A Ghost Story

This story was read by firelight on a dark and stormy night at our house on Victoria Parade. We had a Show and Tell evening and this is what I shared:

This ghost story is a tale of tragical love and, like all good ghost stories, untimely death.  The setting was the town Devonport, Tasmania, the former then was named Formby. Ship building was conducted on the shores of the Mersey River in the late 1800’s. 

                                                      The launch of the Lizzie Taylor, East Devonport Inlet 1891.Shifting Sands, Faye Gardam

One day a shipbuilder’s son fell in love with a beautiful girl. Their eyes met at the Regatta in 1898. 

                                        Mersey Regatta. Shifting Sands, Faye Gardam

She was wearing a gown of Chantilly lace, she had a pretty face and a ponytail hanging down and a blood red rose with a blue ribbon pinned to her gown. They spent the afternoon together and vowed their undying love that night as a pale moon rose over the water and the celebratory fireworks exploded over their heads. She gave him the rose as they parted.

But alas, their love was ill-fated from the start. The young lass’ name was Jessie Drake and she came from the wrong side of the river. She was from Torquay (East Devonport) and the young man was from Formby (West Devonport) and back then a girl from the Downs of Pardoe would not be at all suitable match for a man of Victoria Parade . Jessie Drake was 16, only 16, oh but he loved her so and from then on the lad would row his little boat  over the river when he could, to spend precious moments together.

                                                                  Formby looking east to Torquay, Shifting Sands, Faye Gardam

When the lad’s father heard of these dalliances he was not happy. One evening after a meeting of the town’s founding fathers, he told of his serious concerns to Mr Oldaker. Mr McFie and Mr Fenton were listening on.

“Don’t worry old chap” interjected Mr Gunn, “leave it to me, I shall attend to the matter”

Mr Gunn was hoping for a marital pairing of his daughter with the shipbuilder’s son, but as she was a chunky, robust girl with several facial moles, this was never going to happen….as the shipbuilder’s son was gushingly gorgeous and psychological studies have proven overwhelmingly that similarly rated hotness always marries hotness of equal rating.

                                             Pintrest: Hot Vintage Men. The Handsome Victorian Gent

The next day Mr Gunn “announced”  the engagement of his daughter to the shipbuilder’s son within earshot of Mr Drake, Jessie’s father. Thinking nothing of it, Mr Drake retold the local news at his family dinner table that evening. Jessie went pale. Tears welled up and she felt ill, so excused herself quickly from the table.

Jessie went to bed and cried all night.

Before dawn she, beside herself with grief, ran down to the river bank. She called her sweetheart’s name, knowing he slept in the attic bedroom at the front of the house with the window open. The water was wide and she couldn’t cross o’er, if only he would come with his boat. But the lad slept soundly, hearing her voice weave its way into his dreams but not awakening. The tide was low and the pale moon illuminated a pathway across the river, but alas, as the sea mists rolled in, that pathway lured Jessie into its depths.

The next day news of Jessie’s death spread through the town. When the young man heard, grief stricken he went to the water’s edge, there at his feet he found a blood red rose and a blue ribbon.

The lad never recovered from losing Jessie, and certainly never married Mr. Gunn’s daughter. He put all his efforts into building a beautiful timber boat, which he named the Jessie Drake. He sailed it to Melbourne, where he bought one hundred blood-red rose bushes. That night he sailed home, and the weather was terrible. He was warned not to sail. He fought all night with the wild Bass Strait tempests, but finally when the wind was a torrent of darkness and the pale moon was a ghostly galleon, within knots of Port Frederick all was lost and the Jessie Drake went down.

The next morning dozens of blood red roses bushes were scattered on the shore.

And over the years, in the early hours of the morning when the sea mist rolls in and a pale moon shines a pathway over the waters, many have told of a ghostly ship sailing into Port Frederick with the ghost of a young man aboard calling his lost lover’s name, and, many an East Devonport residence has attested to hearing, as the fog thickens, the voice of a girl calling a name the same as was the young ship builder’s sons.

So as you walk through the streets of old Formby Town, if you see any blood red roses growing on old gnarled bushes, chances are they are from the young man’s cargo, as the locals salvaged them, and, as they were bare rooted and it was late August, they survived, because as any keen gardener knows its dashed near impossible to kill a rose, and they planted them in their gardens, and some still flower today.

Disclaimer:

                                                           Pintrest: Group portrait of Victorian gentlemen

 This story and characters are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary.