Lance Corporal Andrew “Scary Eddy” Edwards, MPGS, is “the Army’s spookiest soldier” according to the August edition of Soldier magazine. A journalist from Soldier had joined L/Cpl Edwards with a group, ‘Mostghosts’, which is described as a company of clairvoyants, for a ghost hunt at the Royal Standard Pub at Gwinear, Cornwall. The pub is reputedly haunted by a spirit called Clare, as well as by footsteps and other noises. A former sailor who joined the Army three years ago, L/Cpl Edwards got involved with the spiritual circle. Psychic gifts have apparently been with him since he was two years old and he claims the protection of a “Red Indian” spirit guide with the somewhat unusual Native American name “Toni”.

Despite their spiritual leanings, the group sports what are becoming the routine equipment of an infrared camcorder, an electromagnetic field detector, motion detectors and laser thermometer. “In the Forces we are professionals and do a hard job. But we are also human beings with varied interests,” says L/Cpl Edwards. “I was asked if I would get my gun out if I heard voices while on gate duty – I replied that I’d sooner get my camera out”. Mostghost have an interesting website which can be viewed at www.mostghosts.com.

The military interest in ghosts is well established. It was the subject of a feature as long ago as December 1960 in Soldier magazine, followed by a flood of stories from servicemen reporting ghostly experiences, some of which have entered into folklore (e.g. the tale of Lt Col O’Doneven, a soldier who claimed to have played billiards with a ghost at a house in the Midlands (Soldier, Mar 1961; ‘Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain’, Reader’s Digest, 1973, pp107–108.). Many senior military men have been active in psychical research over the past century: Lord Dowding, Battle of Britain Air Chief; Polaris submariner Cmdr Bill Bellars OBE, general secretary of the Ghost Club, who also searched for the Loch Ness Monster; Brigadier Spedding of the Society for Psychical Research. And then there was Brigadier R Firebrace, active in the Ghost Club and spiritualist circles for many years and whose name was definitely not the product of Monty Python-style humour.