Uneasy riders
ROB GANDY investigates some of the unusual cases in which motorcyclists, rather than drivers, have encountered road ghosts and phantom hitchhikers in that liminal zone between hauntings, local folklore and urban legend.
F
ollowing the publication of my article about phantom hitchhiker reports in West Lancashire (‘The Old Man of Halsall Moss’, FT328:32-39) FT’s editor forwarded me an email from Harold Weaver Smith, of Offerton, Greater Manchester, describing his related experience when riding his motorbike along Wellington Road North (A6) into Stockport one night in the late 1980s or early 1990s (see ‘It happened to me’: FT339:77). To summarise:
It was late at night, dark and cold, and the road was greasy and treacherous. Harold was tired and concerned about a car moving erratically behind. Entering Mersey Square, he saw what he thought was a female motorcyclist thumbing a lift. He stopped a little way past and turned to her, only to find she had disappeared. Harold didn’t think more about it until a few years later, when reading a book of local ghost stories. One described a motorcyclist picking up a girl hitchhiker of similar appearance in almost the same place. He gave her a lift on his pillion, but on approaching their destination she disappeared. At the house, the elderly couple explain that the only girl of her appearance who had lived there was their daughter… who had died in a motorcycle accident five years previously. They said many young men had had the same experience.
Of course, the story describes the classic phantom hitchhiker urban legend; but the tantalising point is that although both events took place in Mersey Square, Harold had his experience before he read the ghost story. I identified a 2005 Manchester Evening News article 1 which quoted the ghost story from the Stockport Express. The Local Heritage Library in Stockport kindly ascertained that the article was actually published on 30 October 1991, 2 but indicated the event had happened in 1989. In fact, the piece was actually lifted from a story called “The Black Rider” (referring to the hitchhiker’s attire) in a recently published book: Supernatural
Stockport by Martin G Mills. 3 The story was as Harold had described, with the vanishing hithchiker’s destination being given as Hazel Grove, a few miles down the A6. My antennæ twitched when I read that Mills’s source was his “Shaw Heath informant, Dot, the one who used to work at the Plaza Cinema. Her brother works with a young man, a motorcycle enthusiast, who in 1989 had an experience which was to haunt him day and night thereafter”. This is the classic friendof-a-friend link common to urban legends, albeit with names and relationships. Given the circumstances, I adopted a two-pronged investigative approach of seeking further witnesses and chasing Martin Mills to discuss his story and possibly interview his sources. 4 The number of witnesses identified by these efforts was a big fat zero, while efforts to trace Mills only confirmed that he no longer lived in Stockport.
I have no doubt Harold’s experience was genuine. What struck me was that he was in a state where his sense of awareness and concentration would have been intensified – it was dark, road conditions were tricky and the car behind was behaving erratically. Perhaps he was taking in more information from the environment than would otherwise have been the case, which might somehow have triggered his experience. But, if so, why did this involve the figure of another motorcyclist, who happened to be female? It’s worth noting that most motorcycle phantom hitchhiker stories (see ‘On your bike!’, p36-37) involve male motorcyclists and female hitchhikers, and that the majority of motorcyclists are men.
Harold himself highlighted that it was only on reading “The Black Rider” years later that his experience even took on a fortean hue. The stated timing of “The Black Rider” event was consistent with Harold’s episode – late 1980s/early 1990s – but I kept asking myself why no one had responded to my appeals for witnesses if so many “young men” had given lifts to the Mersey Square wraith, as suggested in the story. I was left with the suspicion that Mr Mills, also a York ghost tour guide, had picked up on some anecdote or rumour and embellished it for his book by using the standard phantom hitchhiker motif. If so, he won’t have been the first author (or ghost tour guide) to take
Their daughter had died in a motorcycle five years earlier
MOTORCYCLES AND ROAD GHOSTS PETER’S STORY
carriageway, straight and level.
It was around 10pm on a warm, clear summer night, and Peter, who was about 60 years old at the time, was travelling at approximately 70mph (112km/h) on his BMW 1100RT. His headlight gave a clear view along the road, and when he was approximately 200 yards from the junction he saw a man with a bag on his back, standing on the grass of the central reservation. He appeared to be waiting to cross the road on which Peter was travelling, but as he was making no attempt to cross, Peter did not slow down.
There is a point where, if an obstruction occurs in a vehicle’s path, it is not possible to brake and stop before reaching it. Peter says he must have passed this point when the man stepped forward and began walking slowly across the road. Peter sounded his horn and swerved slightly to avoid the man, which is all that can be done at 70mph. By this time, Peter was almost level with the man and passed to the right of him, close enough to have reached out and touched him. But the man did not hurry, or even look towards Peter, who carried on to Lutterworth, thinking it had been a “near miss”, and that both he and the man were very lucky.
The next morning, Peter mentioned the incident to his partner, who informed him he must have seen the High Cross Ghost. She had lived in Lutterworth for a long time, and was aware of other stories of the ghost. Peter says the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Reflecting on the incident, he says the man’s clothing did not show any particular colour, and he seemed to be grey from head to toe. Peter has travelled the same route many times since, and although always keeping an eye out has never seen this person or apparition again.
I sought references to the High Cross Ghost but only found stories of marching Roman soldiers in the broader area, with their knees below the current road level. 7 I also spoke to a local journalist from the Lutterworth Mail, who said the only purported ghost he was aware of was a single Roman soldier that had an urban legend and present it as a genuine local tale. been seen in the general area rather than the specific spot where Peter’s event occurred. There can be little doubt Peter had a genuine experience, which only took on “road ghost” connotations after talking to his partner the next day; it is safe to say that whoever or whatever it was that crossed the A5 in front of Peter that night did not behave in a way that a flesh-and-blood person normally would. Phantom motorcycles are not all that unusual: probably the most famous is that attributed to TE Lawrence, who died following a motorbike accident near his home in Dorset (see
FT328:54-55). The throaty sound of his beloved Brough Superior is sometimes heard at night, with the noise of the engine stopping abruptly, and always at some distance from the listener.
5 However, motorcycles are very much in the minority when it comes to phantom hitchhiker stories; Gillian Bennett found only two motorcycle crashes identified as the cause of death in the 100 random cases that she analysed. 6 In the ‘On your Bike!’ section over the page I have set out summaries of cases that I have found, which illustrate the range and consistency of stories, which often overlap considerably with folklore.
Despite disappointment with my Stockport enquiries I was convinced that first- and second-hand experiences of phantom hitchhikers relevant to motorcycles must exist, but given their comparative infrequency I needed to look at a wider canvas. I approached the publication Motor Cycle News
(MCN) and asked if they would publish a call for testimonies. I received three relevant responses (and another from a medium intimating that such cases involve souls of people who do not realise they are dead and are trapped in a “timeless dreamlike state”).
MICHAEL’S STORY
Michael, of Moreton on the Wirral, told me about an experience he had in 1979. He was uncertain about the month, but did not think it too cold because he wasn’t wearing a coat over his leather jacket. He was giving a friend a lift home to Newton, near West Kirby, on the pillion of his Honda 400/4. They had been to the Gallery nightclub in Birkenhead, which stayed open until 2am. Michael remembered clearly that he had only had one pint on the night in question.
Between 2.30 and 3am they were travelling along the B5139 through the rural hamlet of Frankby. There was sparse street lighting, and none at all between Frankby and Newton. As they rounded a bend, Michael thought he saw a hippy “draped over” a circular road sign in the glare of his headlight. He was facing towards Michael and away from the sign, with his arms crooked behind him as though clinging to it. He appeared to be over 5ft 10in (1.8m) tall, with long hair, a gangly frame, and a long face. The man was wearing a dark cloth jacket or coat and dark trousers. His legs, like his arms, were bent backwards at the knee, and Michael could see that he was wearing heavy boots. He did not appear to be standing on anything and wasn’t moving.
Having passed this “vision”, Michael pulled up abruptly. “Did you see that?” Michael asked; but needless to say, his mate hadn’t. They did a U-turn back to the sign, but there was nothing and nobody there.
They continued to his friend’s home, where Michael dropped him off. Michael suggested the sighting must have been an About 10 years ago, Peter was returning home to Lutterworth from Burton-on-Trent, travelling south on the A5, approaching the junction with the B4455 at High Cross in Leicestershire. Students of Roman Britain will know this is where two major Roman roads meet: Watling Street (A5) and the Fosse Way (B4455. The latter continues north towards Leicester as the B4114. At the High Cross junction, the A5 is a section of dual