Ghost Tour in York

I was going to name this post, "Why you shouldn't ever take me on a ghost tour," but that seemed obnoxiously long.  Or my other title was going to be, "Ghost tour, or just a bunch of really sad stories about people's deaths,"  Again, a bit long.  This story is about the only ghost tour I've ever been on in my life.  I guess it's good I experienced this activity in York.  It's been on the Discovery Channel as one of the most haunted cities in the world.  Since we were visiting England in the dead of winter (no pun intended), and there was nothing really to do in the evenings, we decided to go on the famous ghost tour one evening.

I learned two things that night.  No, three things.  You shouldn't take me on your next ghost tour, it seemed like a bunch of really depressing stories of death, and that English people think the sidewalk is called "the pavement."

When we started the tour, our lovely tour guide, who looked liked he just got done working a shift at the Haunted Mansion in Disney World, gathered the people together.  He insisted we all gather on the pavement.  Fine, I'll stand in the road.  I'm standing in the road like you asked, why do you keep pointing the the sidewalk and asking me to get on the pavement?!?!  At this point, my whitty side was overly humored and kept this 'discussion' up for another minute before complying with his confusing request.

During the tour he told us about kids being murdered and stored in the basement of an orphanage, about a girl being locked in her house because she had the plague and her family left her, and about this girl who fell three stories to her death in the middle of a party held by her father.  All in all, it was a rather depressing evening.  It was this last story that convinced me never to go on another ghost tour.

Our guide told us the story about the little girl.  He also said that on some nights they can get her spirit to appear in the window on the third floor.  As the people gathered for this impromptu seance, my friends and I all back away from the group.  None of us talked to each other until we were moving on to the next sad story.  As we began to talk we asked each other what we did when he asked the group to gather and call up the spirit of the girl.

We all had the same answer.  None of us did it.  In fact, quite the opposite, each of us stepped back and started praying for the repose of this girl's soul.  And this is when we decided that we should not go on any more ghost tours.  We were bad for business.  Instead of 'calling for the dead' we were trying to help them move on.  We all felt this was probably counter-productive for the ghost tour business.  Plus, who wants to walk around a town at night listening to depressing stories.

On a side note: we did learn a lot about the Roman soldiers and how far north in England they traveled.  In fact, there is still a Roman column up in the town.  Fine, no depressing stories, but I'll take a bit of history any time.