Ghostly lodger of Riverside Drive.
By David Smith.
Mr William Russell, superintendent of the Church of Scotland Hostel on Riverside Drive, with the haunted house in the background.
Glass shattering, doors banging, cushions scattering and footsteps sounding on empty corridors. These are the frightening trademarks of the ghost which haunts the Church of Scotland’s Deeford Hostel for boys in Aberdeen’s Riverside Drive. Today Mr William Russell, the hostel’s 55-year-old superintendent, told of the 30 years he and his family had shared with the ghost in the 13-roomed house and how they had learned to come to terms with the inexplicable and uncanny goings-on.
The ghost, he said, was believed to be the spirit of an Aberdeen minister’s daughter, who gave birth to an illigitimate child. When the child was taken from her she committed suicide in a second-floor bedroom. Their belief in the truth of the story, they said, was borne out by the fact that the ghost was particularly active in the presence of infants. He, his wife, Moyra, and their daughter, Ailleen, he said, had all experienced the ghost’s presence at various times of the day and night. They had heard women’s footsteps “click, click, clicking” along the corridors and stairs, but when they went to investigate they found no one there.
They had also heard glass smashing, while later investigation proved nothing had been broken. Rooms, he said, were suddenly plunged into darkness when light switches turned themselves off. The house had recently been rewired and new switches installed but still the lights went off. A former occupier told him the same thing happened when the house was gaslit.
They had found themselves unable to get into their living-room because of a chair pushed under the doorknob. When they finally got inside the room, they found all the cushions had been scattered. His daughter, Ailleen, he added, now refused to stay in the house alone. She had heard footsteps leading from her mother’s bedroom to the bathroom. When she investigated she found the bathroom empty and her mother asleep in bed. One boy resident, he recalled, was in the toilet, when suddenly the door he had snibbed only seconds before suddenly swung open. Another was in bed with ‘flu when he heard someone moving outside his room. He shouted several times for a drink of water. When he got no response he got out of bed to fetch the drink himself to discover the corridor was empty. “In 10 minutes flat he was downstairs cured. He wasn’t going up there alone again,” laughed Mr Russell.
Several former residents who had lived in the house prior to 1948, he added, had since visited them to relate their own experiences of the ghost. One said he had seen the ghost in a mirror and thought it was his wife. She later denied being in the room.
Members of the hostel staff had all experienced the ghost’s presence at some time, added Mr Russell. Mrs Gladys Cox, of 13 Auchinyell Terrace, said she and another woman had been working in the kitchen when they heard a woman’s voice humming a tune immediately behind them. They were alone in the kitchen and a subsequent search of the house revealed they were the only two people in the building. Recently, while the Russell family were on holiday, and Mrs Cox and her husband were living in the hostel, they heard someone knocking on the living-room door. When they answered the door there was no one there and again a search of the house revealed they were alone.
Despite the eeriness, however, neither of the Russells, the staff, nor the boys, find it too hard living with a ghost. Said Mr Russell: “We’ve come to accept it now. When I go down for anything in the middle of the night I don’t even bother switching on the light. There’s no evil in ‘Mary’. She’s a friendly ghost.”
Aberdeen Evening Express, 11th August 1971.
Hostel’s friendly ghost.
Things that go tinkle-crash, thud-thud and bang – as well as those that go bump in the night – are the varied spiritual presences of a friendly ghost which haunts the rooms and corridors of a Church of Scotland hostel in Aberdeen. But the bogle’s unnerving attendances at the 13-roomed Deeford Hostel for Boys, Riverside Drive, do not unduly concern the superintendent, Mr William Russell (55), and his family – they have put up with the haunting tantrums for 30 years!
He, his wife Moyra, and their daughter, Ailleen, all have their own stories to tell of the spirit’s games, which can occur at any time of the day or night. Footsteps clicking on corridors and stairs when nothing was there; breaking glass noises with no evidence of broken glass; rooms plunging into darkness when switches turned themselves off – they’ve all happened at Deeford.
Boy residents, and hostel staff too, have fallen foul of the ghost.
Mr Russell explained that the presence was believed to be the spirit of an Aberdeen minister’s daughter who gave birth to an illigitimate child. When the child was taken from her, she committed suicide in a second-floor bedroom… and it’s a fact that to the present day the ghost is particularly active in the presence of infants.
Mr Russell said “We’ve come to accept it now. When I go down for anything in the middle of the night I don’t even bother switching on the light. There’s no evil in ‘Mary’. She’s a friendly ghost.” From ghoulies and ghosties and lang-leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us!
Aberdeen Press and Journl, 12th August 1971.