GHOSTS AT ASTON HALL? REALLY? HMM...

Sir Thomas Holte is about to Wassail a tree.
Yes, really...

Boar’s Head Spooked

I hoisted the platter of fibre glass 

Onto my shoulder, the boar’s head glistening its own horror to appal

The eyes of boisterous children;

Then checked, in role as Sir Thomas Holte of Aston Hall,

For the crowd was milling around an exit from the Long Gallery,

Onto the cannonball-damaged main staircase,

Causing me to turn and edge along an oak panelled wall.

I hurried and slipped through another door,

Onto the alternative family stair,

In an attempt to reach the roaring Entrance Hall’s fire

First, before toasting the Yule Log, where

The crowd would be milling around the hearth:

But hesitation, at once, halted my progress, 

Causing me to stop, one step down. Then stare...

I tingled and shivered, yet quite ridiculous, I felt,

Looked down at my rooted, unwilling Jacobean shoes,

Straining to shift one downwards, but in vain

And I began to feel pressure, all progress to lose:

Holding me back, chilling me motionless:

Panicked, flustered, I somehow twisted my frame,

Hauling the weighty boar’s head platter round,

For cold and shaking, I felt unable, my own route to choose.

I scrambled onto a landing and quickly turned tail,

Hustling along the gallery’s oak floor,

To follow the throng’s massed decline,

White faced, dysfunctional, I appeared at a door;

Heart raced, I had seen nothing, nothing at all,

Carried on, regardless but bereft of part of me,

Sang carols, drank wassail, the quintessential Lord of the Manor,

But quite literally spooked, haunted, terrified to the core...

PETE RAY

The Boar's Head.
And the bore's head...

This happened at Aston Hall. I had attempted to reach the ground floor before a large group of schoolchildren but alongside a closet, housing the electrical and alarm controls, once converted from a store cupboard into a lavatory for Queen Victoria to use on a visit (which she hadn’t needed...), I failed to negotiate more than one step. All went silent around me. I was unable to descend. I was forced to turn about and scramble across the superb Long Gallery and follow the children down the main staircase, where two security guards remarked on my ashen face. I was truly shaken... 

17th Century game: Yawning For A Cheshire Cheese...
Hilarious.

Garrett Chill

Winter. Breath shifts.

I watch it pirouette 

Then dissipate, as

Grey wisps about deep, polished brown.

Alone. Gaze drifts.

I peruse the Garrett

Then cogitate, as

Wry shudders turn to a perturbed frown.

Fear. Assurance lifts.

I succumb to fret

Then vacate, as

Strayed wraiths hover over me then prowl down...

PETE RAY

As Sir Thomas Holte at Aston Hall.
The costume was copied from a portrait in the Entrance Hall...

Aston Hall, Birmingham, 1980s. 

I was upstairs, near Dick’s Garrett, where one of Sir Thomas Holte’s daughters was said to have died. 

I was preparing a worksheet for schoolchildren, when suddenly, the cold air intensified around me, I felt watched somehow and in my uncomfortable, disturbed state, fled the area...

Even made the Radio Times, advertising a Radio West Midlands visit to Blakesley Hall...

But that is another story...