Category Archives: Messages from Geoff

In which the author seeks paranormal stories from Cumbria…

Paranormal Cumbria, the next book, is under way, and as part of the research I’m looking for personal stories of the supernatural and strange within the county.

 

So if you’ve encountered a big cat, a Black Dog, something odd in the sky, or a bogle or spirit – or anything else bizarre – please get in touch using the contact form located at the bottom of the ‘Events and Booking’ or ‘Media Room’ pages. Family traditions and stories passed down from previous generations are also welcome.

Please include as many details as possible – such as date, time of day, location, what happened, names of witnesses and so on – and indicate whether you are happy for the story to appear in the book, and for me to use your name in Paranomal Cumbria.

 

It doesn’t matter whether you are a visitor or a resident – all that is important is that the event or sighting took place in Cumbria. And of course Cumbria is much larger than just the Lake District.

 

I look forward to receiving despatches from the frontline of Forteana…

In which the author gets the thumbs up from ‘Fortean Times…’

The most recent edition of Fortean Times contains a top-hole review of The Jacobites and the Supernatural. As any fule kno, Fortean Times is the world’s leading magazine for strange phenomena, and has been my rock and benchmark for more decades than I care to recall.

Here’s the review in full, reproduced from Fortean Times No.277 July 2011 with permission:

Holder has written a number of guides to regional folklore and legends, but this book takes a novel tack, focusing on the ill-fated Jacobite risings of the late 17th to mid-18th centuries.

Here are tales of witchcraft, spirits, prophecies, prodigies, portents and curses that followed Bonnie Prince Charlie and supporters of the Stuart cause. Of course, there are battlefields, castles and dwellings (a surprising number of them in England) with ghosts, poltergeists, fairies and grisly murders – but there is quite a bit of human interest too. For example: the dashing young ‘Bonnie Dundee’ Graham who was reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil and died by a silver bullet, and the Young Pretender himself who was said to have ‘impressed’ his good looks upon an unborn child.

Here too, we learn how the ‘touching rite’ (believed by many at the time to be a sure cure for scrofula) was introduced to British royalty and used politically by the Stuarts as a proof of a legitimate king, and how many of the marvels of superstition, witchcraft and folklore were exploited by propagandists on all sides.

Great stuff, well written and illustrated.

In which the author basks in praise from the Ghost Club…

The Ghost Club is Britain’s most venerable supernatural investigation society, having been founded in 1862. In the most recent edition of The Ghost Club Journal the Club’s Treasurer, Lance Railton, wrote a spiffing review of T he Jacobites and the Supernatural.

 

Here’s a few extracts:

“This book has been a pleasure to read and review – a straightforward, well-researched, well-written, well-illustrated book with basic maps and a comprehensive bibliography. It demands room on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Scotland, its ghosts and its history.

 

Geoff Holder is an experienced author, with 17 books on the strange, supernatural, Gothic and gruesome under his belt, and it shows. However, I was also impressed by his firm grasp of the history of the Jacobite cause and the sociological, religious, folkloric and cultural dimensions swirling around it.

 

The book is in three sections – a brisk, clear and balanced overview of the historical context; followed by a longer and more detailed survey of the occult beliefs on both sides; and then a fairly extensive gazetteer of the sites – on both sides of the border – associated with the ghost stories and other alleged phenomena of the Jacobite risings from 1689 to 1745.

 

…This was a delight to read.”

 

The full review can be seen here

…In which the author falls in love with standing stones all over again

Just back from a three-day trip to the archaeological wonderland that is Kilmartin, in Mid-Argyll, on Scotland’s west coast. Megalithic structures abound in the region, and we visited dozens of standing stones, burial cairns, cists and other ancient sites. Highlights inclu­ded Temple Wood stone circle and the Dunadd hillfort and royal complex, plus a lake crannog and a huge standing stone carved with a Christian cross. Plus I got to lie down in a subterranean prehistoric grave (and found it a tad cramped).

 

The area has also the best collection of cup-and-ring marks (prehistoric rock art) in the country, and although some of it takes something of an effort to get to – especially in the infamous Argyll rain – it was well worth it. Because prehistoric British rock art is non-representational and abstract, its meaning is lost to us, making it not just beautiful but enigmatic and mysterious. Some cup-and-ring sites are notoriously difficult to find, and many a time the rain-swept glens echoed with the distinctively plaintive cry of the rock art hunter: “It’s meant to be around here somewhere!”

 

The trip was arranged by the earth mysteries magazine Northern Earth, www.northernearth.co.uk, with organisation by the editor, John Billingsley, and field leadership by archaeologist and rock art expert Paul Bowers, both of whom did a bang-up job. More about the utterly fantastic Kilmartin area can be found on the website of the wonderful Kilmartin House Museum, www.kilmartin.org. The bookshop there has a superb collection of books on Scottish archaeology, history and folklore, and also happens to stock signed copies of “101 Things To Do With A Stone Circle”

 

Hello and welcome

 

 

Hello and welcome all to the official Geoff Holder website. This site has been officially commissioned by Geoff, and in the coming months he will look to take control and hopefully keep all updated on his upcoming released, as well as any other matters he sees fit to share with you all.

Please feel free to look around, tell you friends, and stay tuned for more updates to come in the coming months!

Thank you,

Jamie Cook