Here is another interesting story perhaps crossed between fact and folklore dating back to 1931.
A realistic ghost story is told by a Bagman in the in various newspaper of 1931. A Bagman was slang for a tramp wandering the outback for work in the bleak years of the great depression.
' The writer is recounting his experience during a 1300-mile tramp from Victoria to New South Wales, and had reached the point where he had settled down for the night in the porch of a small church near Orange, on the road from Bathurst.
He writes: —I shall never forget the sensation which awoke me. A wave of sheer physical horror seemed to engulf my body. I sat up and looked around. Only the creek and the stars were there. I lay down again and once more that wave of horror swept over my consciousness. It was when fear began to obtrude
that I got off the bench and went outside. The Southern Cross had nearly completed its great sweep
across the- south, and I judged the time to be about 4 a.m. Once out side in. the porch in the keen air the
fear and the horror departed, but I knew another feeling, this time one
of expectation. Among the Headstones.
Something impelled me to go along the side of the little lane on the hill towards the rear, where earlier I had seen half a dozen headstones. I must have stood there for quite a while, when I heard voices. They
seemed low, and I could scarcely separate them from the voice of the creek. But they were voices. Then
I saw a little group of people standing in the darkness less than fifty
yards away. They appeared to be talking among-st themselves.
??
The strangeness, much less the weirdness,' of the scene held me to the spot. Then, as I peered at
them, I saw a figure coming towards me. Ten feet from me the figure was plain and I saw it was a. girl,
possibly 20 years old, who wore a long white garment and whose feet, to my utter astonishment, were bare.'Stay With Us!'
I find it very hard to describe my sensation at that moment. But the predominant one was that I was not
afraid. Instead of clearing out, I stood there waiting — for what? She was the first to speak.'Won't you stay with us?' she asked, and her voice was the softest voice I'd ever heard.
'Me?' I stammered, completely amazed. And again: 'Me?' 'You see,' she said, 'you have nowhere to go and we like company. Stay with us.' My balance was returning and I took .a long look at her. ?She didn't
seem real somehow. I couldn't make out any part of her clearly.
And those others —?'But where do you live?' I asked. 'Who are they?' All Young. She laughed and I jumped. For her laugh was the babble of the creek. Then she pointed to her companions. And now it seemed as though a light came from somewhere, for I could them plainly. They were men and women, all young, all dressed in white, and all looking at us;'You are tired,' said the girl. 'You have nowhere to go. Stay here and you will never be cold or hungry or tired again.' ..
Then I got her meaning. She—and those others— the headstones —the. lonely hillside, the light. Why,
she was dead — they were dead — I was dying — 'Never to be cold or hungry again.' Was I mad? There
she stood, smiling at me. What Was it?
I know I must have cried out, and the next thing I knew I was running down that hillside as fast as I could,
with my things held anyhow in my arms. I was a long way from that church when I lit a great fire of logs and sat down to collect myself.
To this day I do not know whether I dreamed that scene, whether I went through delirium, or — or — but
the alternative surely could not be.But as I sat at the fire I remembered the words of the Penrith hospital
sister when she urged me to stay there, and told me I had nowhere to go to
Sleep, was far from my mind 'that morning 'as I sat and waited impatiently for the -Dawn, for the dawn and sanity.
Interesting story and I tried to find this mysterious place of this alleged supernatural encounter in 1931. In fact I did find a place that fitted the description of this alleged encounter.
To be continued.....
Kanacki