A
Strange Tale
By David J
Reed
My son Ian is now 32 years old
and this occurrence happened for the first time when he was about seven or
eight. He was in his bedroom early one
November evening playing on the floor with his train set. My daughter Caroline
who was about eighteen at the time was sitting at her dressing table in her
bedroom. Both bedrooms doors were standing open.
Ian looked up from his train set to see a man standing on the step into his
bedroom looking at him. Ian was startled but at that point was not actually
frightened, thinking that one of the family was with him. The man smiled, turned
on the step and walked out of the door. Ian ran through to Caroline’s room
saying, “ Did you see that man?” Caroline laughed and said, “Of course I
did. It was Dad”. Ian said, “No it wasn’t. Dad’s up the garden sawing
wood.”
Both children came running
downstairs to their mother who was in the kitchen. Janet called me from outside
and I came in and searched the house but of course nobody was there. After a
while things got back to normal.
It was about a month later
that I asked Ian what the man was wearing. He said it was an old fashioned
uniform of a soldier with two rows of buttons on his tunic. This caused my wife
and I to sit up and take notice.
At this point another tale
starts.
In
April 1840 a Captain De Vere Caldwell was staying in Little Bowden with his
relative a Mrs. Hannah Brown who we know lived in this house because her name is
on the old deeds. The Captain had ridden out to Brixworth to visit friends and
on the way had stopped off at Lamport Hall to attend a party. Having had a
little too much to drink he climbed up one of the stone gate pillars on each of
which sits a swan made of cast iron. The swan broke off and the captain fell,
the beak going through his chest. He was put in a carriage and brought to Little
Bowden where the nearest doctor lived. He died during the night. His grave is in
Little Bowden Church yard.
Ian has “seen” the
“Captain” on about three occasions over the years and has recently become
quite interested in him. He rang Army Records in London to ask for any
information on him and was told that he died in Ceylon and was buried there in a
military cemetery. My son told them he was in Little Bowden Churchyard. After a
minute or two of “Oh, No he isn’t”, “Oh, Yes he is”, the conversation
ended in stalemate.
The question is why is he not
buried at the family home which is in Norfolk and why have the Army got it
wrong?
Our house is very old and
appears on a map dated 1698, the oldest we can find.
David
Reed wrote this story for In
Touch
at the request of his friend. our Tur Langton member, Jack Stimpson who adds the
following Postscript.
Ian was watching TV one
night (he was then a teenager) and David and Janet went to bed. Some time later
David awoke and saw the downstairs light was still on so got up and went
downstairs. He found Ian in the kitchen sitting on a chair to watch TV with a
small Jack Russell terrier on his lap. He looked very frightened and David said
“What’s wrong?”. Ian said he had gone upstairs to bed and found the same
man standing in the same spot at which point he fled downstairs and switched on
all the lights and that is as David found him.
Over the years David and
Janet have had three dogs none of which would go upstairs without someone being
with them and in front going up and behind them coming down.
The tombstone in Little
Bowden Churchyard carries the inscription, “Captain De Vere Caldwell, Regiment
of Light Infantry, died 8th April, 1840”.
The
Northampton Mercury of
18th April, 1840, reported “Captain Caldwell, a nephew of Sir Justinian Isham,
expired at the residence of Mr. Brown of Little Bowden, on Wednesday week.
........................Captain Caldwell obtained his commission only in
February last”
15/0998
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