The Inexperienced Ghost (1966)

When I was a little ghostling of about fifty years old my mother told me that I was to go to the Dr. Rufus-Eerie's School for Young Ghostlings" to learn the Honourable Art of Haunting.

One hundred years passed, and it was time for me to say "Good haunting" to my mother and go out into the wide world and to school. The school was situated in an old castle at Glamis in Scotland. It took me fifteen years to get there by thumbing a lift on a black rain-cloud with a dirty lining.

When I arrived at the school I was greeted by the headmaster, Dr. Rufus-Eerie, and met the other teachers, among whom were Madame Anne Boleyn, who taught the art of head-removing, and Mr. Dick Turpin, who taught phantom riding.

After the formalities the headmaster took us on a conducted tour of the castle, showing us places of interest like the dungeons, the gallows and the torture chambers, and, best of all, the block where he was executed in 1672. He also showed us some of the training equipment, a metal-studded door for walking through and the new remote control floorboard-squeaker.

The next night we awoke to a delicious smell of frying bats and steamed death-watch beetle. After breakfast we proceeded to our form room and settled down to our first lesson, which happened to be head-removing with Madame Boleyn.

She first told us the main principles of head-removing and demonstrated on a couple of pupils, taking care not to spill any blood.

Then we all tried by ourselves. Some were successful but some weren't. I was one of the unsuccessful. I found the getting-off of my head fairly easy, but getting it back on again was a real problem.

Our next lesson was in the castle grounds, where Mr. Dick Turpin taught us to ride a ghost-horse. Some of us did quite well and even managed to remove our heads whilst riding. One poor unfortunate, a victim of the French Revolution, lost his head for the second time when he dropped it in the moat.

One of our favourite lessons was taken by the headmaster, who taught us the art of ghost-walking, I.e. gliding through doors and walls. The technique involved was to take a deep breath, relax, and concentrate upon meeting the wall. Some of us, though, were rather excited and unable to relax, and there were some nasty accidents.

Later on in the year there was a school trip to the Tower of London to meet some of the famous ghosts and pick up a few hints. We also visited Windsor Castle and met the famous Herne the Hunter.

So my school life went on and I finally passed through the doors of Doctor Rufus-Eerie's School for Young Ghostlings into the world beyond with an honorary degree in ghostmanship.

I am now on my way south by ghost train and I look forward to many hundreds of years of happy haunting as a station-master who hung himself when Doctor Beeching closed down his station.