Allan Chapman has had a life-long fascination for ghost stories, with an imagination fired from a childhood spent in a tiny, initially gas-lit cottage in Lancashire. This imagination lies at the heart of Ghosts that Never Haunted Christ Church.
With the exception of the story of the revival of Anne Greene, a well-documented true story from 1650, and the recent ‘Ghosts that might well haunt Christ Church’, all the tales in this book are a curious mixture of genuine historical fact, legend, and fiction. For while many of the ghosts in these tales may not have haunted Christ Church - or at least not in the way described - the historical setting which they haunted is largely true. The names of real historical figures and Christ Church buildings which either still exist or were later demolished to be replaced by more recent ones all intermix to form an entertaining combination of fact and fiction.
Over the centuries, Christ Church has displayed three notable features: the Cathedral Church, with its Canons and clerical dons; a rich and glorious musical tradition; and great distinction in scientific and medical research. They all appear, in various guises, in these ghost stories. Clergymen, choristers, organists, chemists, scientists, heroic College porters, inventors, animals, and anatomists are all there. Yet whether a tale be heart-warming, grisly, or downright horrific, each resolves into its own positive ending. For Christ Church has never been a bleak or negative place, preferring good fellowship to angst and misery; and so with its ghosts. For at the end of the day, peace comes to all.
So read on, and prepare to be affrighted, amused, and delighted!
