Maybe its just the ozone blowing off the waves but there is something intangible, almost ethereal, when you stand on certain parts of the north east coast; something that reaches inside of you and makes you contemplative and elated almost at the same time. Some would go even further; I once heard Lindisfarne, with its history of devotion and contemplation, described as “a thin place”, a place where the unfathomable gulf between heaven and earth becomes a bit narrower and the spiritual can almost be touched. Hartlepool Headland is another such place; one that seems to tap into the soul, only here you get the impression that it might not just be heaven that lies behind the veil.
Hartlepool Headland is a little chunk of rock, jutting brazenly in to the North Sea; looking like the North East sticking its tongue out at the world. Renowned for its independence and attitude, that’s exactly what it is. On a calm day the sea views are heavenly but like many places it has known its share of hell; invaded by Vikings; the site of the first casualty on these shores of the first world war; and doubtless the backdrop to many tragic lives of unfulfilled potential, which history never recorded. Unlike most places, many believe that the Headland still holds echoes of those past lives.
It’s February, well in to the night and a group of us are huddled around the Gothic scene of St Hilda’s churchyard. Recounting the ghosts of Headland past for us is local historian, Steve Robbins, and already I’m turning pale with a chill creeping up my spine. But then it is midnight in February on a bit of rock protruding out into the North Sea.
Steve had been leading ghost walks on the Headland for many years. These started as a Myths and Legends theme, celebrating the history and folklore of the place. At that time Steve had only heard of two ghosts; the inevitable, “grey lady”, a kindly ghost who walked the wards of the former Friarage Hospital and who was even known to tend to patients. The other being Hartlepool’s most haunted, the Cosmopolitan Hotel, which also has its grey lady but much more besides. It seems though that ghosts are as struck by the celebrity culture as the rest of us and more and more of them have appeared, literally in many cases, to have their story told.
It turns out that the Headland ghosts are in fact a little more colourful than the archetypal grey ladies would lead us to believe. There is a ghost of a Roman, even though no remains of real Romans have been found there; two children who undo people’s shoe laces in Regent Street; cyclists who get half way down the road then disappear; soldiers on guard in the Heugh Battery and a headless horse in the dock. In the Cosmopolitan there is even a ghost of a parrot in a cage – argue your way out of that one Michael Palin!
Steve, though a firm believer in the other world, is himself unable to encounter these ghosts. His role is as documenter, his natural habitat the reference library and his bread and butter, microfiche of old newspapers. But helping Steve on many of his walks was retired countryside warden, Robert Smith, who is much more receptive to the other side. This came to light on the very first walk when, as a grand finale, they had arranged to take people into the cellar of the Cosmopolitan. The walk had been so popular that it had attracted a crowd of around 300 people and almost half of them queued round in to Durham Street for Steve to send them down in groups of eight, while Robert waited below to regale them with ghostly goings on. As Robert took the first group in to the corner of the cellar where most “happenings” had, well, happened, the temperature dropped markedly, Robert’s hair stood on end and he felt as if someone was hugging him tightly from behind. The same thing was happening to about half the people in the group. Each time the groups changed over about half of the group experienced this but of course in Robert’s case he experienced this over a dozen times. That night he woke to find his pillow soaked and tears flooding from his eyes. He wasn’t crying, nevertheless the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. The only explanation that he could think of was that the ghost had needed to cry and was using Robert to do that.
The next day a young reporter from a local newspaper, who had been on the walk but not down in the cellar, asked to go to the cellar with Robert for a story. As they approached the corner there was a wall of cold, almost like a force field. Involuntarily, Robert found himself talking to something through this invisible barrier but only really realised it when the reporter told him that he was talking to a presence. She said, “I’ve got to go”, beat a hasty retreat and never did write the story.
While three of the Headland ghosts are known to be a bit on the aggressive side, two threaten to push people down stairs and the third flings things about, the rest are reputed to be benign or even friendly. On one of the walks, a young boy came up to Steve and told him about their “uncle”, an old, partially bald man who regularly appeared in their house. His older sister and parents confirmed the story; the “uncle” never did any harm and was just treated as part of the household. In fact that seems to be the response of many of the people who have recounted their story to Steve. For some on the Headland the other world is just part of this world and the paranormal is just plain normal.
Raven on the Wing 