Great Australian Ghost Stories (20 page)

Those familiar with the much-publicised story of the Aboriginal ghost at Yarralumla may be surprised at the use of the plural in the above title, but, like all good mysteries, the reason will be revealed in time. Meanwhile, let me say that those who claim there is only one ghost in the governor general's residence are quite right — but it's not the much publicised one.

Yarralumla already had a long history as a grazing property when the Federal Government acquired it in 1913, eventually converting it into the official residence of the governor general of Australia. It was just before the last private owner, Frederick Campbell, left Yarralumla that a document was discovered that gave rise to the story of the Aboriginal ghost. A visitor to the house was being shown over a stone vault in the garden that had formerly contained the remains of an earlier owner, Colonel John Gibbes, when he discovered a dusty and cobweb-covered manuscript that was immediately delivered to his host. The handwritten, unsigned document read:

Frederick Campbell, it is said, accepted the authenticity of the document. The references to Gibbes and himself and to ‘the large deodar tree' were probably the convincing factors. There was, and still is, a magnificent deodar (Himalayan Cedar) in the garden of Yarralumla. Fortunately, Campbell did not see fit to uproot the now 180-year-old tree, diamond or no diamond, and none of the vice-regal occupants have either.

This story gave rise to reports that the ghost of the Aborigine stalked the gardens of Yarralumla on moonlit nights and had been seen digging around the roots of the deodar tree. In none of the published versions of this story was anyone ever quoted as having seen the ghost first hand and in light of evidence that surfaced many years later that is not surprising.

In 1984 Sergeant Bill Wittle, a loyal and popular guard at Government House from 1939 to 1962, published a chatty little book filled with anecdotes about his vice-regal employers and regal visitors to Yarralumla. In one chapter Wittle describes how a woman presented herself at the front gate one day in 1942 asking if it would be possible to see over her former home. The wife of the incumbent governor general agreed and Sergeant Wittle minded the children she had brought with her while the lady visited the house. Although she signed her name (according to Wittle) ‘Mrs Little', she was the former Kate Campbell, daughter of Frederick Campbell.

On her return to the gate Sergeant Wittle asked the visitor if she could throw any light on the story of the ghost and the
diamond. She laughed and agreed to let Sergeant Wittle in on a little secret. It was she, she said, aided by a school friend staying at Yarralumla during the school holidays, who had written the document that gave rise to the ghost story. She had taken a sheet of heavy parchment notepaper from her father's study, composed and written the story on it then disguised it with dust and cobwebs to appear old. She and her friend had placed it in the vault and it was they, she added, who took the visitor down there so he could find it.

Ghost story exploded? Well, nothing is ever that simple in the natural or supernatural world. History shows that Frederick Campbell did have a daughter named Kate but her married name was Newman, not Little. The visitors' book for 1942 does carry the signature of a ‘Mrs Little' but not a ‘Mrs Newman'. Another former security guard, Bert Sheedy, claimed that he too met the former Miss Campbell on her visit and laughed over the ghost hoax, but he claims it was in 1952, not 1942!

A letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, published 3 August 1945, corroborates the two men's stories. It read, in part:

The writer then went on to explain the same sequence of events described by Sergeant Wittle. The letter was signed ‘Kate Newman'. So the Ghost of Yarralumla is finally and firmly laid to rest — well one of them, anyhow.

 

The
Canberra News
of 27 August 1970 carried a feature article quoting Sir Murray Tyrrell, private secretary to a succession of governors general from 1947 to 1973, about his encounter with a ghost at Yarralumla seven years before. Sir Murray told how, in February 1963, preparations were under way for a visit by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Sir Murray left his office one day and was walking towards his cottage in the grounds when a flustered official approached him and asked if he had seen a strange person entering the front door of Government House. Sir Murray said he had not, but the official was insistent that he had.

Now security was not of such paramount importance as it is these days, but had been stepped up for the royal visit, so the prospect of a stranger lurking in the house at that or any other time was cause for concern. Sir Murray decided to check out the report himself and entered the front door of Government House. As his eyes grew accustomed to the change in light, Sir Murray spotted the strange, hazy figure slowly and deliberately climbing the stairs from the foyer to the first floor.

Sir Murray shouted but the figure took no notice. The middle-aged private secretary then bounded like a man half his age up the stairs in pursuit, but when he reached the first floor landing the figure had vanished. He searched every room in the vicinity but could find no trace of the intruder.

Mystified and alarmed, Sir Murray summoned one of the security guards who were patrolling the grounds with guard dogs and hastily explained what he had seen. The security man and his dog began to mount the stairs, several at a time, then suddenly the animal stopped and would proceed no further. No order or coaxing would get the dog to move. It stood statue-
like, halfway up, and bared its teeth at its handler in a display of uncooperativeness that was quite unlike the normally faithful and fearless creature.

Sir Murray Tyrrell always stood by his account of the events of that day and never found a rational explanation for them. As neither Sir Murray nor the other official who first saw it mention the colour of the ghost's skin it is reasonable to assume it was white and they did describe it as male.

There is an old story about a man having died or been murdered near the old Yarralumla homestead (demolished in 1881 to make way for the present building), but a descendent of Colonel Gibbes who takes an interest in his family's history informed me a few years ago that as far as he knows the only male to have died at ‘old' Yarralumla was the Colonel himself. So perhaps it was his shade that was observed in 1963. Perhaps the old Colonel decided he was duty bound to put in an appearance when the monarch was due and maybe
he
is the real Ghost of Yarralumla.

‘I saw it
with my own eyes
!'

I like that expression, so often used by witnesses to ghostly appearances; and I've always wondered how (at least before the age of corneal transplants) anyone could see anything with somebody
else's
eyes. It was used recently to add authenticity to the claim of a sighting of a ghost at Sydney's Victoria Barracks, but in this case it was unnecessary for many others have seen the same apparition.

No building in Australia evokes the essence of queen and country or British military might better than this expansive and impressive old sandstone complex. For visitors it is like stepping back a couple of centuries and if one closes one's eyes it's easy to see red-coated soldiers marching and gold-braided officers riding on the dusty parade ground, with elegantly dressed
mem-sahibs
watching from the shady verandahs. One can almost hear the clatter of hooves, the swish of carriage wheels, the rumble of field guns, the crack of muskets and the eerie echo of bugles long gone. But imagination is not required to see one figure from the barracks' past — only your presence in the right place at the right time and a spot of good luck.

For more than 100 years people working or visiting the barracks and passers-by on Oxford Street have spotted a spectral figure on the upper level balcony of the Officers' Quarters. Accounts differ but some details are common to all reports — the figure is female, tall, young and slender and dressed in a pink gown — high-necked, tight-waisted and expanding out to a full, flowing skirt. One observer described the colour of the fabric as like that last blush of colour as a sunset fades.

The figure usually has one slender hand resting on the balcony railing and its eyes seem to be gazing into the far distance — over the parade ground and down what would have been (when this spectre was flesh and blood) the sandy track leading to the city. In the words of one witness the spectre ‘looks ever so sad; as if she's waiting for someone to return to her'.

No one can put a name to this ladylike ghost. Perhaps in life she was the wife of one of the lieutenant colonels who commanded at the barracks, or the sister, daughter or mistress of some officer who marched away and never came back. Just occasionally, it seems, her sadness is dispelled. She is reported as slowly turning her head towards observers and giving them a wan smile; and one witness (a man walking up Oxford Street on a sunny spring afternoon) noticed her watching him, waved and received a gentle wave in return.

Such brief encounters aside, the ghost who has become known simply as ‘the lady on the balcony' is elusive. Efforts to get close to it always fail. Witnesses at ground level see it and the inquisitive (or foolhardy) dash up the stairs to try to corner it, but on arrival the balcony is always empty and occupants of the upper level deny having seen anything at all.

 

This gentle spirit is just one of many that inhabit Victoria Barracks and not, as you might expect after so many sightings, the most famous. That distinction belongs to the ghost of Private Charles Crowley, formerly of the Eleventh Regiment — the ‘North Devonshires' — the first British regiment to occupy the barracks.

‘Charlie', as he was known to his comrades (and still is to his victims), shot dead the popular Sergeant Pearson after an argument at the barracks in 1853. Charlie fled but was captured just a few kilometres away in Leichhardt and locked away in the barracks prison to await court martial. Remorse or fear drove Charlie to hang himself and in doing so he escaped one punishment only to be condemned to another. According to the reports of eyewitnesses his ghost has remained in and around the barracks prison ever since.

In the 1960s and 70s Warrant Officer Bert White and his family lived in the old Provost Sergeant's quarters above the prison cells. W.O. White described Charlie's ghost as young, tall, wearing an old army greatcoat and able to glide through walls. The Whites believed that Charlie watched over them and Mrs White told how on one occasion a piece of falling masonry stopped in mid-air while she snatched one of her children to safety.

‘It was the strangest thing I've ever seen,' Mrs White recounted. ‘This big lump of sandstone — it was part of the lintel over a window — just
stopped
, frozen in mid-air, about six feet off the ground. I grabbed our youngest and we both toppled backwards onto the gravel. Then the piece of stone continued its fall, crashing with a horrifying
crunch
into the gravel.'

Another time Mrs White claimed she received a psychic message from Charlie when she was shopping in Oxford Street. The message told her to return home immediately. When she
got to their quarters she found the children had been playing with matches and had lit a fire endangering themselves and the building.

Charlie's altruistic antics have sometimes backfired on the recipients. During the years of the Great Depression when the Royal Military College occupied the barracks at least one cadet had reason to resent Charlie's interference. This young man was accused of cheating at his passing-out examinations and when asked to account for how he (
not
the brightest student in his class) managed to answer every question correctly, he told a story that only got him into worse trouble.

The cadet told how he had gone to bed early to get a good night's sleep before his exams, but had been awakened in the middle of the night by a scratching sound and a faint light that filled his room. ‘I rolled over in bed and found this joker sitting at my table with his back to me. He had my pencil box open and he was writing, using the fountain pen my mum gave me for my sixteenth birthday.'

The cadet sat up in bed and was about to challenge the intruder when he realised that he could see
through
the strange figure and that the light was coming
from
it. ‘It was a human figure — a man — but he looked like he was made of thick, smoky glass; the kind you can just see through but which distorts shapes behind it. I could make out the calendar on the wall behind the figure, but all the letters and numbers were blurred. And there was this “halo” of light around him; a soft, shimmering band of yellow that cast a warm glow over the room
and
over me. The light made the white sheet covering my legs look mustard-coloured and the skin on my hands and arms looked jaundiced.'

The cadet was too frightened to speak or cry out and watched in stunned silence until ‘Charlie' (for this surely was
his ghost), finished scribbling, folded the paper he had been writing on, put away the pen and placed the pencil box over the paper to serve as a paperweight. The ghost turned its head and smiled at the cadet, showing discoloured teeth with many gaps, then slowly faded away. With it went the light, velvety blackness reclaiming the room.

Cautiously the cadet reached for the lamp beside his bed and switched it on. Everything in the room looked normal and instinct told the young man he was quite alone. He climbed out of bed, crossed over to the table, moved the pencil box and nervously picked up the paper. As he unfolded it he realised it was not one sheet but three all covered in crudely scrawled words.

Some of what the cadet read was familiar to him and some was not. It was not until the following day when he was issued with his examination papers that he realised that what he had read were the correct answers to every question on the exam.

The cadet might have been wiser to have kept quiet about his nocturnal visitor and the reason he did so well in the exam, for the officers investigating the claims of cheating were not inclined to believe a word of his explanation. ‘And where is this
miraculous
epistle?' a senior officer asked.

‘In my room, sir,' the cadet replied, ‘pinned to the back of my calendar.'

‘Well, sir, you had better go and get it then!' the officer retorted.

Under guard the cadet was marched to his room, retrieved the sheets of paper and presented them to the investigating officers. Remarkably the paper, the ink and the writing seemed to have aged overnight. The paper was now yellowed and brittle, the blue ink turned brown and the writing faded, but the content of the words was still convincingly clear. The
investigators decided to give the cadet the benefit of the doubt and he passed his examination — top of the class.

So numerous were the reports of Charlie's activities that an investigation was undertaken in 1972 by two lieutenant colonels from the Australian army with the stated aim:
To obtain first-hand information for possible handling of situation when press find out
— which was a bit late, considering the press had been reporting the ghostly goings-on at the barracks for at least the previous ninety years. As one might expect the investigating officers' official findings suggested hallucinations, coincidences, pranks, electrical faults, etc., but at least one of them became a devout believer in Charlie's ghost.

In 1975 the prison where Charlie ended his life was closed and became the barracks museum but without interruption to his ghost's activities. To this day he flits about among the exhibits at night, startling security guards, alarming guard dogs and trying, so far unsuccessfully, to trap unsuspecting victims in the cells by closing the heavy steel doors.

 

In 1988 the army was again obliged to acknowledge the existence of ghosts in one of its historic establishments — this time Fortuna Villa, at Bendigo, Victoria, headquarters of DIGO, the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation, where millions of useful maps had been produced during and since World War Two.

A zealous patriot who had read a magazine article about ghosts at Fortuna wrote to inquire what action the army was taking to eliminate the threat to our national security from our enemies finding out that Australian service personnel believed in ghosts. A spokesperson for the army very sensibly wrote back to say no action was being taken on those grounds and pointing out that soldiers are no different to anyone else in the
community and prone to fear the unknown — whether it be supernatural or otherwise.

Fortuna Villa was once the home of the mining magnate Sir George Lansell, known as the Quartz King for introducing deep-shaft mining to the Bendigo goldfields. Lansell spent a fortune enlarging the house and gardens, installing ornamental lakes, a Roman-style bathing house, valuable art works, swathes of stained glass and all the latest ‘mod-cons' of the Victorian era. In 1942 Fortuna was taken over by the army and stories of ghostly activity came thick and fast — attested to by numerous officers and men who served there.

In 1998 retired Major John Bloor vividly recalled the cold winter morning twenty years earlier when he came up the stairs near the ornamental lake and spotted a filmy figure in a white shroud peering into the kitchen window. The apparition sensed Bloor's approach and turned. The living and the dead stared at each other for about fifteen seconds, then the apparition faded away. When the Major met up with someone a few minutes later they said: ‘What's up, John? You look like you've seen a ghost.'

‘I have,' he replied.

Footsteps are heard in what was once Sir George Lansell's bedroom and in the adjoining bathroom; also in the billiard room, which became the Officers' Mess. So often were these slow, thumping sounds heard by rank and file that they ceased to cause alarm and were dismissed with casual remarks like ‘There's old George banging around again.'

Female voices are clearly audible in Mrs Lansell's former bedroom at night when the room is supposedly empty; and a sergeant who put his head inside to investigate one night was asked very brusquely: ‘What are you doing here?' The identity of this ghost is less clear. She may be ‘old Bedella' or ‘old Edith'
for there were two Mrs Lansells: the first an uneducated Irish lass who did not cope well with her husband's social climbing and reportedly drank herself to death; and the second, a formidable English woman who lived on at Fortuna like a dowager queen until the 1920s.

The ghosts of a little boy in a sailor suit and a girl in a late-Victorian tea gown have also been spotted, but not all the ghosts of Fortuna Villa are necessarily of the Lansells' time. Major Bloor was told by another officer about a tragic event that occurred there during World War Two and which may account for at least one ghost. A group of soldiers were playing cards one day when a comrade walked in and asked casually if any of them had a piece of rope.

‘What for?' one of the group asked.

‘To hang meself, o' course,' the first soldier said and they all laughed.

‘There's a bit in my kit,' said another soldier, helpfully. Half an hour later they found the first soldier's dead body dangling from ‘the bit' of rope.

Fortuna was the Ancient Roman goddess of good fortune, but it seems Fortuna Villa has not always enjoyed her protection.