Guitar Playing Ghost

 

In 1965 it was reported that the ghost of an Australian Army Lieutenant was haunting the hamlet of Kundiawa in the New Guinea Highlands. It was claimed the ghost had been identified as Lieutenant George Charlton Tuckey.
Tuckey died in 1945 while serving with the Angua Administration of the Kundiawa Territory and was buried in a local cemetery.

A local police corporal known as Arambi reported that he often heard guitar music coming from inside a police inspector's house. There were no signs of life in the home, which was in total darkness. Armabi investigated the grounds and house and could find no source for the music, but as he neared the grave of Tuckey, he noted that the music ceased.
 Arambi later claimed that he saw the ghost. It was wearing a white shirt and shorts. He knew Tuckey, as they had worked together for two years, and identified the ghost as him. Tuckey’s ghost shuffled through the compound, and Arambi followed it into the Kundiawa courthouse…where it disappeared.[1]

researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2024

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[1] 'Guitar-playing ghost now walks about', The Canberra Times, (6 May 1965), p. 22.

                                              

 

A Haunting at Oak Lodge - Richmond, Tasmania

18 Bridge Street 

Oak Lodge was built in 1831 by Henry Buscombe, the younger brother of James Buscombe.[1] The property was sold in 1843 to Captain James Richard Booth. A highly regarded Royal Navy Captain who commanded the H.M.S. Tricuno. Booth’s brother, Charles O’Hara Booth was the former commandant of Port Arthur. In his time at Richmond, James Booth was a magistrate and Churchwarden at St Luke’s Anglican Church.[2]

Oak Lodge was sold to Reverend David Galer in 1855. It was sold again in 1880 to William Stevens and his sister, widow Mary Bedgood. Mary stayed in the house until 1909 when it was sold to Arthur Oglivy. Oglivy rented the property to an American doctor, Dr William Goodwin Chadbourne Clark. Clark used the Lodge for his medical practice until retiring in 1947. 

In 1962, Oak Lodge became the property of the Horsfall sisters. In 1998, Muriel Horsfall donated the property to the National Trust to be a museum. In 2002 it opened as Oak Lodge Museum. Miss Horsfall died in 2008 aged 102. 

Ghosts:

Oak Lodge is alleged to contain a plethora of ghosts. Volunteers and visitors have claimed to witness full-bodied, and partial-bodied apparitions. It has been alleged that the spirit of a young lady was witnessed ascending the stairs. There are claims that one spirit likes to grab people on the arm, and the same spirit may be responsible for a ghostly hand that slides up the inside of people’s thighs.

Some people have claimed to be pushed or pulled as they walked through the building, and yet others claim a spirit has played with their hair! There are also claims of disembodied voices, often calling out swear words.




© 2023 Allen Tiller

[1] Peter MacFie, A Social History of Richmond, (2017), p. 25.

[2] ‘Oak Lodge … and the incredible stories it can tell …’, Tasmanian Times, (2013), https://tasmaniantimes.com/2013/10/oak-lodge-richmond-linzo/, accessed 16 May 2022.