IT’S Friday the 13th – and could there be a better time to discover a new book about ghosts in our area?
A new memoir, Cavalier George Buck and The Haunted Hamlet of Little Fenton – Ghostly Tales from The Heart of Yorkshire and Beyond, is out now and we caught up with its author to find out more.
This short book is a collection of about 30 true ghost stories emanating from the North Yorkshire hamlet of Little Fenton, situated ten miles south west of York as the crow flies.
The new book is in the style of a memoir and has been written by Ricardo de Fenton, the pen-name of a local 54-year-old gardener who claims he lives in one of the most haunted hamlets in Yorkshire if not the UK.
AI-generated image of one of ghosts described to Ricardo de Fenton for his new book
Ricardo said he at least half the homes in his local area were linked to ghost stories and he wanted to record these tales so they were not forgotten. He reckoned the area must be about the most haunted in York, if not the UK.
Besides stories from the hamlet, he tells of other strange phenomena from the neighbouring villages of Biggin, Church Fenton and elsewhere.
The accounts largely begin in the late1970s and include several bizarre incidents at an old farmhouse. However ghostly goings-on in this area have previously been published in a book dating from the early 1900s, written by Edmund Bogg – a book Ricardo read at school.
Many of the stories in Ricardo’s self-published book are first-hand accounts – told to him by people from all walks of life. He says the sheer volume of spooky tales convinced him of the existence of ghosts and drove him to write the book.
He told The Press: “Yes, I have got to believe in ghosts because of the amount of stories – there are far too many for people to be making them up. And the stories all come from sensible people who have no reason to fabricate them. So yes, I do believe in ghosts 100 per cent!”
Ricardo believes he may have seen a ghost twice in his life. The first time was as a child when he saw the grey and translucent face of a cavalier in a barn window. “We were playing hide and seek when I saw it. I was that scared I started screaming for my friends to come out of hiding, but by then the ghost was gone.”
A second occasion occurred in Micklegate, York, when he was older.
Indeed, besides describing ghost stories from the Little Fenton area in the book he also relates several spectral incidents that occurred in York, including Victorian children in Micklegate and an alleged murder victim in Gillygate.
Another incident in a suburb of the city involved a group of friends that were spooked by the presence of a graveyard cavalier.
Besides these tales, the book contains a word for word account by a staff member of the Castle Museum describing paranormal occurrences on the premises.
While researching the book, Ricardo spoke to his neighbours asking if they had any ghost stories. He was amazed by the number of them that did have accounts of their own – including a couple more ghosts of the English Civil War period.
This was quite a coincidence – considering that he had not told them about his ‘cavalier ghost’ from decades ago.
He did some online research about the Civil War in the region and discovered the area had seen a great deal of conflict during the wars – including battles at Tadcaster, Selby, and even nearer at Sherburn in Elmet.
What was even more intriguing – Little Fenton had its very own resident cavalier who had the name George Buck. Suddenly Ricardo’s cavalier ghost had an identity: could he really have seen the image of a 17th century soldier?
Ricardo has used AI imaging to add a visual interest to the book – creating ghostly scenes to match his stories. However he does describe them as being mostly ‘tongue in cheek’ representations.
He hopes that in writing the memoir, the stories will live on.
He said: “The more I asked people in the area about ghosts, the more stories I got. I can’t believe how many people told me stories from Little Fenton and Church Fenton.
“I just thought: ‘I have to write these stories down so they don’t get forgotten about’.”
The book, Cavalier George Buck and The Haunted Hamlet of Little Fenton – Ghostly Tales from The Heart of Yorkshire and Beyond, by Ricardo de Fenton, is self-published and available on Amazon UK for £2 as an ebook or £7.95 paperback.
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