True Ghost Tales
Bluebell Hill
For the past few months I have been sending out a ghost story a week to a small group, and a member suggested that you might be interested in using them.
Below is the first of about a dozen so far sent out and sets the scene in south-eastern England. Feel free to use it - to cut out all the unnecessary bits.
England is renowned for having more ghosts per square mile than any other country; and Kent, county in the south-easternmost part, has more than its fair share.
The village where I live is called PLuckley. It is a village of about 800 people, almost half way between Maidstone (the county town of Kent) and Ashford (now with its International Rail station for the channel tunnel and Europe) and is situated on the edge of the North Downs and the 'Andredsweald' - the ancient Saxon forest which spread along the whole of the South coast of England as far as the Isle of Wight and north to the Down, a high ridge of chalk hills spreading from Surrey towards Dover. The forest remaining is probably some of the oldest woodland in England. Certainly older than the Saxons, who merely named it.
Pluckley has 12 'official' ghosts - but these are just the ones mentioned in books. Speak to local residents, and stories abound. I am researching in depth, ready for the *Definitive Guide to Pluckley's Ghosts* and so far I have stories amounting to over 40.
In the past PLuckley has been mentioned in the 'Guiness Book of Records' for the most haunted village, and several studies on the paranormal.
But, Pluckley is not alone in having strange sightings . . . Kent, especially in the autumn, "the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" when suddenly drivers run into almost dense walls of fog lurking along narrow country lanes, or catch the swirling fingers of a disappearing grey cloud. It is not surprising that somethings are 'best seen - soonest forgotten'
Our story takes place on the Bluebell Hill.
Running from Maidstone towards Rochester and the Medway towns is the A229, a road better known as Bluebell Hill. It passes very close to Kit's Coty, a prehistoric burial site, and is noted for its fogs and mists. On winter's, or late autumn evenings, cars travelling northwards along the road often stop to give a young woman, waiting at the side of the road, a lift.
Stories from here on vary. Sometimes the driver takes his passenger to her home, only to find she has disappeared, other times the driver turns to speak to his passenger - who has suddenly vanished.
More recent sightings are different still. Last autumn a driver was discovered suffering from shock. He had inadvertantly run down a girl standing in the road, but when got out of the car; there was no-one there! A week later a white-faced lorry driver called in at the poice station to report a similar occurance.
While local police are used to these stories, drivers invariably all come from other parts of the country, or abroad, and are just passing through!
The truth?
There once was a party of young women who had been at a pre-wedding celebration in Maidstone and were travelling home to Rochester when their car broke down. Hoping to thumb a lift they got out. As the mist swirled about them they heard a car approaching. The driver swerved at the last moment missing all but one of the girls. The one who died was to have been married the following week. . .