Curios and Curioser

For us, a Christmas without at least one classic TV ghost story would be unthinkable. Dickens’ The Signal-Man (BBC 1976); ‘Sherlock Holmes’ The Horse of the Invisible (Thames Television, 1971) and our absolute favourite frisson-provider Whistle and I’ll Come to You, a ghost story by the master of spookiness M.R. James. Adapted brilliantly by Jonathan Miller in 1968, it tells the story of a university don who comes across a whistle buried in a cliff-side graveyard. The professor’s cynical attitude towards the supernatural is terrifyingly put to the test when, following an unwise blow on the whistle he is pursued and tormented to the brink of insanity by a ghoulish form. James, as director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge was aware of the potency of artefacts to bear traces of their lives in the hands of those who had once owned them. What better way to tell of supernatural happenings directed from the dark and murky past than through the medium of an object?

In around 1982 our neighbour’s home boasted one of the most iconic framed prints ever to adorn UK, woodchipped, living-room walls. The print in question was popularly known as the ‘Crying Boy’ and must have made artist Bruno Amadio a packet after its mass production from the 1950s onwards. Although our neighbour reported nothing untoward about her ‘Crying Boy’ other owners of the print certainly did: on the 4th September 1985 The Sun newspaper reported how the home of Ron and May Hall had burnt to the ground. The only surviving household item was their framed print of the ‘Crying Boy’. During the mid-1980’s scores of households around the UK were afflicted by devastating fires in which everything was burnt to a cinder…apart from the indestructible and very ominous Crying Boy. For six weeks The Sun carried its ‘Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy’ story. Was the painting truly jinxed? Or was it simply that editor, Kelvin Mackenzie recognised a great story when he found it?!

Not far from Thirsk in North Yorkshire is a popular Indian restaurant called The Jaipur Spice. Until a few years ago, however it was called The Busby Stoop Inn when the atmosphere reeked of death rather than pungent spice. In 1702 murderer Thomas Busby was hanged at the crossroads in Sandhutton; just before his gibbeting he cursed the chair in which he was arrested. Thereafter, during the ensuing centuries, it was reported that numerous people died shortly after drinking a pint whilst seated in the ‘haunted’ chair. It is said that during the Second World War Canadian airmen, posted nearby would be frequent customers at The Busby Stoop Inn – no young pilot who sat in the chair would ever return safely from his bombing missions. Right up until the 1980’s many tragic deaths through road accidents were attributed to the cursed chair. In 1978 the chair was moved, not surprisingly, to the museum in Thirsk where it was suspended for display from the ceiling to prevent further doomed souls!