GHOSTLY GAZETTEERS

• Ross Andrews. Paranormal Cheltenham. Amberley, 2010. 
• Janet Cameron. Paranormal Brighton and Hove. Amberley, 2010. 
• Darren Ritson. Supernatural North. Amberley, 2010. 
• Peter Underwood. Haunted Gardens. Amberley, 2010. 
• Peter Underwood. Haunted Wales. Amberley, 2010.

In reviewing other books in this series, and a similar collection from History Press, my colleague Peter Rogerson has pointed out that ghosts, hauntings and the paranormal are now as much a part of local nostalgia and the heritage industry as they are of psychical research, an impression which is reinforced by this current crop of titles.

The most substantial collection from a researcher's point of view is Darren Ritson's, although the title is slightly misleading, as the book deals mostly with the author's home area, the North-East, with comparatively little on the western half of Brigantia (which Ritson has dealt with in another book). The controversial South Shields poltergeist case is summarised, with the author taking the opportunity to get in a little retaliation to some of his critics, who may or may not include Magonia! This book has much more hands-on investiagtion than the other titles reviewed here, via Ritson's group, Ghosts and Hauntings Overnight Surveilance Team (G.H.O.S.T.S. - best acronym since Jim Moseley's Saucer and Unexplained Celestial Events Research Society - S.A.U.C.E.R.S!)

An account of an investigation of a haunting at a Miners' Welfare Institute in South Yorkshire, and the description of the almost superfluous haunting of the Blackpool Pleasure Beach's ghost-train, shows perhaps the way the ghost-story is moving: from the castles and abbeys, decayed relics of a vanished aristocracy, to the Miners' Institutes and closed-down pits of the post-industrial era, and the fading remnants of the once raucous, lively, working-class British seaside holiday.

Janet Cameron gives a gazetteer of odd events and happenings in the 'city' of Brighton and Hove, many from the pages of the local paper, but there are no accounts of investigations such as in the Ritson book, and this title is firmly in the local history/heritage camp.

This format is taken further in the Paranormal Cheltenham volume, which is designed as a series of guided walks around the town, with directions leading you from one haunted location to another. There are a couple of brief accounts of investigations by the author's 'Parasoc' investigation society, but again, this is primarily a local-interest gazetteer.

Underwood's Welsh title is a reprint of a book first published in 1978 as Ghosts of Wales, and is in much the same style, largely a series of brief accounts of traditional hauntings arranged alphabetically town-by-town. There is also a rather one-sided account of the UFO-related events at Ripperston Farm in 1977, as well as a description of a ghost ship at Milford Haven which recalls some Scottish legends of phantom vessels which Peter Rogerson has written about in Magonia.

The same author's Haunted Gardens is a new and more substantial work, and covers locations in Europe and America. The most famous haunted garden is of course the Petit Trianon at Versailles, and Underwood gives an account of this, as well as the goings-on at Borley Rectory. Underwood is a much more traditional raconteur than the other writers here, and his haunted gardens are all attached to stately homes or country estates, there are no council house gardens or haunted municipal parks. But the accounts of the hauntings are fuller than in the other titles, and this book is more likely to be of interest to the general reader rather than local ghost-hunters. -- Reviewed by John Rimmer