I post this here, not because I’m in any way convinced that ghosts exist, but because despite this being a cheesy Daily Star article, this is something I’ve noticed as I’ve got older.
When I was younger, even in the late 2000s, you’d hear old boys talking about ghost stories over a pint of ale and the odd story brought up by other young people about stuff they’ve seen from the car going through certain areas – but I’ve not heard a single person come up with any of these sorts of stories for at least a decade.
I don’t think ghosts are being sucked out of existence, but I do think it hints at a general cultural decline. People aren’t socialising, certainly not across different age brackets and old traditional stories that are hundreds of years old in some cases aren’t being passed on anymore. It also doesn’t help that most people move away from the place they grew up in and immigration also brings in millions of people who obviously won’t know anything about local traditions, myths and legends.
On top of that we’re building all across the countryside, severing our connection with the land and with history. I know this is a small issue, only being ghost stories and all, but I think this does genuinely hint at a wider decline in British/English culture, particularly local traditions and cultures which are dying off so quickly.
I mean look at local accents, most of the population do now speak a kind of standardised “Relaxed RP” regardless of where they’re from. Or in any case, the local accents are nowhere near as pronounced as they once were. I just find it sad personally.
There’s some interesting work on ghost stories and Englishness. Ghost stories seem to be a distinctly (although not uniquely) English art-form. The classic English ghost story, roughly spanning the era from 1850 to 1950, coincides with the ideal of the ‘English gentleman’ and with British world power. They were mostly written by clergymen, or the sons and brothers of clergymen, or academics at leading institutions.
As Britain (the official state identity, of coins and passports) looked out on the world, Englishness (the unofficial national identity of land and people) looked inwards, towards its own past. The English ruling class, at the height of the British Empire, were convinced of the deep hauntedness of their homeland. They knew that they were in some ways at the mercy of dark and peculiar forces, historical traumas, strange moor-beasts and unsettled spirits, that they could not fully understand. They had so much power and technology – steam ships, electric telegraphs, slide rules and blast furnaces – with which to rule the world, but they were frightened to go down English lanes beside the churchyard after dusk.
There’s a whole swathe of ghost story writers who, implicitly or explicitly, explore these questions of past and place, identity and belonging, the rational and the spiritual, in short story format. M R James is the most famous and master of the genre – start with his ‘An Episode of Cathedral History’ or ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’. But there are many others – H R Wakefield, A N L Munby, R H Malden, L T C Rolt, Andrew Caldecott, Arthur Gray, E G Swain, the Benson brothers, Eleanor Scott, and more. There are modern writers too, who continue this tradition: H E Bulstrode, Nicholas Orme.
It’s a really fascinating glimpse into a side of English folk-culture.
Before writing this, id like to clarify i do not believe in ghosts.
However with the modern age i think people dont tend to believe in anything unless they see it, because with camera phones it means most crazy things are recorded.
So anyway, i bought a old house (100+ years) its only had 2 owners (as far as i know) last couple were here 60 years~.
Me and my partner were sitting on the sofa, and just as our film ended the dogs tennis ball flew across the room. But like a soft under arm throw. The dog at the time was snoring, she jumped out of her skin. Me and the missus were just both like, did that happen.
The dog just stared for a minute and then kinda shrugged and lay back down. Both of us freaked out just kinda went well fuck this and went to bed. My 3 year old (who was in bed asleep) the next day just randomly told my missus we have a ghost in the house. Shit was incredibly weird and uncomfortable.
We tell people, but everyone just laughs and either says thats weird or just says were lying.
We know what we saw, but we have no proof and nothing substantial has ever happened again. I honestly have no real answer for why or how the ball moved, like there must be something, but even today it seems literally impossible for it to do what it did. So, we just dont care and get on with life.
We need to preserve our national ghosts. Nowadays I walk down the street and only see Djinns, Yureis, Poltergeists, Dybbuks, Baba Yagas and the occasional Banshee. This is UNACCEPTABLE. They are displacing our national ghosts. Where is Anne Boleyn running around headless? Where is Bloody Mary? Today, fellow Britons, I ask you to preserve our ghosts. #ghexit
I think it’s more that people are less naive. Nothing more.
It likely correlates strongly with the decline in religion. Young people today are less religious.
There is also a social stigma that youth today carry towards religious folk, and ghost believers; that they’re lacking in the ability to critically think, and aren’t particularly intelligent. A viewpoint I would not argue with.
There’s a theory that our fears come from what’s in the media. Think back to the 80s and 90s quick sand and UFOs dominated children’s fears, because they were easy to fake on film for cinema.
As special effects got better, they featured less and less and pretty much vanished from our lives.
I suspect it’s the same as ghosts, there aren’t any good horror films and the sheer amount of video evidence of ghosts not existing means we just think less about them.
Instead we’ve grown to fear the real monster, the tax man.
I have never experienced it personally but I’ve heard some stories from a few people about weird experiences that could be interpreted as paranormal. I’d like to experience it myself as they wouldn’t lie just had something unexplainable happen to them.
7 comments
I post this here, not because I’m in any way convinced that ghosts exist, but because despite this being a cheesy Daily Star article, this is something I’ve noticed as I’ve got older.
When I was younger, even in the late 2000s, you’d hear old boys talking about ghost stories over a pint of ale and the odd story brought up by other young people about stuff they’ve seen from the car going through certain areas – but I’ve not heard a single person come up with any of these sorts of stories for at least a decade.
I don’t think ghosts are being sucked out of existence, but I do think it hints at a general cultural decline. People aren’t socialising, certainly not across different age brackets and old traditional stories that are hundreds of years old in some cases aren’t being passed on anymore. It also doesn’t help that most people move away from the place they grew up in and immigration also brings in millions of people who obviously won’t know anything about local traditions, myths and legends.
On top of that we’re building all across the countryside, severing our connection with the land and with history. I know this is a small issue, only being ghost stories and all, but I think this does genuinely hint at a wider decline in British/English culture, particularly local traditions and cultures which are dying off so quickly.
I mean look at local accents, most of the population do now speak a kind of standardised “Relaxed RP” regardless of where they’re from. Or in any case, the local accents are nowhere near as pronounced as they once were. I just find it sad personally.
There’s some interesting work on ghost stories and Englishness. Ghost stories seem to be a distinctly (although not uniquely) English art-form. The classic English ghost story, roughly spanning the era from 1850 to 1950, coincides with the ideal of the ‘English gentleman’ and with British world power. They were mostly written by clergymen, or the sons and brothers of clergymen, or academics at leading institutions.
As Britain (the official state identity, of coins and passports) looked out on the world, Englishness (the unofficial national identity of land and people) looked inwards, towards its own past. The English ruling class, at the height of the British Empire, were convinced of the deep hauntedness of their homeland. They knew that they were in some ways at the mercy of dark and peculiar forces, historical traumas, strange moor-beasts and unsettled spirits, that they could not fully understand. They had so much power and technology – steam ships, electric telegraphs, slide rules and blast furnaces – with which to rule the world, but they were frightened to go down English lanes beside the churchyard after dusk.
There’s a whole swathe of ghost story writers who, implicitly or explicitly, explore these questions of past and place, identity and belonging, the rational and the spiritual, in short story format. M R James is the most famous and master of the genre – start with his ‘An Episode of Cathedral History’ or ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’. But there are many others – H R Wakefield, A N L Munby, R H Malden, L T C Rolt, Andrew Caldecott, Arthur Gray, E G Swain, the Benson brothers, Eleanor Scott, and more. There are modern writers too, who continue this tradition: H E Bulstrode, Nicholas Orme.
It’s a really fascinating glimpse into a side of English folk-culture.
Before writing this, id like to clarify i do not believe in ghosts.
However with the modern age i think people dont tend to believe in anything unless they see it, because with camera phones it means most crazy things are recorded.
So anyway, i bought a old house (100+ years) its only had 2 owners (as far as i know) last couple were here 60 years~.
Me and my partner were sitting on the sofa, and just as our film ended the dogs tennis ball flew across the room. But like a soft under arm throw. The dog at the time was snoring, she jumped out of her skin. Me and the missus were just both like, did that happen.
The dog just stared for a minute and then kinda shrugged and lay back down. Both of us freaked out just kinda went well fuck this and went to bed. My 3 year old (who was in bed asleep) the next day just randomly told my missus we have a ghost in the house. Shit was incredibly weird and uncomfortable.
We tell people, but everyone just laughs and either says thats weird or just says were lying.
We know what we saw, but we have no proof and nothing substantial has ever happened again. I honestly have no real answer for why or how the ball moved, like there must be something, but even today it seems literally impossible for it to do what it did. So, we just dont care and get on with life.
We need to preserve our national ghosts. Nowadays I walk down the street and only see Djinns, Yureis, Poltergeists, Dybbuks, Baba Yagas and the occasional Banshee. This is UNACCEPTABLE. They are displacing our national ghosts. Where is Anne Boleyn running around headless? Where is Bloody Mary? Today, fellow Britons, I ask you to preserve our ghosts. #ghexit
I think it’s more that people are less naive. Nothing more.
It likely correlates strongly with the decline in religion. Young people today are less religious.
There is also a social stigma that youth today carry towards religious folk, and ghost believers; that they’re lacking in the ability to critically think, and aren’t particularly intelligent. A viewpoint I would not argue with.
There’s a theory that our fears come from what’s in the media. Think back to the 80s and 90s quick sand and UFOs dominated children’s fears, because they were easy to fake on film for cinema.
As special effects got better, they featured less and less and pretty much vanished from our lives.
I suspect it’s the same as ghosts, there aren’t any good horror films and the sheer amount of video evidence of ghosts not existing means we just think less about them.
Instead we’ve grown to fear the real monster, the tax man.
I have never experienced it personally but I’ve heard some stories from a few people about weird experiences that could be interpreted as paranormal. I’d like to experience it myself as they wouldn’t lie just had something unexplainable happen to them.