Published: Wednesday, 30th April, 2008 16:25
Ghostly goings-on in Greenock
By Eric Baxter
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GHOST OF AN IDEA: Cartomancer John Davidson believes his Spooky Greenock CD could spark a rush of tourists to Inverclyde
Pic by: George Munro
GHOSTS are a money-spinner for Edinburgh and other places in Scotland. Could Inverclyde join the ghostly tourist trail? Greenock cartomancer John Davidson tells Eric Baxter that Inverclyde’s ghostly sites deserve national attention — and he has made a CD of ghost stories to prove it.
CREEPY apparitions in Greenock Town Hall have led to the production of a CD of ghost stories.
And it’s hoped this might encourage the setting up of ghost tours around Inverclyde.
Tele reports a few months ago about the town hall’s other-wordly residents attracted the attention of Greenock ‘cartomancer’ John Davidson, who interviewed local people for his Spooky Greenock CD.
John describes a cartomancer as someone who uses playing, tarot and number cards to make predictions.
Sometimes these also come to him in dreams — and graphic dreams experienced by his wife, Helen, form the background to one of the stories on the CD
Helen was psychic. She predicted the year she would die to within a month and she made a cape for John which, he says, he will wear in his coffin.
Explaining why he made the CD, John said: “I want to use it to help promote Greenock as a place for visitors. Many areas, particularly Edinburgh, use their ghostly locations for visitor tours. I won’t make money from the CD. I’ve been able to produce only 50 of them, so I would appreciate sponsorship to enable me to make more to give away to visitors. I think it could also tie in with Inverclyde’s Myths and Legends Festival.”
John said that, apart from the town hall, Inverclyde has other locations that would lend themselves to tours, including Greenock Cemetery and the Inverkip Street cemetery, which, he said, was visited by the notorious 19th-century grave robbers Burke and Hare.
They plied their grisly trade mostly in Edinburgh, digging up bodies to sell to medical schools, and, said John, tried once to remove a cadaver from the Inverkip Street burial ground but were forced to flee after being disturbed.
Some local stores have also experienced ghostly manifestations, including a shoe shop in the Oak Mall which has had sightings of people walking through walls.
John said: “I hope the CD might be a catalyst towards putting Greenock and Inverclyde on the map for the many people throughout the country who are interested in visiting ghostly sites.”
The CD contains eight experiences related by local people.
One of them is by John about Helen, who died in 1993 at the age of 43 from cancer. For a few months before her death, Helen had recurring dreams of being in the American west, meeting an Indian, speaking to him in a native language, and riding bareback on wild horses.
Bizarrely, this dream was shared by a friend from Paisley they had not seen for years.
Neither Helen nor John had any connections with America, but she asked him to bury her cremated remains on a native American reservation. John flew to America a few months after Helen’s death and, after a couple of weeks on a bus looking for a suitable spot, stopped at a Navajo reservation where he met two Indians.
He asked for their help without telling them about Helen’s dream.
They took him to a spot in the Arizona desert which was exactly as Helen had described.
John said: “It was a very emotional experience. I half-expected to see Helen riding one of the wild horses. I can’t explain this, other than to believe Helen must have lived there in a past life. But I’ve researched her genealogy, and I can’t find any link.”
•The CD is available free of charge at the McLean Museum, Brisbane Street post office, West Station Cafe and Robert Binnie the butcher at the West Station.
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