KenNetti - Borley, the Tiny Tribute

INTRODUCTION

Not so long ago there was a young man who wanted to experience the evening atmosphere of one of the most haunted places in England. From several books he had learned that this little village was supposed to be swarming with ghosts, poltergeists and other creepy stuff. The young man had visited the place once earlier, but only in daytime.

A taxicab from Sudbury drove to the isolated hill overlooking the River Stour. The towering Church with its graveyard stood against a beautiful sunset. The driver promised to pick up the young man within an hour. The red sky painted way for the approaching twilight. As the taxicab drove away, a foreboding silence fell upon the hill.

The young man didn't feel himself welcome. Once again someone closed the curtains in the windows of the old Rectory Cottage as soon as he had stepped out from the taxi. The very same thing had happened upon his previous arrival in daytime. This puzzled him deeply. Were the residents of this peaceful little village so antisocial, that they didn't even want to shoo an intruder away? This was totally different what the young man had previously imagined.

But the place wasn't particularly different. The area of which he had read so much about was even more enchanting during the sunset. From the Church the man could see the golden field, seemingly continuing into eternity towards the river. In the horizon, against the darkening sky he could see the lights of Sudbury. In the ascending darkness and within the very quiet symphony of woodland sounds, the young man couldn't understand why so many people had described the place only as creepy and unpleasant. In his opinion, it was only beautiful and serene.

The gravel rustled between his feet, as he walked quietly down the road, along the belt of trees opposite the darkening field of gold. Once upon a time, behind these trees, had stood a magnificent red-bricked Rectory, "Britain's Most Haunted House". The ghosts of the past tried to chase the pleasant thoughts out of his mind - but in vain. The man had understood that the ghost stories didn't really suit the place. The hill was simply too natural and too intimate to be the stage for Gothic ghost sightings, phantom coaches, headless charaters, and a spectral nun.

And of course, the bungalows occupying the Rectory site were a bit too modern to paint a vivid image of Victorian or Edwardian times. So were the few cars that passed the young man time to time. But as soon as a car's noise fainted away, the hill was silent again. The sun had finally set and a sea of glimmering stars was invading the night sky. Apart from the few modern yard lights of the bungalows, the darkness surrounding the hill was absolute. Only the light of the moon painted the golden field with silvery phosphorescence. The young man felt as if a guardian angel herself was embracing the hill.

But all of a sudden a black cat scurried over the road and vanished into the yard of a bungalow. The young man wasn't particularly superstitious - but yes, he felt a slight shiver. (Really, what are the odds that one sees a black cat running over the road - an omen of disaster - immediately after the sunset in a place that is claimed to be haunted?) Luckily the ominous feeling vanished when the man heard whistling from another yard and saw someone taking out the trash. Not very ghostly.

Soon, the hill was silent again. The young man gazed at his watch. About half an hour until the taxi would return to pick him up. He started to feel himself particularly stupid. Was this really what he had wanted? Why was he standing there, in the middle of dead silence and absolute darkness? Waiting for what? An appearance of the ghost nun, so he could shake her hand? A slap on his face from a ghost?

Trying to comfort him, only a slight
night wind danced on the field.

Upon the wind there was a sound, so familiar, yet so shocking, that the young man thought he had lost his mind! For heaven's sake - it was organ music, coming from the direction of the Church! And not just any music, but totally outrageously dissonant horror music - just like the Phantom of the Paris Opera performing! And that was the very same Church of which the young man had often read ghost stories; the very same Church from where people had heard haunting organ music and otherwordly chanting at hours when no one was inside the building!

Feeling his hair sticking towards the sky and a million little feet running up and down in his spine, the young man stood completely still. Would he run to the nearest door? Should he run? Could he run at all? Should he scream at a high-pitched voice, go banging on a bungalow door and alert the residents? Surely they must hear the music too!

But the young man understood that there was absolutely no sign of any movement, any action anywhere on the bungalow yards nor at the Rectory Cottage. But the thundering organ music grew only louder! Were these stupid residents deaf? Didn't they understand that someone had broken into their precious Church? Why didn't they do anything?

And why was this happening to him? No, not to him! This couldn't be true. The young man had indeed wanted to experience nighttime at the haunted hill, but he really wasn't prepared for seeing the ghosts or even hearing them. This could not happen to him!

In front of gravest danger or biggest horror people usually do strange things. Although trembling like a feather duster, the young man kept his head cool and hurried back towards the gaunt, dark Church. Illuminated only by the moonlight, the ominous graveyard stood now in front of him like a lurking beast ready to jump on its unexpecting victim. At that very moment he noticed the most horrifying detail: the organ music was emanating from the ground, beneath the graves!

Or was it? -- Wait a minute, now
-- it sounds like...!

The young man continued walking the road past the Church, past the old manor, past the pond, and finally stopped and gazed at the modern house not far away. Now he had found the real source of the organ music - and also noticed that the organ started sounding more and more like an electrical instrument. A modern drum beat joined the more melodic organ music. Lights in the upper windows of the house fainted away and relit - but more like in a disco than in a haunted house. The young man burst into laughter as he finally recognized "Love Me Tender" as the haunting music that had scared the living daylights out of him.

But in mere seconds his laugh took a sardonic quality. Now he was sure that the organ music had been nothing but a trick, a childish prank - and a cruel test which he had miracuously passed. If he had panicked totally and ran to the nearest door making a big scene, he would have probably ended up sitting in a police car, arrested for disturbing the nightly peace of the innocent residents. The young man shook his head in disbelief, but couldn't prevent the overpowering feeling in his heart.

He had finally proven the fact that in this serene, beautiful and enchanted place the ghosts were not the problem. The living human being was and had always been beyond the true hauntings - the real disturbances - of the little village. Listening to the night wind upon the hill the young man had understood its whispers and its warm embrace.

He had entered Borley.

The above story is absolutely true. It happened to the undersigned on July 18, 1995. It was my very first trip to the United Kingdom, and naturally, also to the village of Borley. A year later I made another "expedition" to the region. The second trip sealed my fate and finalized my attitude towards the supernatural world. In my opinion, most of the scary, inexplicable and unpleasant things of Borley have been caused by living human beings and not by the dead ones. The British documentary director John Irvin is actually responsible of teaching me this "healthy" perspective towards supernatural with his great 1981 movie Ghost Story. While I have always been fascinated with ghost stories and have absolutely no problem in accepting supernatural as an everyday force, the experiences in Borley taught me that the living human being - feeble, insecure and vile - is usually the keyword in supernatural mysteries.

You are most welcome to my modest Borley page.

- Kenneth Sundberg -

A word of caution
to everyone planning to visit Borley:
You will not find ghosts at Borley.
Instead, you may find yourself.

A Destiny with Borley
Kenneth's Story

My relationship with Borley began almost 30 years ago. The 1979 book Supernatural World by Usborne Publishing Ltd appeared in early 1980s in Finland, translated into "Witch's Handbook" (Noidan käsikirja). I was somewhere between the ages of 7 and 10 years when my mother agreed to purchase the book. The story of England's Borley Rectory, featured as a résumé on four pages of the book, made an everlasting impression on me. The tale of a ghostly nun standing behind windows and staring in, did actually cause a minor trauma for me. Still today I get shivers if I constantly have to look at, or even just pass by a curtainless, large window during nighttime.

It took me about fifteen years more to learn that the Usborne 1979 résumé of Borley Rectory oversimplified an epic, intriguing narrative. The real and complete story of Borley is much more than just a "monster" of a house built in 1863 by Reverend Henry D. E. Bull. Even though the ghost nun is what made the Borley Rectory famous, she is definitely not the only spectre in the vicinity. The Borley case is one of the most publicised, researched and disputed hauntings - but it doesn't necessarily make the infamous Rectory the "World's Most Haunted House".

But back in 1991 I knew very little about Borley. While studying at a high school of arts (Kallion ilmaisutaidon lukio), I had big dreams of becoming a motion picture director. After my first "serious" video production, I ended up writing, producing and directing one of my most ambitious video films ever - a fictional contemporary version of the Borley Rectory hauntings. The screenplay was based only on the 1979 Usborne résumé - but was highly inspired by several of my favourite movies, including the aforementioned Ghost Story (1981), Tobe Hooper's and Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist (1982) and the supernatural climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Even though I wanted to emphasize the psychological side of "good old" Gothic horror, the end result was a bit too ridiculous - especially due to an incredibly problematic post-production where I did everything with very poor equipment. Also, in my imagination the ghostly nun of Borley became a deadly avenger with horrifying rotted face. But as the real Borley story, also my video film reached a fiery climax in a new house built on the old rectory site. For my film, however, they were only miniature houses made of cardboard.

During the next year, thanks to a couple of Finnish articles provided to me by my friends, I found out that the real Borley story didn't seem as black and white as the Usborne 1979 résumé had indicated. For a high school writing project I chose - again - Borley as topic and wrote a "short-story-pretending-to-be-a-novel" offering a new, though purely fictional perspective to the Borley mysteries. In my imagination Reverend Henry Bull, who built the infamous Rectory, was never an innocent man; I made him the culprit to the hauntings, as this married man falls in love with the wrong woman and has a sexual, passionate relationship with her. But after learning that she is a free-spirited novice, Henry simply panics and kills her, hiding her body into the cellars - and thus creating the basis for a haunting that is both psychological and supernatural at the same time. Obviously, John Irvin's Ghost Story was still haunting my mind.

Little did I know that in the few following years I would learn from the great book by Ivan Banks (The Enigma of Borley Rectory, 1996) that the real Henry Bull may not have been innocent at all...!

After the very first draft of my "Borley, the Dark Side" novel, written especially as the high school project, I found even more literature on the authentic Borley. The more information I read about Borley, the more confusing - and yet intriguing - the story became. Different authors emphasized different things. Details that were told by some, were not mentioned at all by the others. I started combining all these odd details together - and came up with such an epic fictional storyline that it simply had to be told. Thus, during the year 1994, I started writing a more serious novel about Borley. Even though the storyline was still almost completely fictional, I really wanted to offer a new theory explaining the hauntings of Borley - but in a respectful, humane manner. The ghostly nun became now a troubled, young novice (named Suzanne Delerue) who ends up finding a father figure - and also a passionate lover - in Reverend Henry Bull. Nothing remained black and white in my novel; I really wanted to tell a tale about the difficulties of being human. Furthermore I wanted to give justified reasons to all the hauntings - explain the unexplainable - but in a most thought-provoking style. As an end result, just the prologue of my Borley novel (concentrating on a shocking, completely fictional revelation of Sir Henry Waldegrave and the supernatural energy within the Rectory grounds) is about hundred pages long!

By the year 1995 my curiosity and ambition had reached its absolute heights. (The same year Usborne Publishing released another ghost book, The Usborne Book of the Haunted World, which offered another very short and truly odd Borley résumé). I had already written a few letters to Essex County Council and received excellent help regarding Borley from these very friendly people. Now, it was time to see the real Borley with my own eyes. I was 20 years old. My first trip, in the summer of 1995, was quite memorable - as the introduction of this page shows!

On my very first visit to Borley, naturally during the daytime, someone really closed the curtains of the Rectory Cottage aka Stable Cottage aka Coach House - a building which is the only proof nowadays that the infamous Rectory, built by Reverend Henry Bull, once stood next to it. I didn't dare to enter the grounds of the Borley Parish Church (as it is officially called) in fear of trespassing. A real pity is that I didn't dare to take my video camera with me when I returned to Borley the next unforgettable evening (as described in the introduction) - but a day or two later I did walk around the church with my video camera recording nearly every detail.

Even today I am convinced that the ghostly organ music was a purposely executed prank by the Borley residents - and a clear test which I survived and passed. Borley has been visited by so many real troublemakers that the residents actually have the moral right of setting these kinds of "traps".

However, lately I have been thinking an alternate explanation. As the introductory story reveals, there have been countless of reports of unexplained organ music (and other sounds) coming from the Church. It is a rather spooky thought that I may have heard genuine unexplained organ music coming from the Church, but the quick-thinking Borley residents have attempted - and succeeded - hiding the truth from me.

During my trip I met only one of the local residents - a kind woman whose name I have unfortunately totally forgotten. She was the key holder to the Borley Parish Church, so I got the opportunity to take a peek at the interiors. (I can't even remember, did I tell her about my ghostly experience). Now that I had experienced the authentic Borley, I started revising my novel. For example, I had originally imagined thick forests around Borley, but in reality there weren't any. I still knew I could revise and re-write the already existing four hundred pages of "Borley, the Dark Side" in a more truthful manner - although the drama I had concocted was too good to throw away. A year went by.

The next summer, in 1996, I invited a friend with me to another Borley "expedition". Before our trip, I wrote to Mrs. Dorey, the resident of the Rectory Cottage (aka Coach House), that I wished for a permission to visit the Church grounds. Fast-forward a week or so. Me and my friend, the both of us maybe too-well dressed for the occasion, arrive at the Borley Parish Church and wait there for a while for the usual "close-the-curtains" -action in the Rectory Cottage windows. But there wasn't any such action. Therefore we entered the gates to the Cottage yard, in order to knock on the door - but almost simultaneously a car dashes into the yard and out creeps a very angry-looking couple. Especially the woman had such a look on her face, that I'll never forget it: imagine the deepest possible frustration, then double it with a preparation for a most unpleasant confrontation. I nevertheless introduced myself, apologized for trespassing and told about the letter I had sent to Mrs Dorey.

The woman actually was Mrs Dorey herself. Despite the frightening first encounter, she turned out to be a very nice person. She let us inside the Church and told her perspective of the story: She had never experienced anything supernatural in Borley. The only disturbances were caused by the too-eager ghostbusters.

As I was telling about my fictional novel to Mrs Dorey, while simultaneously admiring the effigies of the Waldegrave tomb, I experienced the ultimate revelation. The only poltergeists in Borley were and will always be the living people who have tarnished - and probably continue to darken - the reality of this beautiful, serene knoll overlooking a sparkling river. It became a side issue whether or not Borley is haunted by the ghosts of ancient dead people. I just didn't want to belong to the troublemakers. Most of the living people are the ones incapable of coping with the supernatural forces, and not vice versa. The dead don't mean to be bad; they are just badly and wrongly interpreted. Although my novel was indeed going to emphasize this rarely dealt essence of ghosts - and the pure evil living inside every human - I couldn't feel anymore passion to write the book. The real Borley had crept inside my heart and I had fallen in love. I had to find other ways to express my thoughts, without causing further distress, disturbances or trouble to the little enchanted village and its residents.

Fifteen years have passed since I decided not to continue writing my Borley novel. The manuscript still exists - but I still say, that if it's ever going to be published, it will not tell the story of Borley. It really tells about each of us. That's why I finally decided after all these years that it's time to shed a little light - and release all the glorious colours - on a subject that is too often examined only in black and white: the ghosts. And a little bit Borley, too.

- January 2012, Kenneth Sundberg -