on the door of the address she gave. An older man and woman answer the door and the young man explains what has happened to him and describes the young woman, and says that she has somehow left the car. At this point the old couple tell him that he has picked up the ghost of their lovely daughter who was killed in an accident at the very spot where he picked up the woman 20 years ago to the day! He is one of many young men who have called at their door having had exactly the same experience, and he probably won’t be the last……………………..
..Too Good To Be True by Jan Harold Brunvand
Where did you hear the story? Was it was in the pub a few years ago, and your friend said that it was a true story which had really happened to his/ her brother’s girl friend’s brother? Or was it their friend’s uncle’s barber’s wife’s sister’s regular taxi driver? You cannot quite remember, but you know the story was “true”! Such tales are friend-of-a-friend stories which have done the rounds for many years (and in some cases centuries!). If you want an excellent book about such urban legends then get hold of Too Good To Be True by Jan Harold Brunvand.
My interest spiked around 1990 when talking with work colleagues about such urban legends as described in Jan’s classic The Vanishing Hitchhiker. One of my friend’s said “Well something like that actually happened to me”. He then described his experience which happened on Halsall Moss, between Southport and Ormskirk. With his agreement, and using a pseudonym, I wrote it up for the magazine Fortean Times, which specialises in strange phenomena and covers “the World’s Weirdest News” (See – https://subscribe.forteantimes.com/)
In 2014 I realised that it would have been the 50th anniversary of Bill’s experience and with the help of the local Champion newspaper sought responses from anyone that might have had similar experiences. I would have been pleased if I had got a couple more stories. I got 8 new testimonies! I wrote these up into a fresh article for Fortean Times, and also explored the potential causes of such experiences. The article was entitled The Old Man of Halsall Moss, and was published in May 2015.
I gave a presentation based on my article in November 2016 in Birkdale to raise money for the local Queenscourt Hospice. The evening went very well and I am delighted to say that it brought in a tidy sum. To my amazement I was then told of even more first-hand experiences on the Moss by some of the audience!
So if any of you are interested in seeing my presentation – updated for the new cases! – then you won’t have to wait too long. I am giving my presentation on the evening of Wednesday 25th October 2017 in the OC Club in Bromborough on the Wirral. All proceeds will be going to Wirral Hospice St John’s. Watch this website and St John’s own website (http://www.wirralhospice.org/ ) for details.
In the meanwhile, if any of you readers have had your own strange or inexplicable first-hand (or second-hand experience) then please get in touch through this website and let me know the details. Email me at: editor@gboomer.co.uk
