A Musical Ghost.
Lively Doings At Burry Port.
Seen Enveloped in Foam!
Somebody at Burry Port has been emulating the Witch of Endor, and has called “spirits from the vasty deep” to trouble the soul of a grand piano and a family named Phillips, who live at Burry View. The Llanelly papers devote a couple of columns to a record of the doings of the ghost; and to say the least of the work of the veracious pressman who penned it, the story is worthy of – Burry Port.
The cute penciller was cautious enough to procure the company of a sergeant of police before he attempted investigation; and when the twain arrived at the house, lo and behold! Mrs. Phillips was engaged with the wash tub, and her husband, Mr. Owen Phillips, an employee at the Copperworks, was resting in bed, he having worked the previous night shift. The latter was awakened, and at once Mrs. Phillips began the story.
On the Thursday night, she said, her husband and herself retired about half-past ten, leaving their two sons, William, aged 20, and Owen, 18, downstairs. Shortly afterwards, when going to their room, they bade their parents “Goodnight”, and for a time all seems to have been oblivion. Then, Mrs. Phillips went on: “About half-past one on Friday morning I heard a chair moving, and then I heard the piano playing a tune, very slowly, and I says to myself, ‘Sure, there’s somebody up very early!'”
At this point Mr. Phillips had entered the kitchen, and after remarking that he was roused by his wife, took up the thread from the latter. “Aye,” said he, “I says, ‘There’s somebody playing a Jew’s harp, to be sure.’ Then all at once it stopped and started again a little bit louder, and I was afraid of the wife getting a feared. So I says to her, ‘What’s the matter, missus? It’s only one of the boys downstairs,’ and I told her I should have to put the piano key in my pocket o’nights, or else the neighbours would surely be complaining about it. She said, ‘Aye, it’s the only way to stop it,’ and then something struck her, for she says, ‘Nay, but didn’t the boys come to bed some time back and say “Good-night” to us? I said, ‘Yes, I know that they did,’ and then she asked me, ‘Well, whatever is it that’s there?’ So I says, ‘I’ll go down and see.’ And with that I jumped out of bed, but the missus got hold of me by the shoulder and begged of me not to go.”
Mrs. Phillips: And I called “Lord, have mercy on our souls!” Oh how it did frighten me! Mrs. Phillips, during the narrative, felt constrained to interject this observation several times, but for the sake of brevity we omit the repetitions.
Mr. Phillips: I asked her to be quiet and say nothing until we heard it again, so we sat down on the side of the bed, both of us for fully five minutes. It started again, the piano, you know, and then I went to the boys’ room and pushed the chair away.
Mrs. Phillips: Yes, I’d told the boys to put a chair behind the door because we had heard the ghost the night before.
Mr. Phillips: And after I got my arm in the bedroom and pushed the chair away, William says to me – he had heard it, sir, and lying on his back with his eyes open – ‘Who’s playing the piano, dad?’ And I says back to him, ‘Nay, that’s what I want to know.’ He was terribly frightened, too. However, we came downstairs together, and as we were coming down the stairs the piano playing stopped of a sudden. My! wasn’t it beautiful. We looked all over the kitchen, in the back place, in the cupboards, under all the chairs and tables, and everything was in its place. The parlour door was found open, but it was locked on Thursday night. The cover of the piano was thrown back.
Mrs. Phillips: And this chair was left just like this. I heard it being dragged from that corner over there, and that’s what awakened me, because I’m not a very sound sleeper.
Mr. Phillips: We must have disturbed him, for he finished the tune sudden-like. And wasn’t it a lovely tune!
The reporter suggested that the ghost was playing “Ault Lang Syne.”
Mrs. Phillips: It wasn’t like anybody practising. It was lovely, everything was finished and perfect. We were listening to it for fully ten minutes, sat on the side of the bed. It wasn’t any of Sankey’s tunes, for my husband knows all of them. The ghost is a heavy footed one; it’s not a woman, it must be a man. We could hear it the night before walking about the landing, and it went in the boys’ room. That’s why I told them to put a chair behind the door. I thought at first it was Owen, because he was not very well, but he was fast asleep, and he didn’t answer me. The ghost opened the little window at the top of the stairs, and jumped down onto the landing, making a big noise, and afterwards walking about quite bold-like. Now all the doors were bolted, except the one in the kitchen which I had left open, and I was terribly upset. Lor! I was nearly gone, because I have but poor health. I shall be bound to move from here, else I shall surely be dead. If it would be bold to face the master it would be all right. Lor! wasn’t Owen, my husband, afraid. He was as white as this tablecloth.
Mr. Phillips: I thought at first it was a man, but it struck me afterwards that if a fellow wanted to rob the place he would do it quietly, and not play the piano to awaken everybody. The first time I heard it it ran through me, and I was shaking like a leaf.
Mrs. Phillips: And it’s been before, sir. Now I had a daughter, and she was going to be married. She put a big picture in the corner of the kitchen just there, leaning straight against the wall. I have another daughter, a young one, and in the morning she heard somebody walking about the house. So she awakens me and says, ‘Mother, there’s somebody in the house. I can hear them,’ and with that – my husband was working night shif – we both comes downstairs. And do you think the picture was as we’d left it? No, the chair there had been pulled away and the picture shifted to lean against it like this. We looked all over and couldn’t find anything, so we went back to bed.
Another time my daughter, who was married, heard something. She has a pretty good nerve – she’s 27 – so she awakened me and went downstairs. As she got to the bottom, which leads into the passage, as you can see, there was a report like a gun going off, and she screams and runs upstairs, and when she gets to the top she looks round and she could see him in the passage all like white foam. She was sure it was a man; it wasn’t a woman. My! wasn’t she upset! She screamed murder, and would not go to her husband, but comes in my room and shouts, ‘Oh, mother, mother, it’s here, but I can’t see it.’ If my daughter was here now she’d tell you the same tale, and I’m sure she’s glad she’s living in Swansea now and not here.
Now just to show you how bold that ghost is, about four months back I had a nephew of mine down from Swansea, and he slept in one of the front rooms next to mine. His bed was under the window, and he shouted out, ‘Oh, auntie, auntie, somebody’s thrown me against the wall.’ My daughter and her husband were in another room, and the noise brought them out of their sleep. We could hear the ghost walking about, and the footsteps were plainly heard. It was in the middle of the night, and my daughter lit the candle and was walking slowly from the room to the little boy’s room when the candle was blown clean out. We could hear the ‘puff.’ Sure and it’s true, quite true. After that I lit the candle again, and we all came downstairs.
Mr. Phillips: Before then I was once carrying a lamp, and it was blown out. Really, the house is alive. You should have seen us then – me with a stick, and all the others behind me with something in their hands. You would have laughed, it was so comical.
Mrs. Phillips proceeded to relate a conversation she had with a sceptical young man close by, and whilst conversing there came up the daughter of Mrs. Thomas, of Spring Gardens, who left the house two years ago because, she said, it was haunted. “I called to the girl and asked, ‘Mary Jane, where did you have this ghost moving about?’ and she said, ‘I’ll tell you, for the most part it was from the front room to the other one, over the landing,’ and that is just where he goes now. I wish to goodness he would show himself and let us finish with him. It’ll surely break my heart or finish some of us.
Thus the yarn goes on. According to Mrs. Phillips [??] will be [???] three-volume novel, full of expletives and notes of admiration, and plenty for the money, the ghost is a fortnightly one, for she has noticed that it takes two weeks’ rest between each attack of “foam.”
The sceptical might attach some importance to that “foam.” If we had not the assurance that the doors of the house are locked, a natural suggestion would be that someone is in the habit of dropping his face into too much “foam” and wandering into the wrong house after each fortnightly pay night. But how to account, then, for the “beautiful” accurate, lovely music which the ghost extracts from the piano, we cannot. We must leave the problem to the reporter and the police-sergeant at Burry Port; only venturing to express a hope that the explanation is not that somebody or other has been burying port.
South Wales Daily Post, 24th March 1899.
(Similar to above, but including:)
Reverting to the piano music, the husband said the ghost began by playing on the lower keys, and Mrs Phillips supplemented this with the remark, “Didn’t he give it the bass? He had his foot on the ‘treadle,’ and he ran his fingers over the keys and played oh! a beautiful tune. Asked what kind of a tune it was, Mrs Phillips hazarded the opinion that it was music of the other world. (She didn’t say which.)
Mrs Phillips went on to speak of the growing boldness of the ghost. They had been accustomed to his company for some nine months (in all they had occupied the house for 16 months), and the noises he made had grown gradually louder. Never before had he played the piano, and possibly that was because he did not know that it was there.
Last Saturday night a party of young men offered to watch the house, but Mrs Phillips deemed it unnecessary, as the moment he learnt of somebody’s approach the ghost disappeared. A friend had advised the placing of nails near one of the bedroom doors. “As if,” Mrs Phillips added, “nails would stick in a spirit’s feet. I should like to see him, in a way, you know, and yet I wouldn’t. I trust to the dear Lord he won’t show himself to me, or else I shall go home. Whoever it is he must have very long fingers to play the piano like he did.”
Mr Phillips: I have no dealings with Old Nick, but indeed my blood froze and I fairly had the creeps. “Cats? Imagination?” Tut! Tut!
South Wales Daily News, 23rd March 1899.
The Burry Port Ghost.
Mrs Phillips on Intimate Terms with Spirits.
The Burry Port ghost story is causing no end of sensation in West Carmarthenshire, and it has aroused the indignation of the landlord of the supposed haunted house. It was humorously suggested in a Llanelly newspaper that a house favoured to such an extent in the way of music ought to command increased rental, but on this point it seems opinions differ, as the following communication will show:-
Gladstone-terrace Aberbeeg, Mon., 27, 3, ’99.
Dear Sir, – My attention has been drawn to an article in your last issue entitled “The Haunted House at Burry Port.” I regret that you have seen fit to publish such trivial nonsense, and to pander to the extreme credulity of several highly imaginative individuals. I must, however, ask you to deal with the matter in your next issue in such a manner as to utterly destroy the odium that would necessarily attach itself to the house by the publication of your article. I think you will have no objection to complying with my request since you must acknowledge it but fair. Common justice necessitates such a course of action since I need hardly point out that if the tale is believed the house is ruined. I may add that Mr Phillips has received notice to quit, and will be compelled to leave the premises as soon as possible. That will probably “lay” the ghost. – Thanking you in anticipation, I remain, sincerely yours, David John Badger.
A sceptical young man was mentioned by the Phillips family, and he has addressed a letter to the South Wales Press, of which the following is a copy:
Dear Sir, – In reply to your statement re the Ghost of Burry Port, we the “Persons” referred to in, Paragraph 17 of the Press, on the 23rd Inst., do hereby, send in the following account, of the conversation with Mrs Phillips. I the person referred to as, the sceptical young man, was talking with Mrs Phillips Telling her it was only Fancy as I did not believe in Ghosts at all, when the daughter of Mrs Thomas of Spring Gardens, was Passing at the time, Mrs Phillips said, “Mary Jane you are just the person I was wishing to see. Did’nt you leave this house because you heard noises in the house?”
Mary Jane replied, “I never heard anything at all while we were living in the house, the reason we left the house was because it is so open at the back, that is the reason why we left. As for Ghosts we never heard or saw anything of them.’ In witness hereof we send this account, which is True and accurate in every detail. (Signed) Mrs Thomas, Mary Jane, and a Sceptical Young Man.
“A sceptical young man” by the way, is named Shellan, and he keeps a weigh-house in Carraway-street. Formerly he was a soldier. The handwriting throughout, including the supposed signatures, is the same.
A representative of the South Wales Daily News visited Burry Port on Tuesday, and Mrs Phillips informed him that it was quite true that a notice to quit had been served on her husband. It states that unless the family are off the premises next Monday double the rent will be charged, which will mean 10s per week instead of 5s as at present. A fortnight’s notice is claimed, and ejectments and law suits are being talked of, although, possibly, everything will end in smoke, or foam – like the ghost.
Mrs Phillips refused to withdraw a single word she had uttered, and hoped that should a fresh tenant take the house the ghost would reappear the first night to substantiate her statement. She vouchsafed the information that it has not visited the house in the meantime, and it is not expected for another week or so. Mrs Phillips remarked that “seeing is believing” and that it is reserved for those born in the early morning to associate with spirits. She was born early one morning (she didn’t say how many years ago), and not only has she seen ghosts, but had touched one! This was about two years ago, when she was living in Swansea.
One night her married daughter, then single, was out later than usual, and Mrs Phillips and a female friend started off to go to the house where she was staying. On the way they passed Ebeneezer Chapel, and Mrs Phillips, seeing what she took to be her daughter, exclaimed, “Hallo, my child, you’re coming home.” At the same time she touched the supposed daughter on the shoulder, over which was thrown a grey cape, and then in an instant the head disappeared exactly like a Jack in the Box, and the apparition went through the keyhole of the chapel door. That very same ghost had previously found fun in chasing a young lady who was cleaning out the chapel several times round the graveyard; and Mrs Phillips fancied it was the disturbed occupier of a grave that had just been opened!
On another occasion the ghost knocked loudly at Mrs Phillips’ kitchen window, and when she and her little girl came downstairs and looked out, it, or rather she, called out in a mournful and solicitous tone, “Go to bed; go to bed.” To which Mrs Phillips replied, “I’ll give you go to bed if I come out, I tell you.” Apparently this angered the ghost (which is important, as it tends to show that even after one has shuffled off the mortal coil one’s temper is subject to agitation) for she opened wide her mouth so that the teeth were prominent like miniature tusks, the eyes were fiery, and the view altogether was hideous. “And you should have seen us run upstairs,” said Mrs Phillips.
To come back to the Burry View ghost, his absence from the house is partly explainable. Spring cleaning is proceeding just now, and being fastidiously inclined, his present temporary haunt is the Copper Works Tip, from where he can get the ozone fresh and pure. Several persons speak to having seen him there last Thursday and Friday evenings.
South Wales Echo, 30th March 1899.
A Burry Port correspondent, with a fine and large contempt for ghosts, says that one which made its appearance on the Copper Works tips in that place is no more. A well-aimed brick landed on its head, and now the sheet used no longer needs an airing.
South Wales Daily Post, 6th April 1899.