“Ghost” Speaks From Wall.
Strange Happenings at Scots Croft.
Neighbours Suspect a Trick.
Inquiries into an extraordinary “ghost” story that gripped Tarves (Aberdeenshire) and district were made by a “Courier and Advertiser” representative yesterday. The scene is the small croft of Gateside, Tarves, which is occupied by an old couple, Mr and Mrs A. Wilkie, and their grandchild, Bunty Ross, a bright child of about nine years.
Mr and Mrs Wilkie went to reside at the croft in November. About a month later they heard a mysterious voice coming from behind the wall. At first the visitation was inclined to alarm them, but in time they became used to it, and for about three months they claim to have been on conversational terms with this voice. It answered questions and told the time of day.
For instance, Mrs Wilkie asked it: “What are you? Have you four legs?” and got a quiet “Aye.” “Have you a tail?” “No, but I have a beak.”
The voice expressed preference for chicken, but refused to come out and get a bit, as it said Mr Wilkie had plugged up the hole. It so happened that Mr Wilkie had filled in a small hole in the wall through which a draught had been coming. The voice had a wide range of accomplishments. In a broad Buchan dialect it could repeat the alphabet, count up to 90, say the Lord’s Prayer, sing “A Bicycle Built for Two” and the hymn “Jesus Loves Me.”
It often talked to strangers, and in a straightforward manner told them that they were inquisitive wehn they asked too closely about its identity. Yesterday Mr Wilkie, who is 83 years of age, told the “Courier and Advertiser” representative that the voice died on Tuesday night, and the family were at a loss to explain the reason.
On inquiry in the district, it was found that the general opinion is that a trick is being played on the old folks.
Dundee Courier, 26th March 1934.
Mysterious Voice
has sung and prayed at Tarves croft.
“Newsed” with old couple.
An alleged ghost has been the subject of much talk in the Tarves district of Aberdeenshire for some time. The scene of the mysterious happenings which have provided the material for the ghost story is the small croft of Gateside.
Mr and Mrs Wilkie came to reside on the croft in November, and about a month later they heard a mysterious voice coming from behind a wall of the house. At first the visitation caused them some alarm, but in time they became used to it, and for about three months, they state, they had been “on speaking terms” with the voice.
Among the amazing things the voice has done was to answer questions, tell the time of day, make a witty or bright retort to inquiries as to its own nature. For instance, Mrs Wilkie asked it:- “What are you? Have you four legs?” and got a quiet, “Aye.”
“Have you a tail,” Mrs Wilkie pursued the cross-examination, and the voice from the wall said, “No, but I have a beak.”
The voice also expressed a preference for chicken, but refused to come out and get a bit, as it stated that Mr Wilkie had “plugged up the hole.” It so happened that Mr Wilkie had filled in a small hole in the wall of the house as it was allowing a draught to get in under the floor.
In a broad Buchan dialect it could repeat the alphabet and count up to twenty, say “The Lord’s Prayer,” sing “A bicycle built for two,” and the hymn “Jesus Loves Me.” It even talked to strangers on occasion, telling them what it thought of them in a very straightforward manner when they became too inquisitive.
Yesterday, Mr. Wilkie, who is eighty-three years of age, told a “Press and Journal” representative that the voice had “died” on Tuesday night, as they had not heard it since that time. Neither he nor Mrs Wilkie had any idea what the voice could be.
In the district the general opinion is that a trick is being played on the old folks, and there is a strong suspicion as to the identity of the person responsible for the voice.
Aberdeen Press and Journal, 26th March 1934.
Mystery “Voice” At Tarves.
Girl’s Natural Gift of Ventriloquism.
A Bunty who pulled people’s legs.
A remarkable solution is forthcoming of the Tarves “ghost” mystery, which has puzzled the district for the past few weeks. The mysterious voice which was heard was the voice of a nine-year-old girl who is a natural ventriloquist.
The girl is Bunty Ross, grandchild of Mr and Mrs Alexander Wilkie, Gateside Croft, Tarves. Some time ago the old couple were astounded when a “voice” commenced speaking to them from the wall of the house. It would carry on a conversation with them, and when visitors and neighbours called at the house they were amazed to hear “it” recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing well-known modern songs, as well as repeat the alphabet and count up to twenty.
The whole circumstances were suspiciously “ghostly” and the more credulous believed that some invisible spirit was conversing with them.
Throughout the sensation in the parish Bunty kept her secret well. She used her unnatural voice purely for personal amusement, and in her childish mind she had no idea of the furore her pranks were creating. How she discovered she possessed a ventriloquial voice is not known. After a great deal of private practice, in which animals were persuaded to “answer” her questions, she essayed her art one evening in the house and was delighted with the effect the ghost produced. She continued the prank for a long time, and gradually her second voice became famous.
When a “Press and Journal” representative called at Gateside last night, Bunty proved very shy and would not accede to a request for a demonstration of her ventriloquism. She simply smiled, but would not speak a word. She would not even reveal how she came to use her unnatural voice, but it is almost certain that she never saw a professional ventriloquist on the stage.
Her grandparents are still sceptical of her ventriloquism, despite the fact that she has admitted to responsible persons who have made inquiries that she exercised her gift of ventriloquism to produce the voice from the wall.
When she first attended Barthol-Chapel School some months ago she was a fluent speaker and reader. Last week, however, she developed a serious stammer, some of her words being entirely incoherent. In consequence of inquiries then made, it was found that she possessed a ventriloquial voice. Going home from school one afternoon she played a joke on a schoolmate by making a “voice” speak from a ditch. Her chum was a little afraid until she was told that “it was only a trick.”
The “voice” has not been heard at Gateside since Thursday of last week – significant as being coincident with the first “official” inquiries – and this is an added mystery to the old couple.
The explanation of the whole occurrence is remarkable, and although the majority of people believed that the “ghost” and the “voice” were capable of explanation, practically no one suspected that the nine-year-old girl held the secret. A ventriloquial voice, possessed by few people, requires little development to produce sounds as if emanating from sources other than the vocal organs.
Aberdeen Press and Journal, 29th March 1934.
In Search of the Tarves “Ghost.”
Talk with Bunty.
Local Residents Tell Their Experiences.
(By Eleanor Castel).
If you want amusement, if you like to hear Doric with all the richness of the soil in its picturesque phraseology, you should set forth in quest of the Tarves “ghost.” Most people think the “ghost” is Bunty Ross, the granddaughter of Mr and Mrs Wilkie, the aged couple who live in Gateside Croft. Bunty herself has confessed to the prank. It was with the idea of having a talk with the little girl about her “double” voice that I visited Gateside.
On the narrow, muddy cart-track which leads uphill to the croft I met old Mr Wilkie with a sack of potatoes slung over his shoulders. “Bunty hid naething tae dee wi’t,” he declared indignantly. “I tell ye it wis a beastie thit wis ahin the wa’. It wis a jackdaw; that’s fit it wis!”
“But why did the jackdaw stop speaking when people began to investigate the mysterious voice?” I asked. “It dee’t, dee’t for wint o me’t,” he replied with conviction. “That’s fit I aye say, bit naebody’ll believe ma.” Mr Wilkie is fixed in his conviction that Bunty had nothing to do with the “ghost.”
When we entered the cottage his wife was busy with pots at the fire, and though she greeted me kindly enough, she soon joined with the old man in his vigorous denunciation of what the “papers” had said about Bunty. They vied with each other in tales of the extraordinary sayings of the “beastie.” Evidently this “beastie” could carry on a conversation about any subject, and every day its remarks grew more and more outrageous.
“Ae day I wis makin’ broth,” said the old woman, “and I says tae the beastie, ‘Fit’s in this pot?’ ‘Broth,’ it says. ‘An’ far did I get the vegetables?’ I speared. ‘Oot o’ the orra pail,’ it cries. Did ye iver hear the like?”
“An’ fit’s mair, the ‘beastie’ was speakin’ fin Bunty wis aw’ at the skweel, ” chimed in the old man, “an’ if ye dinna believe me ye can ging ower the wye an’ ask Lizzie Stott, her that’s housekeeper tae the fairmer there. She heard it tee.”
While this conversation was going on I watched Bunty, who had stood in a corner, with her great brown eyes fixed upon me unblinkingly, and her fingers twisting and untwisting her scarf with shy, nervous movements. She was quite willing to accompany me to the neighbouring croft, and on the way I tried to get her to talk. She told me she had a cat, a black one, and its name was Topsy, but this was her only playmate. There was no schoolfellow who came to share her romps. She spent all her spare time with the old couple.
Her replies were slow, but her face was quite animated and friendly till I touched on the subject of her “double” voice, and then her whole expression changed to that determined stolidity which country children can assume so easily when faced with a difficult question. Bunty wasn’t going to tell me her secret. She had confessed to others, but the old couple refuse to take this seriously.
Yet even I began to feel that Bunty was innocent of the prank when I met Miss Stott. She assured me that the “beastie” had spoken to her when Bunty was away at school. Nothing would shake her from her conviction that a supernatural agency had been at work.
Bunty was now inclined to be more communicative. “The beastie niver spoke tae me,” she remarked with a distinctly mischievous gleam in her eye, and then, fearing she had said too much, she danced off ahead of me to her grandparents’ croft.
The old couple enjoyed my puzzlement. “Ye see, we’re richt efter a’,” said the old man, “an’ here’s the postie comin’ up the road – he’ll tell ye the same thing.”
I hurried out to meet the postman. He was most indignant at the suggestion that he had heard the “voice” when Bunty was at school. He had, he said, merely pretended to be taken in by the ghost story, and had asked for a “demonstration.” Bunty, who had been standing at the door, slipped into the kitchen, and when her grandmother began to ask the “beastie” questions, it was quite obvious, he thought, that the little girl was making the replies, though he could not see her. “But,” he added, with a twinkle, “jist ye ging doon the road tae thae cottar hooses – the wives there’ll gi’e ye a gran’ story.”
I spent a most entertaining time with Mrs Bonnar and Mrs Sinclair. They stood, one at either side of the little fence which divides their gardens, and described their experiences at Gateside Croft. “Some fowk were clean dumbfoonert by the on-gauns at the craft,” Mrs Sinclair said, “bit ae nicht we gid up thegither tae hear th’ beastie. ‘It wunna speak till Bunty gings tae her bed,’ says Mrs Wilkie fin we gaed in. So Bunty crawled in tae the back o’ the ed, an’ Mrs Wilkie began speirin’ at the beastie fa we were, an’ fou mony bairns we hid, an’ fit oor men lookit like. Bunty hid an atlas stuck up in front o’ her face, an’ ilka time the beastie spak, doon bobbit Bunty’s heid. Onybody wid hae kent it wis her. She was lauchin’ a’ the time.”
Mrs Sinclair said that while Bunty was acting the “beastie” she spoke in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, but they were never deceived for a moment. However, they enjoyed the joke so much that they went several nights for “demonstrations” and on each occasion Bunty had something stuck up in front of her face, a book, a newspaper, or knitting. It appears that all outsiders who heard the “beastie” – with the exception of Miss Stott – treated it as a joke and entered into the spirit of the game with the idea of encouraging Bunty to greater efforts. Her replies were often extremely diverting, for the “beastie” was no respecter of persons.
Aberdeen Press and Journal, 2nd April 1934.
The Gateside ‘Ghostie’.
By John Dunbar.
Recent “ghostly” events have revived the tale of an Aberdeenshire spook that hit the headlines at Easter, 1934, and put me in touch with a woman who heard for herself some of the “queer ongauns” at a farm cottage near Tarves. The story got around concerning a mysterious voice said to be coming from behind the wall of the kitchen at Gateside Croft, home of an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Alexander Wilkie, and their nine-year-old granddaughter, Bunty Ross.
The Wilkies, the story goes, were astonished when the “voice” began to converse with them. And when visitors called, it was claimed, they could hear “it” recite the Lord’s Prayer, sing well-known melodies, and count up to twenty. The whole business was regarded as suspiciously “ghostly,” and the more credulous, it was recorded at the time, were inclined to believe that some invisible spirit was conversing with them.
It became known that Bunty Ross was something of a ventriloquist, that she had “fleggist” more than one of her school companions at Barthol Chapel by “throwing” her voice. At any rate, the Gateside “ghost” story gained wide currency and, in the parish of Tarves at any rate, it was something of a sensation.
Was there, in fact, a ghost? Some inclined to the view that there was something “queer” about Gateside Croft. Bearded grandfather Wilkie maintained that Bunty had “naethin’ tae dae wi’t.” He is reported to have said: “I tell ye it wis a beastie that wis ahin the wa’! It wis a jackdaw, that’s fit it wis!” “Why did the jackdaw stop speaking when people began to investigate?” he was asked. “It dee’t for wint o’ me’t.”
Mrs Wilkie, too, was convinced that Bunty had nothing to do with the “ghost.” She and her husband vied with each other in tales of the extraordinary sayings of the “beastie.” “One day,” said the old woman, “I wis makin’ broth and I says tae the beastie, ‘Fit’s in the pot?’ ‘Broth,’ it says. ‘An far did I get the vegetables?’ I speired. ‘Oot o’ the orra pail,’ it cries. An fit’s mair, the beastie wis speakin’ fin Bunty wis awa’ at the skweel.”
Neighbours were determined to put the whole mysterious business to the test. Not many of them still stay in the district but one who recalls the “ghostly” days of that Easter thirty-four years ago is Miss Sinclair of “Roselea,” one of the cottar houses of farmer A.R. Giles, Gateside, where her husband has worked for over thirty years. “Do you remember the Gateside croft ghost?” I asked Mrs Sinclair. “Fine that,” declared the good lady. “There were all sorts of stories and all sorts of visitors to the Wilkies’ house. I went to the cottage one evening with a neighbour, Mrs Bonnar. It was, I remember, a dark, dreary house. Cats jumped up and down from a stool. We said we wanted to hear the voice. The old man said, ‘It maybe winna speak or Bunty goes to bed.’ The quine jumped in ower the bed and sort of lay on top. I was watching her all the time. Mrs Wilkie started speirin’ things at the wa’… things like hoo mony bairns we hid and different family affairs.
“I could see Bunty’s body moving on the bed and kent fine the answers were coming from naebody else but her. She spoke about what like oor men looked, and about makin’ broth and vegetables oot o’ the orra pail. Mrs Wilkie came to us next night and asked ‘Fit dae ye think o’ the ghost?’ I said that you could see it was the quine on the bed that was the ghost. Mrs Wilkie got into an affa rage. After that nae-body got into the Wilkies’ cottage.” Mrs Sinclair had, in fact, “killed” the ghost story.
She told me that a relative of the Wilkies had afterwards cut away part of the wall of Gateside Croft to try to find out if there was an imprisoned jackdaw, but nothing was discovered to disprove the theory that the “ghost” was the girl with the “double” voice.
Gateside Croft has long since been modernised and is now occupied by a young couple, Mr and Mrs Frank Emslie. Mr Emslie is poultry-man at Moss-side. The Wilkies are dead and nobody in the district knows the whereabouts of Bunty Ross. Perhaps she alone could clear up the mystery associated with the cottage that was once her home.
Aberdeen Evening Express, 15th August 1961.