I once answered a call for submissions based on ghost stories of my local area. Now, the funny thing with Caithness is: most people seem to believe in - and many people will share stories about how they've witnessed - supernatural happenings around the county. However, there aren't many well-known stories. Of course, there's the standard young-maiden-falling-out-of-castle-window story for at least two of the castles up here, and there's the eerie story of the man whose brother locked him up in Castle Sinclair Girnigoe with no food. Both characters feature in Caithness ghost stories. But it's high time someone actually explored the individual's ghost stories. In fact, that's something I might do, if I ever actually get sufficient time on my hands! Where are the stories which are connected to the "ordinary" buildings? We've been sharing our Stempster Spectres in our monthly newsletters and, believe me, there are plenty of those! A little further...
As a child, there was no book scarier than the Weetabix history book's page about The Black Death. Forget horror or ghosts, plague was really scary! It took me a long time to realise that "plague" did not refer to a single event, too. One of the things which led me to this was trying to make sense of the much-loved book The Children of Green Knowe , in which the ghostly children died in the plague three-hundred years after I knew The Black Death had occurred. I don't know at which point I became fascinated with the history of medicine but, around that time, I stopped being so scared of the plague. When, years later, I began writing Day's Dying Glory , one of the key characters just had to be a doctor. Doctor Fotherby became central to what grew into a family saga. Reluctant to let him go, he had a very long life before I conceded that I just could feasibly have him lasting much longer! But Doctor Fotherby belonged to the 18th/19th Centuries, long after this song ...