Ghosts on the Train

I blogged before (and a few times) about The Signal-Man, one of the ghost stories written by Charles Dickens. But I saw it on display in the National Railway Museum in York, and this inspired me this post. This book looked gorgeous, but as I already have it in various anthologies, I did not buy it. Anyway, I recommend it this time of year, especially when you are on a train journey. The mix of supernatural and horror with a modern way of transport like trains always brings a special type of atmosphere. Especially since the train has something that is kind of old-fashioned and and elegant that also mixes so well with horror.

The Signalman at Didcot Railway Centre

We went to the Didcot Railway Centre only once, but I have been wanting to go back ever since and I found another very good reason to go there again. On Saturday the 24th of June, Gerard Dickens will be performing a dramatisation of his great, great grandfather Charles Dickens' The Signal-Man. Like in many adaptations, it has been retitled The Signalman, but I digress. I have read the original ghost story and seen a stage adaptation of the story nearly ten years ago. I throughly enjoyed it. Enjoyed them, I should say: I loved both the original and its adaptation. Ghost stories and trains, these are two of my favourite things, here wrapped up together. When technology meets the supernatural. On my countdown to the countdown to Halloween (or my officious countdown that starts whenever I feel like it), this would be the perfect day out. That said, given that Wolfie might be a bit young for such scary story, I will probably give it a pass, even though the shows are in daytime. But hey, maybe some of my readers can see it. If you can, tell me how it went. Lucky you.

Bah Humbug

'Tis (still) the season to be drinking, so I thought I would suggest a beer for you during Christmastime, one I had on the 27th of December back in 2018. Bah Humbug by Wychwood Brewery. Because there's a Scrooge in each and everyone of us, which might be coming in strongly on the 27th, when Christmas is already over, and you might as well embrace it in style. With the then brand new glass my wife bought me for Christmas that year. Warning for those who don't like cinnamon: the flavour comes in quite strongly. This beer is also available in Quebec (it says so on the back label). Wychwood Brewery, how I love you. Another warning: the labels on the bottles of Wychwood products are now really lame. This one looked good and was worth the purchase in itself.

Cassandra Darke

'Tis the season to be reading (fa lala, lala..) For tonight's Christmastime reading suggestion, Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds. My happy discovery from last year's Christmas reads. Apparently, it is a very freely adapted adaptation of Dicken's Christmas Carol. I must confess, while I did see a good bit of Scrooge in the main character, the parallels between the two works are not that obvious. This graphic novel (with emphasis on the novel bit, as there is a lot of text) stands on its own and the Dickensian source material is more easily identifiable when you read it a second time. But I digress. The action is set from one Christmas season to another. Title characer Cassandra Darke is an elderly art dealer, mean, ugly, selfish, arrogant, wealthy, utterly despicable. She loses her reputation and part of her fortune when she is recognised guilty of fraud. A year later, things go from bad to worse when she finds a gun in the basement where her ex lodger Nicki (who is also the daughter of Cassandra's stepsister and her ex-husband). This is a thriller with brains and heart, it is also a moral tale and a bit of a tragedy, with a protagonist who is not devoid of redeeming qualities... which might not be enough to save her soul, or her life.

Ghost stories from the Pickwick Papers

Before you read today's first countdown to Halloween post (there may be a second one), please read (and if you wish comment) the first part of this original Halloween story. Only on this blog. But right now, I would like to make you discover some ghost stories by Charles Dickens, from The Pickwick Papers. Which I have not read yet, as I read very little of Dickens. A shame, as he wrote some amazing ghost stories, which I truly rediscovered recently (see this post and that one). I guess now they have been obscured with his most famous ghost story, A Christmas Carol. Because yes, it belongs to the genre. Ghost stories have been a Victorian tradition, published and read around Christmastime. You see this influence in one of the tales in the Pickwick Papers. But I digress...

About two decades ago, when I was a child still unable to understand more than a few words in English and not being allowed watch horror movies because of an overprotective mother (my father was a bit more liberal regarding this), my brothers and I once stumbled upon this animated adaptation of the ghost stories told in Dickens novels. It was a weekend afternoon in October, I was desperately seeking to find scary stories, in book or movie form or whatever, to get myself in the mood for Halloween. It was on an English speaking channel, so we understood very little. We only watched the second half of the program, so we missed the first story and the first half of the second. We did understand that the second one was a tragedy, with the main character falling in love with a lady ghost, unable to fulfill his love before his death. And the second one had an uncanny resemblance to A Christmas Carol (in fact, it was its prototype). Which made me like it less, although I did find the goblins spooky. And the second story had plenty of adventures against angry, prone to fight ghosts, so this was the most exciting one for us, not unlike our Halloween game. In a way, not knowing English made us enjoy it more. The first one, I discovered later on, was a parody of ghost story. Not a proper horror story, although there are the classic scary tropes, as they end up deconstructed by a rather smart protagonist.

I rediscovered them years later on YouTube, thanks to PJ. You can find the first part here. As it is divided in six parts, I will not upload them on Vraie Fiction. Instead, I will give you the trailer, which gives you a pretty good idea of what will come. It is not the best animation, far from it, but it has nevertheless plenty of atmosphere and certainly worth a watch. Enjoy.

The Signal-Man (a ghost story)

This there were major disruptions on the train line, so I arrived late at work. I don't mind when it is late in autumn, I can read more scary stories to put myself in a Halloween mood. I mentioned it here. But anyway, I said to my fellow disgruntled commuters that we needed a signalman. It made a few people smile. I was thinking of course about The Signal-Man, the ghost story written by Dickens which I discovered a few months ago in its play adaptation. Which I am going to read soon in this book. But you can find it in many anthologies of ghost stories. As I mentioned here, I love that it mixes elements of modernity and in particular technological progress with the supernatural. A common trope in many XIXth century ghost stories, and modern ones too. This morning, I was thinking that however technologically advanced we are, we are still vulnerable to nature and malfunctions of human inventions. Which is maybe the main theme of Dickens' story. I took this picture of a signal box in Devon, on the steam train from Totnes to Buckfastleigh. I was thinking of ghost and ghost stories. Like I did today. And I am certain you now noticed that you just read tonight's countdown to Halloween post.

Classic Ghost Stories on stage

Well, this is not Halloween yet, but there is a good reason at any time of the year to enjoy a good ghost story. And let's not forget that you can prepare for Halloween months in advance, the same way you need to bake your Christmas pudding in the middle of Summer. So I prepare myself mentally for Halloween early, and when an occasion like this one arises I take it. So yes, I went to see two plays in a matinee performance, two ghost stories adapted for the stage: The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens (misspelled The Signalman for some reason) and Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M.R. James. This was the first story I ever read of M.R James and it remains one of my favourite. The production was done by Middle Ground Theatre.

So what did I think of them? I have read mixed reviews afterwards, but I really enjoyed my time. Sure, there were some technical issues: the surrounding sounds in Oh Whistle often made the conversations difficult to hear for instance. There were also some minor changes to the short story which, however minor, were not necessary, for example the cliché cat showing up as a red herring in the middle of the play. But otherwise, I really enjoyed my time. The stage gives an extra dimension to the stories and its limitations as a medium force the production to be creative to create the proper atmosphere and create the manifestations of the supernatural convincingly. I found the special effects far more effective on stage yesterday than in many horror movies I watched. It doesn't need much: a shrouded figure, a wind blowing, lights getting off and some background music. I found the way Oh Whistle went from agoraphobic to claustrophobic atmosphere particularly effective and very similar to the original short story. I was less familiar to Dickens' story, obviously, but loved how he used a modern environment, the railway, and a modern mean of transport, the train, as the setting of a ghost story. So I enjoyed my afternoon and had a few pleasant chills.