"Be afraid, be very afraid"
Just
in time for Halloween, a record number of fifty four members and guests
assembled on Monday evening to hear Michele Lefevre deliver an illustrated
talk entitled "Haunted Leeds". Michele is Local Studies
Manager at Leeds Central Library, a post she has held for some twelve
years, although she has worked in the library service for over thirty
years. She is a well known and popular speaker and offers a range of talks
about Leeds. Before she began her talk, she told the audience that she
had researched various occurrences of paranormal or ghostly incidents
which had taken place in Leeds and had eventually come up with thirteen
such events to include in her talk. Keeping very much in the spirit of
her talk, she had decided thirteen would be an unlucky number and so had
invented a further event to add to the list. She invited her audience
to discover the bogus tale. Her spooky stories ranged from alleged sightings
of a woman
in 18th century costume roaming the Thackray Museum ( formerly the Leeds
workhouse) to descriptions of "Roundhay Rose" a lone lady runner
who has been seen several times running with her eyes closed ( and dressed
in what could be described as pyjamas) in Old Park Road. We listened in
uneasy silence as she told us the story of a family living in Seacroft
who were terrorised in their own home by the spectre of an old lady, former
resident of the house who had died there several years previously. Even
a blessing by the local priest could not lay this unfortunate lady to
rest, and so the family were re-housed in Halton Moor, only to find that
old lady had followed them!! Eventually after another move, peace came
to the family, and the audience gave
a collective sigh of relief. Although Michele delivered her talk with
a sensible degree of common sense and cynicism it was obvious that the
content struck a chord with some members of the audience and when at the
end she asked if any one would like to share their own experiences, she
was presented with some tales which topped even those she had just regaled
us with. Her stories were so convincing that we were unable to guess which
was the rogue one. And when she eventually revealed that it was the story
about the Dark Arches and a supposed haunting by young girl who had drowned
there after a family argument about a forbidden love, I, for one, was
most disappointed! Such is the power of suggestion. It was a measure of
Michele's storytelling success that when we moved into the back room for
tea and biscuits the conversation was dominated by tales of ghostly encounter
and mysterious happenings. Those of us of a nervous disposition left to
go home vowing to sleep with the light on that night!!