Frankie and Rhona at the Fair

It was Spring or Summer 1967, I think. I would have been 9 years old and was visiting a travelling funfair with a friend in my home town of Taunton in England. There were two attractions that have pretty much eclipsed any other memories* I may have had of the fair. The first depicted Frankenstein's monster. To anyone observing from outside, every 5 minutes or so, there was a roar from within the tent, followed by the sight and sound of screaming kids as they ran out as fast as they could. My friend and I paid our money and went in, determined to resist the urge to run. The 'monster' was sitting in an electric chair (was this scene in any of the Frankenstein films, I wonder?) staring impassively ahead. Then after some time, when the tent had filled up and we had relaxed a little, he suddenly stood up, possibly to the accompaniment of flashing lights and a buzzing electric sound, and emitted a loud roar as he advanced toward the audience. He must have stopped after a few paces, but we didn't stay to find out as we turned and fled. What fun!

As with the first attraction, we also knew what to expect from the second, through word of mouth. This was in spite of the painted 'pulp' style artwork outside. It showed 'Rhona the Rat Girl', in a bathing costume, in a dungeon setting, IIRC, being terrorized by giant rats. She had her head turned away from them as far as possible while just being able to watch them in fearful fascination from the corner of her eyes. What was the story, I wonder? Was this picture lifted from some comic or pulp magazine? Inside, the reality was somewhat different. 'Rhona' was seated inside a pen and with her inside another cage were a few very tame-looking rats. She had a bamboo cane in her hand and tapped the cage lightly now and again (the artwork had her holding a whip, for some reason). She clearly wasn't in any danger or state of fear, but just looked bored. However, the big difference was in what she was wearing, or rather wasn't wearing. She was 'topless', to use that rather contradictory term. This being (hippy-ish) 1967, or possibly to meet legal requirements, or perhaps just to (lightly) preserve her modesty, her boobs had been painted with concentric circles. Other than that, she had on a large pair of slightly moth-eaten regulation navy knickers and possibly a pair of boots. We walked around her pen towards the exit, not too quickly, trying not to stare too much. This was a novel experience and I think we got our money's worth even if we were there for only a couple of minutes!

(* not quite 'eclipsed': at one of the stalls, I won a terrific skull ring with eyes made from coloured plastic or glass. For some reason, my father did not share my good taste and I was sadly forced to throw it away.)

Alfred Hithcock's Ghostly Gallery

Following on from my earlier post about Alfred Hithcock's Haunted Houseful anthology, here is the front cover of another anthology of his published in paperback by Puffin Books in the late 60s. The picture is courtesy of Amazon UK.

I first saw this book advertised in the Puffin Post magazine and was reminded of 'Alf' of the Luminous Spooks. I had to have it! There was one terrific story - 'The Upper Berth' by F. Marion Crawford, written in 1885. This was no story of an intangible spectre, but rather of something un-dead and murderous, having the strength of 'ten men living'. It was a gripping and chilling tale. Unfortunately, I found the other stories quite tame, not in the least bit scary; some just had a supernatural theme and were ghost-free.

The American hardback edition has some entertaining illustrations, which can be seen here.

Spooky Tesla Spirit Radio

Here are some terrific spooky noises pulled from the air, using  a mix of old and new technology. The 'voices' from around 1 minute and 14 seconds make my hair stand on end. Enjoy!

Here's some information about how to re-create these sounds.

Another Vollmer Ghost Train video - with new sound effects!

Just as I was thinking how great it would be to hear new sound effects for the Vollmer ghost train, I came across this video of one with creepy sounds taken from a ghost train made by another manufacturer (Faller):

HO Scale Ghost Train

Here's a terrific item for sale on eBay from seller erniepz (http://cgi.ebay.com/120719580770):

It's an HO scale model with electronic sound and LED light effects, as it turns out, that show it's relatively recent. The octopus seems to be an odd choice for a ghostly figure, don't you think?  I dug around and found this page about it:

http://www.rileyv.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/vollmer_ghosttrain.htm

The figures glow in the dark - perfect!

Here's a video...

Vintage glow-in-the-dark Halloween shapes

Trying to find any luminous shapes of similar vintage to, or older than the Luminous Spooks (UK, 1965), I came across these splendid examples on flickr. They include an apparition, a spooked cat, an owl and a witch on a broomstick.

Other pictures in this set are well worth a look, too; there is some excellent vintage artwork there.

Glow-in-the-dark vampire figures

This picture comes from an eBay auction that ran last year. I would credit the seller, but didn't record their details.

The figures were incorrectly described as being from the Monster in My Pocket range. 6 are of interest: top row: a vampire emerging from a coffin, a male vampire with arms raised, a possible wolf-man and then a female vampire. On the second row, we see the figure in the coffin again, but this time in red plastic. These 5 figures would seem to be from the same manufacturer. The other one of interest is a vampire with bat wings, looking fantastically sinister in a whitish plastic. Perhaps this belongs with the other 5, perhaps it comes from a different range. Some of these figures were luminous - presumably the ones on the top row.

There's a clearer picture of one of the figures on flickr here.

If you can provide further information about these figures, such as who made them and when, please let me know!