(Recollections are from a pre-pandemic world)
September 28, 2017
The morning was an early one, as is typical when on a tour. Wake up super early to grab the continental breakfast, assigned by the hotel as to not interfere with other hotel guests. We, my Mom and I, were in Chester, and we had to pack, eat, give the bus our luggage, and be in the meeting place for a tour of Chester, just at the crack of dawn, before all the shops were open. The tour was nice, but that's not why I'm writing this blog post.
I'm writing in regards to what happened in York later that evening.
On the two hour bus ride from Chester to York a memory came to mind, one that I haven't thought of in well over a decade. I was either a sophomore or junior in High School, and was sitting in early morning seminary at the church, 6:30 am. The lesson itself is long forgotten, but what is clear in my mind was the sudden entry of a man. No one knew who he was. Disheveled. Unkempt. He swayed and wobbled as he walked. Did he say anything? I can't recall. What I do remember was the way he paced back and forth in front of our class, charging forward in quick motions to scare us. Our teacher hanging against the wall doing nothing.
All of a sudden this man got closer to us, and then started to hover around the spot where I sat, my right arm table up supporting my books, attached to my seat. All of a sudden he stopped right in front of me, dropped to his knees, and banged on my table as he met me at eye level. How long did we hold that stare? I don't know. It felt like an eternity. But I held his gaze. I didn't quiver. I didn't flinch. And then all of a sudden he stood up, left, and we never saw him again. Days later I heard rumor that he might have escaped from the state hospital.
That memory kept circling through my mind as our bus drove into York. The same queasy feeling I felt as a teenager, the feeling of repressed fear bubbling under the surface, was thick and hard to shake, but I did as we toured York. A walk down the shops, getting lost in the Shambles, dinner at Bettys cafe tea room. After stopping in a couple shops it was dark, and the stores were beginning to close.
Ghost tours were starting to come upon the city. Random groups gathering around men wearing top hats. It was fascinating to watch from a distance, but I get spooked easily, and that feeling was back. The feeling I had as a teenager with the swaying man.
I looked up the street and noticed a man watching me. He was in shadow, hidden from lamp light, disheveled with a sway. Not wanting to make much of it, thinking it was only coincidence, I put it to a test. As my Mom and I walked up the street, he followed on the other side. I purposely stopped and watched him out of the corner of my eye, avoiding ghost tours in the process. When we stopped, he stopped. When we walked, he walked. After establishing the pattern I alerted my Mom to the situation, going through the walking and stopping movements to prove my point. We were both scared by this point, and made it a point to continue where there were lots of people, and to delay heading to our hotel as not to be followed.
Finally, after quite awhile, he got impatient and just left. And at that point, checking behind us several times, we fast paced it to our hotel. Adrenaline going crazy. We made it, felt safe, and then had a good laugh. York is really quite charming in the daytime, but at night it's a different animal. The city feels different. Maybe it was seeing all the ghost tour groups moving up and down the streets that played with my imagination. Not far fetched. But I was so glad to be safe that night. So glad to be away from the feeling of being spooked.
