Half Term Hauntings

Now that I work part-time, I get to spend the school holidays with the family. With no school, we try to keep our son Dan as busy as possible by day in the hope of some sleep at night.


Autumn half term lasts only a week, but it always falls in the week leading to Halloween, followed by Guy Fawkes Night, so there's lots to see and do. This year we had the Bath Stevensons up for a visit, so it was really busy 'round here.

The season kicked off  with a visit to Denny Abbey where we carved a pumpkin and explored the haunted abbey ruins. We crossed the road to Milton where there is a big Screaming Shed full of frights for the kids, and a less scary greenhouse for the more timid mums and dads. It was getting dark as we arrived and they were closing up shop, so we called it a day. (A big sigh of relief on my part.)

Dan just loves spooks and zombies and he used to enjoy Trick or Treating with his brother, but all those sugary sweets don't suit a diabetic teenager so we offer carrots and cheese to the kids who pop by, but we aim to go out for the evening.

Last year we tried the Haunted Punt Tour of the Cambridge colleges. It was so good, we went back for more, only this time there was 9 of us. Our guide was Old Nick himself so we knew we were in for the best tour possible. He knew all about the ghosts that haunted the various colleges and the oldest part of town near Magdalene Bridge. As the rain came down we huddled up in blankets to be regaled with tales of the plague and other gruesome diseases that smote the citizens in the 16th and 17th centuries.  After an hour, we were back on land, but there was more to come in the shape of a guided tour of the most haunted alleys in town.

Our new host was a classic licensed tour guide, with all the facts at his fingertips, but what we wanted was good stories. In order to tell good ghost stories, you have to add a bit of fiction and, on Halloween, a touch of humour would help. The facts are simply not enough.

It seems that a lot of the colleges were built on religious sites, especially during the Reformation so, as you might expect, there are a lot of ghostly monks around. Old pubs and libraries are almost always haunted too but my favourite Cambridge story concerns two young lovers who were students at Pembroke College in the early days.

On the last day of the Easter term almost everyone had already left for the country. There was plague in town and the colleges were almost empty most of the time. The last parents came to collect their daughter and almost surprised her in her room with her boyfriend. Luckily (?) she heard them coming and shoved the lad into a wardrobe where he hid until they left. Unluckily, the wardrobe could not be opened from the inside, so when the young lady returned to college in October for the Michaelmas term, she found him still there: Dead of course.

Stories like these are what we now call Horrible Histories in honour of a popular series of children's  books that have been made into a TV series. Every year, there is now a Horrible Histories theatre tour as well. This time, Dan went to see "Vile Victorians" at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. Last year it was Egyptians and in 2010 we did World War 2. I just love this stuff.

So, here we are! It's Sunday, the last day of the holiday and its raining. What shall we do? Shopping. But if you would rather see some photos, look here.



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