Twilight. The earth is not completely light. A time when crepuscular animals are at play. A time I hope to see a spirit of another sort in this hour of sweet light.
“Ghost hunting is a dicey thing,” Makana Tourism’s Brian Jackson says. “Because a ghost can manifest itself at anytime – day or night.
Twilight. The earth is not completely light. A time when crepuscular animals are at play. A time I hope to see a spirit of another sort in this hour of sweet light.
“Ghost hunting is a dicey thing,” Makana Tourism’s Brian Jackson says. “Because a ghost can manifest itself at anytime – day or night.
You’ll probably be bored out of your skull.” Well, I am putting his pessimism to the test. According to Pat Hopkins in his book, Ghosts of South Africa, and confirmed by Jackson, the last man that was executed in Grahamstown, Henry Nicholls, still moves between the Old Gaol and Drostdy Arch.
I reach the Old Gaol on Somerset Street at exactly 6pm one particular Tuesday. I spend time in this area searching for the ghost. 6.01pm Every noise, movement and smell attracts my attention and irritates me when it’s not a ghost. 6.04pm A builder walks past quickly on his way home.
His boots squeak. 6.05pm A moth flies around me. 6.06pm A school bus drives past, excreting its black, distastefully smelling fumes. 6.07pm I look at my black pumps, grey jeans, white tshirt and Guess handbag slung heavily across my shoulder. Ghost hunting clothing?
The only ghost stories I have read are the Goosebumps series, but I only half-read them because my fingers were clenched over my eyes.
Perhaps I’ll appear friendly to the ghost, perhaps I’ll seem practical, perhaps he’ll decide it’s not worth appearing in front of me. 6.09pm The music from a Citi Golf blares past with its rumbling diesel engine. Its brakes screech and come to a last minute halt at the stop street.
A pedestrian glares at the driver. 6.11pm A couple emerge from the dusty doorway of the Old Gaol with their baby.
They load the pram into the car and try to seat the squirming baby but she cries. Her tears subside with the help of a rattle toy.
They follow the stream of traffic on Somerset Street. So these are the occurrences a ghost has to contend with. 6.14pm A student walks past, humming the tune his iPod is playing into his ears.
His black shoe crunches a lettuce leaf. 6.15pm I start walking towards the Drostdy Arch. A cold chill hits my face.
I freeze. My upper eyelashes glue themselves to my eyebrows. But it’s nothing. It’s just nature. 6.17pm I can’t shake my nerves now.
Every time the wind blows, the chill sticks to me like a shower curtain sticks to a wet body. 6.18pm As I cross Somerset Street, I consider Nicholls.
How did the condemned man feel taking his last steps where I now walk? What did he do? Why did he return to take that ominous walk time and time again?
“Many ghosts come from public beatings and hangings, Jackson says, “and Henry Nicholls still does the dead man’s walk between the Old Gaol and the place where the gallows once stood at Drostdy Arch.”
Nicholls pleaded guilty to a charge of rape and spent four months hoping to escape execution (rape was not a capital punishment in English law).
However, Jackson says, “He was a military man and fell under military law in which rape came under capital punishment.”
Hopkins explains that Nicholls’ hopes were in vain when, on 19 February 1862, the largest crowd to watch a public execution gathered around the gallows for the last execution in the Eastern Cape.
People had ridden for as long as seven hours to watch. 6.40pm I get knocked back into reality as a Campus Protection Unit guard’s arm flings into my back.
His blue shirt flashes past with his mumbled apology. 6.43pm A couple walk handin- hand through the archway. A student stumbles with heavy grocery packets.
People line up for a taxi. The ghostly history of the Arch is unrecognised in everyday activities. 6.48pm I walk through the archway, looking up to the left, and to the right.
I breathe in deeply to smell something suspicious. My eyes are peeled to see something different. My ears are alert to hear something out of the ordinary. But I don’t. 6.55pm Still nervous, I start to feel that I’m being a little insensitive too.
Why should I expect him to appear in front of me while everyday countless people walk around his domain? If I was a ghost, I too would hide from a reporter hungry for a story to astound Grahamstown.
I too would stay disguised so that people are left to imagine, for what is a person without an imagination? 6.58pm So as I take one last look down Somerset Street.
The wind blows on my back again not Nicholl’s ghost just the wind. I look at the wooden door of the Old Gaol.
A person yes, a person looms at the doorway. 6.59pm I look at the Arch again and the beauty of the clock tower against the dark background of approaching dusk.
The sight allows me to step out of myself, the perfectionist who would bleed a story dry before giving up on it and I realise that some stories need to be left to one’s imagination.
