Grimsby Ghost, Grimsby Ghostbuster

My regular, Tuesday morning nature walks, facilitated by Grimsby Community Hub Centre 4, and hosted by tireless environmentalist Jim Elliott, are not only consistently gratifying, they’re educational, too.

If you’ve read my posts, such as ‘Lincolnshire’s Amazing Blow Wells,‘ ‘Welbeck Spring,’ or ‘The Silent Sentinel of Welbeck Hill,’ you will know that already.

Our most recent excursion was no exception and, unsurprisingly, it delivered on both counts – an enjoyable outdoor activity and a learning exercise, too. I somehow knew that it would.

Born on the fens and having lived almost all of my 67 years in small villages, I like to consider myself not only a ‘country lad’ but also one who is reasonably well-informed. All that aside, I accept that we never stop learning; all of us, no exceptions. Every day is an opportunity for discovery. Our latest walk was one such day.

What began as a windblown, drizzly Tuesday appeared to be a potential ‘wash-out,’ with little chance for us to stretch our legs in the open air. We therefore resigned ourselves to the possibility of having to remain at our regular meeting point – Grimsby’s ‘Potting Shed‘ – while supping coffee and having a natter … not an unpleasant prospect by any means.

However, dark clouds lifted and the once overcast skies cleared, signalling that our walk was on!

Jim then suggested we head along to Bradley Woods, a popular recreational area west of Grimsby and roughly a mile from where we sat. Despite having lived in the area for many years, it was a place I’d never visited, so I, too, gave it a ‘thumbs-up’.

It was as we were preparing to leave the coffee shop that Jim briefly recounted a local folk tale relating to that site – ‘The Black Lady of Bradley Woods.’ He began by first of all looking at me, rather pointedly and saying:

‘I don’t mean to prompt a blog post here, but … ‘

Nevertheless, the look in his eye told me that he suspected that his account had the potential to do exactly that.

And, of course, it has.

Once I have the spark of an idea, I fan the flames by first of all researching the subject. In this case, I discovered that the story is one told widely, with all examples being light on detail. It was also clear that, like many such myths, preserved through oral tradition, it had been subject to embellishment and distortion.

The tale’s basic gist, however, is as follows:

CENTURIES AGO, in a cottage within Bradley Woods, there lived a woodcutter with his pretty young wife and their baby boy. Typically, as with the first act in any folk story, we’re told that they were living very happily together. All this changed when the woodcutter was pressed into military service for the local lord and was sent to fight in the wars raging in England at the time.

Here, accounts differ. For some, the timeline is that of the English Civil War of the 17th Century. In others it’s the War of the Roses (1455 to 1487). Either way, the woodcutter’s wife waited for news of her husband for many long months, anxiously watching the woodland path leading to their cottage in the hope of one day seeing him return.

It was a group of mounted soldiers that approached the cottage on a grey, new year’s morning. It is said they were part of an army that had been laying waste to the surrounding countryside. They broke in to the cottage, demanding the woodcutter’s wife hand over anything of value she might have. She refused.

Unsurprisingly, the soldiers then raped and beat her. In all likelihood this outcome would also have been her fate had she complied with their demands. Be that as it may, this devastating event was made worse when they snatched the woman’s baby and rode off with it, taunting the poor woman as they went.

From that day on, the distraught woman, dressed in black (of course), spent her days flitting between the trees of Bradley Woods, desperately calling out for her baby and accosting passers by, begging for news of him.

The woodcutter never returned home, and the woman remained there alone, growing old with her grief until she died, broken and bereaved.

Legend has it that she can still be seen in Bradley Woods, where she continues to dart between the trees while calling for her long lost baby.

It is said that the surest way to see her is to go to the woods on Christmas Eve and call three times:

‘Black lady, black lady, I’ve stolen your baby!’

The young woman’s mournful spectre will then appear.

THIS THEN IS the legend of ‘The Black Lady of Bradley Woods.’ I did say that it was light on detail. Whilst scant, it is a classic example of the many ‘haunting’ tales to be found in local folklore, nationwide.

Now, you may elect to dismiss such a tale as nothing more than nonsensical bogeyism. However, let us accept that there is meat to the myth, and the many eye witness accounts were actual sightings of a something-or-other. What could possibly cause such a phenomenon?

Unlike a ‘conventional’ haunting, in which ghosts or spirits attempt to reach out from beyond the veil, the ‘Black Lady’ legend is an example of a ‘residual haunting.’

In parapsychology a residual haunting, also known as a ‘psychic impression,’ is defined as:

‘… a haunting in which a spectre repeats a loop of its past, with no semblance of intelligence or consciousness.’

Such activity is often linked to a traumatic past event, and can provide ghost hunters with a window to historic occurrences that occurred at a specific location.

Entities manifesting within a residual event do not, therefore, interact with their surroundings. On the contrary, they appear completely unaware.

One theory used to explain the anomaly is that negative energy from these horrific or upsetting events is ‘scorched’ into the local atmosphere as paranormal imprints and this residual energy is replayed over and over again, manifesting either visibly, audibly or both.

Residual hauntings may be identified by the following indicators:

The same apparitions are seen over and over again in the same spot and behaving in the same way, as if a movie is being replayed.
There is no interaction between the ghost and the people witnessing the haunting.
Unexplained sounds, like knocking, disembodied voices and footsteps are heard.
The humidity might suddenly increase. It is said that the increase in humidity is because the water vapour in the air “holds” on to the recording of the event that happened there.

AS I HAVE said, Jim suspected that his brief account may trigger a not-so-brief blog post. Had he known, however, that legends such as this one – tales of ghosties, ghoulies and things that go bump in the night – had enthralled me for many years and had formed a significant part of my literary diet, he would have known for sure that a post would ensue.

Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James have long captivated me with their dark and mysterious spookological fiction.

Actual accounts of the paranormal have also interested me, such as those recounted by renowned Ghosthunter and author, Elliott O’Donnell (Right).

My interest in the paranormal was further stimulated sometime in the mid 80s when I attended a course in parapsychology run by another Grimsby legend – psychic investigator, Robin Furman.

Robin had formed ‘The Grimsby Ghostbusters’ in 1984, and regularly gave lectures on the subject – often from his own home close by Nun’s Corner in Grimsby, which is where I attended his fascinating (and often amusing) course.

While I may have been shamefully ignorant of the Bradley Woods legend until recently, it came as no surprise to me when researching material for this post, that Robin had not only been well-acquainted with the tale, he had also spoken of it in an interview given to BBC Radio Humberside in 2022.

AND SO, what began as a brief account of a local myth has, through my research, led to a happy re-acquaintance with another legend; a man, who is no longer with us, but who I had once been most fortunate to meet.

On meeting Robin Furman, his passion for his subject, and knowledge of it was immediately apparent. Furthermore, his delivery of what could otherwise have been a dark and morbid subject was spiced with such gleeful enthusiasm and humour he brought it leaping to life.

Here is Grimsby’s famous Ghostbuster, Robin Furman in an amusing appearance on Clive Anderson’s ‘Talk Back‘: