Brissy - Ghost tour - 30th June 2006

When I first arrived in Edinburgh, all those moon’s ago, one of the first things I tried to get a feel for the city was to join a ghost tour. There turned out to be quite a few, as indeed Edinburgh has a rich and bloody history – there’s the Burke and Hare tour, the Ghost pub tour (a particular favourite!), the Ghost tour from the Castle and the Catacombs tour, which is an area of Old Edinburgh that was walled up, with people still inside, during the plague era. Makes you glad to be alive today, huh?! With these in mind, I had a wee look to see what Brissy had to offer and there we go: a couple of ghost tours. It’s not as commercialised as Edinburgh, which run the tours every week, often a couple of times a week, but there was one going this Friday at the South Brissy Cemetery. I’d’ve preferred to do the old Gaol in South Brissy, as many inmates seemed to ‘do themselves a mischief’ whilst in Police custody, but that one wasn’t going for another 10 days! No pub crawl, but it might be fun!

As we met up at the gates for the start of the tour, we were met by our tour guides, dressed as a Nun and an Undertaker respectively! The Cemetery did look quite spooky, but I reckon it was due to the different tree’s here in Oz and that I wasn’t used to the silhouettes – not that I hang around Cemetery’s as a rule! On the tour, we started in the ‘posh’ area, where all the old moneyed gentry had paid to be munched by worms and where there used to be a Rectory and indeed a Scout Hut! Further on, we walked down towards the river when one of the other guests on the tour asked me what I thought of the picture she’d taken – lo and behold – there was a face seemingly on the picture, surrounded by orange blobs of light. Now, I’m a bit of a sceptic when it comes to these things and I believe, as Humans, we’re biologically programmed to make shapes out of seeming random patterns and that these shapes tend to resemble something that we know, even on a subconscious level (man on the moon, faces on Mars etc). Anyway, I shit thee not – it was a face! Excited by this, I took a number of photo’s to the side and behind, at random, in the hope of tricksing these spirits but alas, I didn’t get any – so sorry!

The main point of interest for me was the unconsecrated ground where a number of murderers who’d been hanged for their crimes were buried. It was a pretty large plot and the Cemetery had a crossroads there which was designed to fool the spirits of the unblessed dead and prevent them from finding their way back to civilisation and doing the ‘haunting’ business! Wicked!

So, invigorated by my ghostly experience, I went out and had a few beers for the dear departed!