BOAR'S HEAD SPOOKED... (My poem about another spooky event at ASTON HALL, Birmingham, during a role-play session...)

 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

And 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.

I panicked, flustered but somehow twisted my frame,

Hauling the weighty boar’s head platter round

And 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 descent.

White faced and dysfunctional, I appeared at a door, 

My heart raced, yet I had seen nothing, nothing at all.

I hurried on regardless but felt bereft of part of me,

As I sang carols, drank wassail, the quintessential Lord of the Manor

But was quite literally spooked, haunted and terrified

to the core...

Pete Ray…

THE LONG GALLERY...

This happened at Aston Hall in Birmingham, during a 17th Century Christmas role-play session, 1980s. 

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… 

AN IMPRESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S VISIT...

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 apparently ashen face. 

I was truly shaken... 

ABOUT TO SING A CAROL IN THE ENTRANCE HALL...

THE MAIN STAIRCASE...

THE STAIRCASE I HAD HOPED TO DESCEND...