Things that go bump in the night

GROWING up in Pretoria, the bastion of Afrikanerdom, our world revolved around the Blue Bulls, rugby at Loftus, braai, Leon Schuster movies, the Boswell Wilkie Circus and CJ Langenhoven, who went on holiday with an elephant called Herrie.

I was bitterly disillusioned when I discovered Herrie was fictitious, but forgave Langenhoven when my grandad said one should never spoil a good story with facts.

Now Langenhoven was famous for his ghost stories and sneaking a peek at the cover of ‘Spookstories’ in the Pretoria Public Library sent shivers down my spine.

One day I plucked up all my courage, pulled out the book and heard my mom’s voice ringing in my ear: ‘If you read that book, make sure you don’t come and tell me you’re scared.’

I was mesmerised. And scared.

I had the nagging feeling that someone or something was watching my every move.

I somehow felt as if I would be taking home more than just the book.

Well, it turns out ghosts don’t need books to get to you.

From that day onward, I was petrified of the dark, evil-looking clowns, porcelain dolls, the space under the bed, cemeteries, long halls, creaky floors and old houses – to name but only a few skin crawlers.

My parents had no time for nonsense and my sister made it her hobby to trick me into following her somewhere, so she could run away and revel in my screams.

I was slow, which is why I do not believe in adrenaline.

Where other people can lift cars and scale walls out of sheer terror, I become glued to the floor, hollering out everything from swear words to breakfast.

Local haunts

When we moved to Zululand, I believed we left all the ghosts behind in our old home, only to discover Zululand had its own supernatural population.

I was disturbed to hear that in Empangeni the only horse in the one horse town had no head.

Our nanny slept with her bed on bricks so the tokoloshe could not crawl up. And here I thought he resided in Pretoria.

And it was said the traffic officers, usually all cool with their darkies and little books, were petrified of working after 4pm (Ha! Good one guys!) because according to folklore, a young woman hung herself at the Meerensee municipal offices and officers working late reported inexplicable chills and drafts, followed by a whiff of ghostly perfume.

Of all the excuses clock watchers usually conjure up, this one took the cherry and was continuously resurrected by corroborating witnesses who only had in common the desire not to work late.

Then I heard, the John Ross Parkway sports its own ‘Uniondale spook’.

According to eyewitness accounts, a lady with a baby in her arms hitches rides before disappearing into thin air at the new cemetery site.

These close encounters of the spooky kind, off course, have nothing to do with the fact that only taverns are open in the dead of the night or that most have a potent/toxic home brew on the wine list.

Finally, the old Town Board Council Chambers had a presiding officer who was regularly spotted in the mayor’s seat.

Judging by the speedy departures from his presence, he did not waste time to settle disputes and there were no appeals against his decrees. He is since believed to be on pension.

Hopeless and helpless

In an attempt to understand what one was to do in case of a ghostly encounter, I tried to figure out what they were, how they communicated and what level of intelligence could be expected.

Most people say they are the souls of the dearly departed who do not realise they are, well…departed.

They are to be helped to find their way to their final destination.

Excuse me, but it seems grossly unfair to expect a person to find his way off the planet, when some can’t even find their way on the planet.

Another thing about ghosts – they can allegedly give you a very hard ‘klap’, leaving a burning imprint.

I’m not so sure. If they are not of solid matter, how can they possibly slap you silly?

Why would they want to? I mean, seeing that a ‘boo!’ will probably be a sufficient deterrent.

Be it as it may, since arriving in Zululand, the ghost population has morphed out of proportion, and they seems to have a preference for government departments where they even get pay cheques month after month.