It Happened to Me...

Copyright puzzle

A couple of years ago I wrote a biography (still unpublished) of author William ‘Billy’ Holt (1897-1977; pictured at right), who was born in fortean hotspot Todmorden. I found some letters written to Holt by local novelist Phyllis Bentley, and a few pages about Holt in a book called Millstone Grit by local author Glyn Hughes. I wanted to use direct quotations from both, so I needed to get permission from the copyright owners of these two deceased authors.

In hindsight, I should have just contacted the publishers of their books for permission, but as I happened to be in the reference/archives section of Calderdale Central Library in Halifax, where I do much of my research, I asked the Head Librarian if there was some way of tracing copyright owners. I was pleased and surprised when she told me of a website of a university (somewhere in middle England, I seem to remember, Hertfordshire or Herefordshire, perhaps) where you could do a copyright research.

So I visited the website, did two searches, and discovered that the copyrights of Bentley’s writings were handled by solicitors in London, and that Hughes’s copyright was handled by his widow Mrs Elizabeth Hughes, who lived not far from me. The names, addresses and email addresses were given of both.

I can’t remember if I contacted the solicitors, but I definitely contacted Mrs Hughes as I recall emailing her for permission at around 3am (I sit up late sometimes, doing my writing) and was surprised to receive a reply and permission from her about 20 minutes later!

Sometime later, I came across an untitled poem by poet laureate Ted Hughes, which he dedicated to “The Spirit of Billy Holt”, and I knew I would have to find the copyright owners of his work to seek their permission to reproduce the poem in the book.

I had forgotten the university website address, so I visited the library again and asked the Head Librarian to remind me of the university website I had previously used for copyright searches – but she gave me a blank look. There was no university website for copyright searches, she told me. I insisted she had told me about it and she looked puzzled. Just in case it had slipped her mind, she asked two other librarians who were present at the time, and they also offered me blank looks.

Eventually, she suggested I contact Ted Hughes’s publishers to find the name and address of the copyright owners of the poem, (which is what I should have done in the first place), but none of them knew of any university website that offered these searches.

I have a vivid memory being told the website address, scribbling it down, visiting the site, and discovering the names and contact details of Mrs Hughes and the London solicitors.

But if the website doesn’t exist, then where did I get the names and contact details from? Either, the website does

exist, (bearing in mind that three highly qualified and experienced librarians don’t know about it or else have collectively forgotten about it), or else it was a false memory, or even (dare I say it?) an alternate reality. I remain bamboozled by the whole thing.

Andy Owens

Halifax, West Yorkshire

“But if the website doesn’t exist, then where did I get the names?”

Gold returned

Two weeks ago [8 Jan 2022] I started reading Just One of Those Things (JOTT) by Mary Rose Barrington, which deals with objects that disappear from places just seen or seemingly relocate, to the bafflement of their owners, despite numerous searches of the high and low variety. I had mislaid some small gold bars after a house move 18 months ago and had searched everywhere for them to no avail. After starting Barrington’s book, however, I felt inspired to try the old trick of ‘asking’ for my lost gold back. I made a little request out loud, saying how grateful I would be to find it again and clasped my hands together, prayer style, in thanks.

The next morning I was upstairs when, deciding to move a small table next to my reading chair, I spotted a bag underneath I had not seen for ages. It contained a folder with all my original documents, degree and marriage certificates etc. Immediately I knew what was happening and, lo and behold, beneath the folder lay my missing gold. I sat there for a moment in sheer disbelief yet with a wonderful feeling that somehow magic had just happened.

While not a classic case where I had looked in the same spot time and again before the object reappeared there, as dealt with in Barrington’s book, it was still remarkable that I had made my request to the trickster just the previous day. Even better, instead of the two bars I had expected, there were three. So maybe I received a little gift on top for my troubles!

Duncan Kaiser

Pfeffingen, Switzerland

Phantom boiling

My partner has worked for London Underground for many years. Many readers may recollect the tragic train crash in Moorgate station in 1975 where 43 people died. The following

bizarre event occurred there in the late 1980s.

Several tube lines intersect at Moorgate and this happened in the staff mess room of the Metropolitan line. The Tube used to have ‘in house’ firemen, and this room used to be used by them. By the 1980s firemen were long gone and this was a general staff mess room consisting of two rooms. One was a larger room with a sofa, some easy chairs and a coffee table; attached to this was a small kitchen. There was only one door into the mess room and to access the kitchen you had to walk through the mess room first (as the kitchen had no separate entrance).

On one particular night shift there were only two staff on duty, so they had separate break times: one stayed in the control room while the other took a break. The chap having the break decided to try and take a nap, so turned the mess room lights off and lay down on the sofa. Just as he was dozing he heard the mess room door open and footsteps walk past him in the dark into the kitchen beyond. He heard the kettle switch on and start to heat up. He shouted out into the kitchen (to his colleague, he presumed) that he was awake and that he could turn the lights on if he needed to. There was no reply and no lights came on, so he got up and turned the mess room light on, and then walked into the dark kitchen expecting to see his colleague – but the room was empty.

No one had been heard coming back out of the kitchen, plus anyone coming out would have had to have passed the chap having his break, as there was only one door in and out. The chap having the break might have thought he’d dreamed the footsteps and door opening, except for the fact that the kettle was boiling. The kitchen was dark, but when the light was turned on, the room was full of steam. The poor guy was terrified and ran back to the control room where his bemused colleague said he’d not left his post nor come anywhere near the mess room and kitchen; however, he did recall an old story about the station being haunted by a dead fireman.

These rooms no longer exist in this form, as alterations have been made since then. I wonder what the poor ghost does now if he wants a cuppa…

Cathy Peake

London

Trousers of death

Two years ago, I was Depot Manager of a Transport Company based in Hawkhurst in Kent. One December evening at 6pm I was alone on site. All the trucks were parked up in the yard, and drivers and office staff had all gone home. I was just about to lock up, but there had been an accident outside the depot on the main road. Traffic was backed up, but I hadn’t seen the accident itself. I had just finished a phone call and saw someone walk past

“When the light was turned on, the kitchen was full of steam”

my window, which faced across the yard. As it was dark I only saw his trousers, which had two fluorescent white stripes round the bottoms of each leg. I wondered what he was doing walking into the yard and thought perhaps he was from one of the stationary cars stuck outside. I picked up a torch to go and find him so I could move him out, lock up, and go home. As I stepped out the office, I was lit up by the security lights coming on as they picked up my movement. It then occurred to me that they hadn’t come on when the person walked across the yard. Anyway, I searched the yard and couldn’t find anyone, which was strange as there was only the one entrance, and a high security fence bordering the yard. As I locked up and drove off, I passed a poor man on a stretcher in the road. He had the same fluorescent trousers on, with the white stripes, as the person who had walked into the yard without setting the lights off. I found out the next day the casualty was a motorcyclist who had died immediately. Graham (surname on file)

Worthing, Sussex

In Issue 418:67, our IHTM section suffered a design error that resulted in part of one letter becoming hard to read. We reprint it here.

Nocturnal guides

I only recalled the following incident after 28 years as a result of a dream and a chance conversation with my mother. In July 1992, when I was 15, my mother, elder brother and I went on a family holiday in Cyprus. Our flight had been delayed and we arrived at night. My uncle had posted us directions from the airport to his villa in a fairly remote village in southern Cyprus. As I sat in the back looking up out the rear window of our hire car admiring the starry sky, my mother and brother realised they had taken a wrong turning somewhere in the dark and were now lost. We had been driving about 45 minutes and it was now about 2am.

I began to pray, something which I usually only did in church. Presently I saw headlights approaching, the first vehicle we had seen since leaving the airport. I demanded we stop, jumped out the car and, standing in the middle of the dirt track, flagged the car down. I approached and saw what I thought was an interior light and spoke to the two front seat occupants. I merely said “Maroni”, the village we could not locate. I can’t recall a voice answering but I felt that they understood and that we were to follow them. After about 20 minutes my mother said she started to remember the village we had entered from the time we had visited eight years earlier. The car we were following stopped ahead. My mother flashed her lights and the other car drove away without asking us if we had found where we were going. What absolutely amazed us was that the car had stopped right outside my uncle’s villa, which was not well signposted or lit. Much to our relief, the local mayor who was a neighbour was still awake, had come down to see what was happening, and showed us where to park. I can’t recall ever seeing faces in the mystery vehicle, just a feeling of absolute calm and trust.

Andy (surname on file) Stourbridge, West Midlands