My story came about in an unusual way. I was contributing entries to Literary Hauntings, A Gazetteer of Literary Ghost Stories, co-edited with R B Russell and Rosalie Parker (Tartarus Press, 2022). We wanted to have at least one entry for every county, but this looked a bit tricky for some of the smaller shires, and we could not at first think of any ghost story set in Bedfordshire.
I therefore wrote a fictional entry (it is a tradition for such guides to have at least one of these) about the quest for a rare ghost story booklet published in Biggleswade in that county. It begins: 'In the unattributed ‘Laughter Ever After’, an assiduous collector of ghost stories is in pursuit of a tale he has read about in a gazetteer of ghost stories but has never been able to find.'
However, it was then suggested that the story at least (if not the booklet) ought to exist, and so I had a go at writing it. The story is about the protagonist seeking for the rare ghost story pamphlet described in the entry. There’s probably something about metafiction I ought to invoke here but I’m not sure I can work it out. Anyway, the fictional entry in the gazetteer is for a story about the quest for a rare ghost story booklet mentioned in a gazetteer, and the actual, but subsequent, story is about the quest for the same booklet.
As it happened, we didn’t need the invented entry anyway, because shortly after I discovered that the climax of The Beetle by Richard Marsh is a spectacular train crash just outside Luton railway station in Bedfordshire, with a notably grotesque disintegration of the villain. But we still kept the imaginary (but now becoming more real) entry.
There were two other components of the story. One was the journeys I made in my youth on the great green swaying United Counties buses to obscure South Midlands towns in search of I didn’t quite know what, probably just the journey itself (although admittedly Biggleswade doesn’t have quite the same ring as Ithaca). The other was a record that was always on the radio in those days, ‘The Laughing Policeman’ by Charles Penrose, who was born in Biggleswade, the son of a watchmaker. I had often wondered about what else he did and how he felt about being mostly known for this one rather peculiar song.
If you like the sound of any of these things, rare ghost story booklets, book-collectors, bus rides or vintage music hall artists, all with a twist of wonder, well, this might be the story for you. And, if not, to judge from his earlier anthologies in the series, Nicholas Royle will also have gathered a gallimaufry of adventurous and unusual shorter fiction for your delight.
(Mark Valentine)
Congratulations Mark on having your work appreciated by the BBSS series. I envy you your literary life.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on being chosen by wise Old Nick, who really isn’t that old but the devilish reference wouldn’t let go, and now I suddenly have a compulsion to buy a book.
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