February 12, 2008

A Haunting in The Booter

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] Rosy, St. Andrews, Scotland, September 1994

This occurrence happened in September of 1994 when I was at senior Boarding School in Scotland. Having spent four years at the junior school, it was time for me to move up into the senior part of the school. While my parents and I were traveling to the start of the new school term (we lived in Africa), we were all talking about the numerous ghosts that were said to haunt the school houses and surrounding area. As many of you will know, St. Andrews has more than just golf!

I told my Dad that about 250 years ago our Boarding houses used to be the homes of very wealthy people and they had slaves who lived on the bottom floor. This was in fact true as history dictates. Once we had arrived and were greeted by my new House Mistress, we began the long task of unpacking, which took time! Half way through the process, one of the senior girls in my house said that she would take me down to the "booter" which was an area where all our sports equipment was kept in lockers. Down we went and once we got there I was shown my locker and started to put my equipment inside. Throughout this task I was aware of a strange smell but put it down to the fact that it was perhaps someone's dirty socks or old hockey sticks! From time to time I kept glancing up at the senior girl and sniffing as if to imply to the scent but she was unaware of the smell and perhaps thought I was odd. After about 10 minutes the girl left the booter and went next door which was the laundry room. I then heard this strange scrapping noise, which sounded like metal grinding on metal, but it was quite faint. The smell became really strong and I then placed it to a Scottish soup called Cullen Skink, which is like a fish chowder soup. Once the girl returned, I told her about the smell and noise and she said, "The less said about this, the better."

Several weeks later I found out about a story which I don't know if genuine or not regarding a little slave boy who was chained to the kitchen until he could make proper soup instead of boiled fish. Over the next years I spent at school my friends and I never went down to the booter alone and also did our laundry in pairs! There are many more stories about my time at school.