And with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel here, I am the only living boy in York.
We are plodding through the streets of Old York and ducking the Mummies, slashers, vampires and undead.
But I have my best ghoul by my side and I have someone to give me the skinny on this Medieval town’s Halloween’s history.
Student Joe runs one of the myriad ghost tours York’s Haunted Heart around the old town £15 each).
And inevitably he carries a Monster energy drink.
It works too as he talks us through two hours and 2,000 years.
Of spirits, poltergeists and things that go bump in the night.
Me and my ghoul
From the Roman legion that walk through a drayhouse to the screaming girl locked away in her bedroom in the Black Death.
There’s a dead old man who is reincarnated as a ghostly cat who sits in a pub and claws your arse.
All of which reminds me of the Mother-in-law and her devil’s mouser.
Both of whom will be a-haunting this Halloween in North Berwickety.
Cats have the run of York with tours putting them up hanging out of buildings although to look in their eyes brings a curse.
Much like the devil gargoyle on the wall outside the old printing press.
Opposite the Evil Eye cocktail bar with its six-shot rum concoction which Joe tells us leaves you not seeing anything.
Heads you lose
There are all manner of terrifying sights at Halloween around York.
Such as the ghost of a wee boy throwing the severed head of the traitor Percy or Butcher Joe who comes back to rearrange his store.
To One-eyed Jack, a hopeless soldier who bothers you in the loo.
Though missshooting sounds the least of his vices.
While more gratifying is martyr St Margaret Clitheroe, crushed to death.
For harbouring Jesuit priests, who strides the River Ouse.
And carrying on the Catholic theme a good nun turned bad known as the Grey Lady.
The scariest of all
The worst of all though is my own Scary One falling out with me.
And Siri as we make our way back to the Holiday Inn.
No wonder with these street names, Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, Godramgate, Micklegate, Spurriergate, Skeldergate.
And a street Siri and the locals know as the Pavement but which is not signposted.
It really is a Shambles.
1 thought on “The only living boy in York”