Odd this day
It’s the 28th anniversary of the Wem Ghost, which manifested itself when long-dead 14-year-old Jane Churm, who had apparently started the Great Fire of Wem in 1677, appeared in a photo of Wem Town Hall taken on this day in 1995 when it was in the process of burning down.
Of the 17th century incident, one local website says Jane was looking by candlelight for fuel for the family fire when the candle in question set fire to the roof of their thatched cottage and burned down over 500 of the Shropshire town’s buildings.
There was another huge fire at Wem Town Hall in 1995 — making for some dramatic pictures in the Shropshire Star:
Also on the scene and armed with a camera, though, was “farm worker and budding snapper Tony O’Rahilly”, who — after he developed his shots — spotted a ghostly apparition inside the burning building, looking out.
According to the BBC, O’Rahilly said there were
no special effects on this picture. It was taken with a 200mm lens from across the road.
Also,
He immediately sent it to the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena
They, in turn, sent the photo and the negative to Dr. Vernon Harrison, former president of the Royal Photographic Society … [who] analysed both the photo and negative and reported that he was satisfied that the picture had not been doctored.
In the words of the local paper:
The picture featured on the front page of the Shropshire Star under the headline Ghost Town and was quickly picked up by news organisations around the world.
This was excellent news for local tourism. As the Bradt Guides website says, the ghost “attracted hundreds of extra visitors to the town”. The town’s bakery started “selling ghost-shaped cakes and the Wem road sign carrying the addendum ‘Ghost Town’”.
Sadly, if not surprisingly, 15 years later, it all turned out to be complete balls. Brian Lear, a retired engineer from Shrewsbury, was flicking through the Shropshire Star’s Pictures From The Past slot one day when he saw a 1922 postcard reproduced in its pages.
When the paper wrote it up, they hedged their bets slightly, framing it as a Question To Which The Answer Is Yes:
…perhaps because “local councillor Peggy Carson” told the Daily Mail that she believed “the stress caused by interest in his picture contributed to” O’Rahilly’s death in 2005. A local historian added: “He always maintained that the picture was genuine and I believe him”.
However, Greg Hobson, then curator of photographs at the National Media Museum in Bradford, calls the postcard “pretty conclusive proof that this is a hoax” (and even that’s putting it diplomatically). He says the technique used was similar to that employed by Edwardian era mediums to provide clients of photos of them ‘with’ their dead relatives.
Obviously, though, the most important aspect of this story is that there was once a “sludge/doom/blackmetal band from Freiburg and Karlsruhe in Germany” called Ghost of Wem.
There, that’s a thing you know now. You really are most welcome.
