Hangman's Corner
Actually it's my dad's story but I've claimed it as mine since I tell it more often than he does. My dad is a lorry driver, one of the most down to earth people you could meet and one of those who thought it was all rubbish until one night....
It was about twenty-thirty years ago and there weren't that many motorways in the UK so it was common practice for lorry drivers to take short cuts through country lanes. My dad was taking such a route one night and approaching a bend that was well known to him. He tells me the bend was known as 'Hangmans Corner' due to a dead tree with a single branch at right angles to the trunk, giving the appearance of a gallows, on the bend. Corny I know but hey, I'm just telling you what he told me!.
The road slopes down into the bend, curves left at the bottom of the slope and then rises again as you leave the bend. The result of this and the hedgerow at each side of the road is that on the approach to the bend you cannot see the road immediately around the bend but you can see traffic approaching the bend on the other side. It was common practice at the time to watch for headlights on the opposite approach. If no headlights were visible it was ok to take the bend wide but if you could see headlights approaching you had to keep to the left (remember we drive on the left in the UK).
So this particular night my dad was approaching the bend, saw no lights on the opposite approach and allowed the lorry to swing out to take the bend wide, on the 'wrong' side of the road. As he approached the corner itself another lorry swung around the bend towards him with no lights on!
My dad stood on his brakes, the other driver stood on his and the two lorries skidded towards each other. My dad said he could see the look on the other driver's face and they were both literally standing upright in their efforts to stop. Just as the lorries were on the point of colliding the other lorry disappeared and my dad was staring up the empty road.
He says he felt the other lorry pass through him like a cold wind which chilled him right to his soul (I wish I could show you the look on his face as he relates this bit!). He was going to stop overnight in a nearby layby but instead carried on until he got where he was going. In the cold light of day he cursed himself for being so silly and put it down to driver fatigue.
However, a couple of weeks later he was in the area again and was having a drink in a local pub when a man walked in looking extremely shaken up. The guy went to the bar, ordered a stiff drink and preceded to tell the landlord the same story I have just told. The landlord assured him it was ok, he wasn't going mad. Apparently a lorry driver had been killed several years earlier when his lights had failed on the bend and quite a few people had seen 'The Ghost of Hangman's Corner'.
My dad's been that way a few times since, but chooses a different route at night.
Cue spooky music............
Steve Howells - South Wales