This week’s choice is from the M.R. James ghost story A Warning to the Curious and I have chosen it to mark a visit to Aldeburgh (or is it Seaburgh?).
When I am dead and in my grave
M.R. James (1862—1936)
And all my bones are rotton
I hope the Lord will think on me
When I am quite forgotton.
Poem 414. Nathaniel Ager
Nathaniel Ager is my name
And England is my nation
Seaburgh is my dwelling-place
And Christ is my salvation
When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotton
I hope the Lord will think on me
When I am quite forgotton.
This verse, short though it is, constitutes a clue that leads the young academic Paxton to his goal in the James ghost story A Warning to the Curious.
It is written on the fly-leaf of an ancient Bible which Paxton finds in a curiosity shop in the town of Seaburgh which he is visiting on holiday. The story is long enough not to repeat here but suffice it to say that Nathaniel’s descendants take their responsibilities very seriously as Paxton discovers to his cost.
The poetry is fairly basic and has little to recommend it as standalone verse but it is part of one of James’s best ghost stories and I have chosen it for that reason and because I have visited Aldeburgh today in the company of my good friends Keith—I mean Kevin—and Hazel and Ian and Angela.
We have explored the town from one end to the other, discovering the sites and sights that inspired James, whose grandparents lived there. We have seen a cottage that might have been the Ager family home, the hotel where the narrator and his friend are staying, the church and churchyard that appear in the story, the site of the curiosity shop I have mentioned already, and the squat Martello tower. It has been tremendously enjoyable, and the first time I have ever followed a story through the places that inspired it.
Those who have watched the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas might remember that this story was screened back in 1972 with Peter Vaughan in the role of Paxton and others may recall that it was one of the James ghost stories read by Sir Christopher Lee in another series of Christmas ghost stories. Christmas Eve was the traditional time for recounting weird and spooky stories and James would oblige his friends annually by inviting them to his rooms and recounting his latest invention.
I like it because it is part of James’s method—of building an atmosphere that becomes more and more unsettling until the ghost or spirit or demon reveals itself, often in a shocking and sometimes rather violent fashion.
The story was covered in the M.R. James podcast A Podcast to the Curious in Episode 30 and Episode 31. The text of the story (and all the other James ghost stories) can easily be found online at the Australian Project Gutenberg site.