Danny Robins' paranormal cold cases: a holiday from hell

Danny Robins speaks to a man whose boyhood vacation to a quiet Newfoundland fishing town soon turned into a holiday from hell

Mysterious moody trees at night.

Published: May 1, 2024 at 7:59 AM

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Scott is nervous. The last time he told this story was in his late teens. Halfway through, his friend told him he should go to the bathroom. “Why?” Scott asked. The friend pointed out Scott was bleeding. “I had been so nervous telling the story, that I chewed through my lip.”

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The event that has so carved itself onto Scott’s memory took place on a family holiday in 1998. Scott was 14 and it was his first trip abroad - a vacation to the remote, picturesque island of Newfoundland, off the coast of Canada. Scott’s family drove along the coast to the small fishing community of Twillingate. The only B&B they could find was full, but the owner offered them another house he owned nearby.

So, after arriving at the old, windswept house, they glance across at a dilapidated boatshed. Standing, staring disconcertingly, is a fisherman, a grizzled sea dog in oilskins who looks like something out of Moby Dick. When they look back, he has disappeared!

A little rattled, Scott and his family head into the house to unpack. There’s no TV, but there is an old radio. Scott’s mum, Pat, switches it on and a terrifying voice fills the room, guttural and angry-sounding. Pat frantically tries to change the frequency, but every way she turns the dial, the voice remains, until they pull the plug out!

The character of the house itself shifts as night falls. They feel that they are not alone, so they decide to head to bed. Scott and his younger brother Callum take one room, his parents take another, and his aunt and cousin take the third. None will have a quiet night...

A house of horrors

For Scott and Callum, it begins with the sound of footsteps. Heavy-booted, walking up and down the corridor, again and again – like someone pacing, but never going into any of the rooms. Then, from nowhere, their bed starts shaking. Scott is terrified. He looks across to Callum, who is still asleep, and then, something truly astonishing occurs – “Callum flies out of bed.”

Scott halts, realising how crazy this sounds. “He sailed through the air right over me. My memory is that he was nearer to the ceiling than the bed. It felt like someone had picked him up and tossed him.”

Read other instalments of Danny Robins' series: My best friend's ghost A Highlands horror story A Walthamstow folk demon The haunting behind The Conjuring 2

Callum lands with a thud on the floor, underneath an antique mirror. Scott can barely bring himself to look in that mirror, but when he does, he sees a dark, shadowy figure moving across the room. Is it the person or thing that just threw his brother across the bedroom?

I spoke to Scott for my recent Uncanny summer special, ‘Canadian Horror Story’, on BBC Sounds. The really incredible thing is that he and his brother were not suffering alone. His parents and his aunt and cousin all had experiences in their rooms too, with much of the phenomena similar to what Scott witnessed.

Whose were those footsteps? Who was that shadow figure? Could it be linked to the fisherman they saw in the boatshed earlier in the day? Newfoundland is a place with a rich history of supernatural traditions, perhaps thanks to the huge number of shipwrecks and tragic drownings that any fishing community endures. Phantom ships are seen in the fog and apparitions of drowned sailors have been said to come back to haunt their loved ones.

The question is, did Scott and his family allow their imaginations to get the better of them in a lonely old house on this atmospheric island... or did they really witness one of these Newfoundland spirits? The thought sends a very un-summer-y chill down my spine...

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This article was first published in the August 2022 issue of BBC History Revealed

Find out more

From ghostly phantoms to UFOs, The Battersea Poltergeist's Danny Robins investigates real-life stories of paranormal encounters on his BBC Radio 4 podcast Uncanny. Episodes available now on BBC Sounds

Authors

Danny Robins

Danny Robins is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. He has presented podcasts including 'The Witch Farm'.

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