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Posted: 24-10-2009 14:09 Post subject: Eerie East London

Hi

I've recently moved to Hackney, in East London. Following a mention of the Bear of Hackney Marshes on another thread, I've been intrigued to find out a bit more about any Fortean/gruesome local history of this and surrounding areas. Murder certainly seems popular; the first railway murder was commited in Hackney Wick, and its victim lived over the road from me.

I guess I'm interested in hearing a bit of 'psychogeography', so anything is interesting.

Iain Sinclair has a new book out about just that, though it's got some heavily negative reviews on Amazon.

Anyway, has anyone got any clues to why this area is so odd? Is it just because it's suffering from a plague of hipsters?

Posted: 24-10-2009 14:38 Post subject: Re: Eerie East London

Posted: 24-10-2009 15:21 Post subject:

I'm on a bike (public transport - pah!) and last night managed to make it over to Camden at one in the morning, as I was so bored... Met a lot of drunk people Rolling Eyes

. Anyway, cycling is a bit of an eye-opener, you see so much more.

My Grandmother (90 odd) is originally from the area, and she had a few memories, though mainly of the lido in Victoria Park (not there any more, of course).

Anyway, thanks for the recommendations. I've been plotting a walk into the city for a little while, I may have a go tomorrow.

Posted: 24-10-2009 15:43 Post subject:

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Posted: 24-10-2009 15:53 Post subject:

Thanks again.

Does anyone have any more info on the Hackney Bear?

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Posted: 24-10-2009 18:05 Post subject:

I only ever saw Sussex Stationers in and around Sussex, strangely enough... A bit like Harvey's beer, which really needs to be in the wider world.

Posted: 24-10-2009 18:11 Post subject:

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Posted: 27-10-2009 18:57 Post subject:

The sort of thing that seems a bit fortean but probably isn't happened to me yesterday/today.
A friend and I went to Abney Park cemetary in Stoke Newington, and the astonishing chapel (which I wasn't expecting) really loomed out at us. It's an extraordinary building, but half in ruins, with no doors and all plants growing inside. We started drawing it, and a tramp came over to offer us a bit of art criticism. He turned out to be very knowledgeable, and knew a fair bit about the history of the building, cemetary etc.

Anyway, today I was watching a music video (Amy Winehouse, for my sins), and the very same church featured pretty prominently in it. I thought that was odd because I'd never seen the chapel or the video before.

The cemetary is well worth visiting for any fans of overgrown victorian gothic.

Posted: 27-10-2009 20:31 Post subject:

I know I was going to relate the following some time back, but I don't think I ever did, possibly because, for a ghost story, it seems a totally mundane and utterly undramatic (in a way, I suppose that's partly why it's stayed with me). Anyway, as it has a certain relevance to this thread, here it is.

I was working in a friend's workshop on an industrial estate in Stratford, very close to the Pudding Mill Lane DLR station. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and we were the only unit occupied. There were three of us: me, the guy I was working with and Andy, the owner, sitting in his little office about five metres from us. Me and the other guy are working on different ends of the same piece, maybe three metres apart and we're doing so directly in front of the open security shutters from where we can see the entire yard entrance including the security guard - who constitutes the only other living being in the entire complex on that particular afternoon - sitting in his little office on the other side.

Anyway, both me and the guy I'm working with hear a shuffling sound and then a voice coming from the area of the unshuttered entrance say, very clearly, 'Ullo', in what is almost a parody of a cockney accent a la Arthur Mullard (for those who remember him). In less than a second we've looked at each other, looked out of the shutters and I'm up and out the door and checking out the yard. Just as I get back and am asking my oppo if he really heard what I heard Andy pops his head out the office door and asks who it was just said hello.

There's really a kind of prologue to the event. Anyone who has worked in a workshop or large industrial building knows that they can at times be quite unnerving - chains clank, stuff falls off benches, shutters creak in the wind etc. Also they will be familiar with the tendency for stuff to go missing - which common-sense tells us is the result of having used dozens of tools while working in the clutter of a busy workshop, but which is often blamed on a 'shop 'ghost' (normally so you can deny the otherwise ready suspicion that you are an untidy sod, or you're going mad).

Anyway, we christened our scape-ghost 'George' in memory of the cheery cockney geezer who had run a courier company we used at the time and who had been shot dead one morning by persons unknown when opening up his yard. (I'm not making this up - rumour has it something to do with someone tidying loose ends long after most of us have forgotten about the Brinks Mat robbery way back in the 80's). Needless to say, the voice that said 'Ullo' was a ringer for the real George.

Sorry, I know that's a long post for a one word haunting. I've had more unnerving experiences but I'm a borderline sceptic (although I'd say I was open to suggestions rather than hardline) and as such I am not so convinced of the infallibility of my own senses as to believe that those experiences might not be explicable in perfectly logical ways. But, undramatic as it is, this is the only time I simply cannot explain away what happened.