SUPERNATURAL TRADITIONS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIAby Graham SealShe died of an apoplectic fit on the old Pinjarrah bridge sometime during the 1860s. Her name was Kate and she became one of Western Australia's earliest recorded ghosts. But she was not the last. Despite a comparatively short European history, West Australians have developed what could be described, tongue-in-cheek, as a solid body of haunting traditions. The ghost of the old Pinjarrah bridge is mentioned in the journal of Thomas Scott, 1870-74, where Scott spins a good, if long-winded, yarn out of it. Kate was found dead on the old bridge on July 1. Due to the hot weather (even in July), she was hastily buried the next day. Exactly one year later, at midnight of course, her apparition was seen by her brother as it walked across the old bridge. This happened every year for the next six years. One year, the ghost visited the house of her brother knocking three times at the back door and speaking the brother's name. When the occupants of the house went to investigate they saw, Scott writes, 'a tall stately figure of a female clad in a light loose dress similar to that she had on at the time she was found dead on the old Bridge'. Upon being called by her name, the ghost disappeared. Three nights later the ghost appeared again, but soon vanished. Scott goes on to relate the experience of some settlers who attempted to capture the ghost on the seventh anniversary of its appearance. The account, complete with mournful dingo howls at midnight, is straight nineteenth century ghost story. Punctually, Kate appeared on the old bridge and all five men rushed towards her. Just as they reached the spectre, it disappeared into thin air. It seems this was the last time that Kate was seen walking the old bridge. But there are plenty of other ghosts still haunting different parts of the state. Many of them seem to have an affinity for hotels. [TOP OF PAGE] Charlie the Bullock Driver The oldest licensed hotel in the state is the Rose and Crown Hotel at Guildford. It is haunted by the ghost of 'Charlie', a cuckolded husband. Some time last century, 'Charlie' a local bullock driver came home unexpectedly and found his wife in bed with another man. The lover escaped, but in a fit of rage 'Charlie' murdered his wife. The room in which the murder took place is now a storeroom from which a ghostly presence emanates. 'Charlie', presumably anchored to the hotel by guilt, has been seen and heard wandering the passageways and staircases in the dead of night. The ghost mainly moves furniture and rearranges the cutlery and crockery after staff have laid it out. 'Charlie' has also been seen stooped sadly in the hotel foyer, dressed in nineteenth century working clothes and smoking a rollie. [TOP OF PAGE] The White Lady of the Fitzgerald Hotel The White Lady of the Fitzgerald Hotel in Northbridge is a particularly mysterious ghost. Who she is or why she haunts the century-old hotel is not known, but there have been numerous sightings and sensations of the White Lady over the years. Those who have seen her say she has long white hair and a pale, lace dress. She is often smiling and sometimes dancing, never emitting a sound. Some hotel guests have reported the unexplained movement of objects and a nightly 'presence' in certain rooms. [TOP OF PAGE] The Kalamunda Hotel Ghost According to legend the original owner and builder of the Kalamunda Hotel, Paddy Connolly, was something of a ladies' man. It is said that he succeeded in seducing a teenage girl who subsequently became pregnant. She is supposed to have jumped from the hotel balcony, being killed in the fall, and from that time has haunted the hotel. One version of the tale has the girl suiciding in Room 24, where guests never stay for very long. Glowing lights have been seen in this room when it is unoccupied and the corridor outside is said to be always chilly, even on the warmest days. The ghost has been seen on many occasions, a woman with long blonde hair and dressed in a nightgown, either walking through walls or appearing as a grey figure in the air. Unexplained noises, the movement of small items, such as keys, from place to place and the sound of phantom footsteps above the stairs and the unexplained tripping of fire alarms are said to be common manifestations of the ghost. Sometimes the footsteps follow guests and workers along the hotel verandah. Yet another version of the story has it that there are two ghosts in the hotel - that of Paddy Connolly and of his daughter who is said to have died in the hotel's attic. Their ghosts walk on air between the original two hotel buildings. [TOP OF PAGE] Shades of Mundaring Weir The shade of a different 'Paddy' resides at the Mundaring Weir Hotel, built in 1898 to service the twelve hundred workers building the Kalgoorlie pipeline and to accommodate the crowds who came to watch C. Y. O'Connor's historic construction take shape. 'Paddy ' was supposedly killed on the job and has been haunting the hotel ever since. Staff have reported seeing him and he has been known to announce his presence by smashing beer glasses, making tools disappear, turning on electric appliances and even by locking and unlocking doors and windows. Paddy usually only appears when the pub is quiet and takes the form of a hazy but definite outline seen through the glass doors to the bar. A lady ghost has also been reported at the Mundaring Weir Hotel. This one appears in the newly-built accommodation units behind the main hotel building. Guests have had glasses spun around the table and seen the figure of a woman simply staring out of the window. There seems to be no historical explanation for this presence, but it is likely that details will gradually be found, building this into a properly satisfying ghost tale, like that of the ghost ship, Alkimos. [TOP OF PAGE] The Ghost Ship Alkimos Grounded about ten kilometres north of Mindarie Keys in 1963, the wreck of the Alkimos has a cargo of ghostly and unlucky traditions. Although there was no loss of life involved, the Alkimos had been plagued by bad luck and bad navigation ever since her launching in World War II. West Australian folklore has it that the ship is occupied by a ghost known as 'Henry'. Just who Henry may have been in life and why he is, or was, haunting the wreck, no-one seems quite sure. But people have reported hearing groans from one of the cabins, a dog barking in the engine room, seeing lights aboard the ship and even being held down by a ghostly presence. In keeping with such stories, the Alkimos is widely believed to be an evil object, bringing bad luck to those who go aboard, or just get too near. [TOP OF PAGE] The Supernatural Traditions of Rottnest Island Perth does not have a monopoly on the supernatural. There are plenty of spooky places around the state, including our favourite holiday haunt. Rottnest Island boasts a variety of supernatural traditions. At the Rottnest Lodge they have at least two ghosts. There is a woman named 'Ethel', who appears from time to time in one of the guest rooms. The other ghost is from the 'spurned lover' tradition that has generated similar ghost stories throughout the world. In the Rottnest Lodge version the tragic young woman was said to be a housemaid who worked there almost half a century ago. She discovers she is pregnant and returns to the mainland to tell her boyfriend. He refuses to acknowledge responsibility and, in despair, the woman returns secretly to the Rottnest Lodge where she suicides. Her body is discovered some days later. People have since heard the crying of a baby and sometimes reported a frightening and unhappy presence in that part of the hotel where the body was found. [TOP OF PAGE] The New Norcia Nun There are a number of ghostly traditions associated with the town of New Norcia. As with many folktales of the supernatural, a good few of these are located in the local public house. But there is also an old story related to the religious origins and character of the town. It is said that the figure of a woman, sometimes said to be a nun, dressed in blue can be seen flitting around the clocktower of the monastery, just as the bell tolls midnight. The history and architecture of New Norcia certainly make it an ideal location for haunting, as does the romance of the Broome pearling industry. [TOP OF PAGE] Pearling Folklore in Ghostly Broome Abraham Davis was, among other things, a prominent entrepreneur in the Broome pearling industry around the turn of the century. An eminent man in the Jewish community of Broome, Davis was drowned along with all other passengers and crew in the wreck of the Koombana, off Port Headland in 1912. His fine house later became the palace of the first Anglican Bishop of the North-West, Bishop Gerard Trower (1860-1928). One night Trower awoke to see a ghostly figure standing in a pool of light. The figure was dressed in the garments of a Rabbi. When the Bishop called to the figure it promptly vanished. The same figure was seen by others on a number of further occasions, usually late in the afternoon or early in the evening. A link between this particular haunting and another item of pearling folklore has been suggested by the writer Ion Idriess. In his book Forty Fathoms Deep, Idriess puts forward the possibility that Davis was carrying with him the allegedly priceless 'Roseate Pearl'. Like other stories about precious stones, priceless treasures of antiquity, lost gold mines, Egyptian mummies and the like, it is said that this pearl has a curse upon it that brings ill-luck to its possessor. A feature of supernatural traditions is that the number of ghosts involved often increases over the years, along with details of the legend. In the case of the Davis house at Broome, there is also a tradition that it is haunted by the ghost of a Portuguese sea-Captain. It must be a busy place at night. In fact - or perhaps in fantasy - Broome seems to be especially bustling with apparitions. On the foreshore is a beacon that unaccountably fades from time to time. No explanation for this mysterious dimming has ever been found. No natural phenomenon, such as mist, appears to be the cause and it is said that the ghosts of drowned pearlers creeping around the beacon on certain nights of the year cause the light to falter. [TOP OF PAGE] The Lighthouse-keeper of Albany Broome is not the only town with sea-faring phantoms. In keeping with its historic seaport character, Albany has a crew of ghosts with nautical connections. One of these is that of John Reddin, a former Albany Lighthouse-keeper who died in 1940. There are many stories of the ghostly lighthouse-keeper appearing to help sailors in difficulty. He smokes a pipe and wears a dufflecoat, appearing and disappearing very quickly. [TOP OF PAGE] The Old Gaol of Albany There is a ghost in Albany's Old Jail, now a tourist attraction. It is not clear who this may be, though it may be the ghost of a young woman falsely imprisoned for theft. Another tradition has it that the cell once held a woman who had been sexually abused and died in childbirth. Those who have heard noises in the cell say that they are the cries of a soul in great torment. [TOP OF PAGE] The Military Ghost A military ghost, believed to be the presence of a Boer War army doctor named Major Frederick Ingoldby, haunts Patrick Taylor Cottage. The Major, who rented the cottage, died there in September 1942 and his shade reappears each September. The ghost materialises firstly in military uniform , complete with wounded right arm cradled in a sling, then vanishes, only to reappear lying in the bed in which he died. [TOP OF PAGE] The Romantic Ghost in Albany The most romantic ghost in Albany, and probably in the entire state, is that of the Irish woman, Catherine Spense. As this story goes, Catherine's husband, Cathal, was transported to Western Australia for ten years. Illiterate, Cathal was unable to write to his relations in Ireland to let them know of his whereabouts. In the meantime Catherine went to work for a wealthy lawyer who later died, rather conveniently leaving her an enormous sum of money. The now wealthy and still lovelorn Catherine determined to find Cathal and sailed for Albany in 1877. She was told by a local priest that the man who might be her husband was living at Oyster Harbour. The priest visited the man, who said he was indeed Cathal, and gave the clergyman a message for his wife: he would sail a small boat across the Harbour at twilight in two days time and Catherine should meet him on the shore. At the appointed time Catherine went down to the shore and saw sailing towards her the small boat piloted by Cathal. Seeing his long-lost wife the Irishman became excited, stood up to wave and overbalanced the boat. It capsized and he drowned more or less in front of her eyes. She then collapsed and died of a broken heart. It is said that Catherine still haunts the harbourside around Seamen's Walk. The shade of Cathal, so far, has not turned up in any accounts of this unusually elaborate supernatural tradition. [TOP OF PAGE] The Other Hauntings The state's many other ghosts are generally much more down-to-earth, like the headless horseman at the Kenwick flyover on the train line to Armadale. His favourite time for haunting is said to be around midnight. Then there is the unknown woman's face that appears at a window of the old Fremantle Asylum, now the Fremantle Arts Centre. There are even one or two modern phantoms like the vanishing passenger encountered by a bus-driver travelling down Kalamunda Road one midnight. A number of Aboriginal ghosts are said to roam Rottnest. People sometimes report a 'presence' in the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre, part of Fremantle Prison, another addition to the ghosts said to haunt the grim walls and corridors of the old gaol. Not all Western Australia's supernatural traditions are the result of violence and tragedy. There is a room in heritage-listed Woodbridge Manor at Midland that mysteriously smells of chocolate cake from time to time. That's a haunting almost all of us can enjoy. [TOP OF PAGE] |
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