Inscribed with title and signature on the back.

'The outlandish events that took place in the 200-year old rectory during the occupancy of Reverend and Mrs. A. R. Bradshaw earlier this century are still debated in this beautiful and timeless Fenland village. According to Peter Underwood in his book 'Gazetteer of British Ghosts', the hauntings began with inexplicable footsteps in the house. Later the ghostly figure of a monk was seen. On one particular occasion Mrs Bradshaw claims she brushed past the ghost in a corridor and he told her 'Do be careful'. She summoned the courage to ask his name and he replied, 'Ignatius the bell-ringer'.

Over the years Mrs Bradshaw met the ghostly monk many times and it appears that they became friends. She learnt that he had died over 700 years before in a monastery that had once stood on the site of the present vicarage. In those days the area had been low lying and there had been a constant threat of flooding from the Fens. It had been the duty of Brother Ignatius to act as a watchman and ring a warning bell when the level of the waters became dangerously high. One night he fell asleep and the waters began to rise. He awoke too late; several of the monks had already drowned in their cells. On his death his spirit was condemned to remain at the scene of his earthly disgrace.
Mrs Bradshaw said that his ghost would appear at first as a faint outline and then materialize into the figure of a man of about thirty-three, dressed in an old, worn, brown monk's habit and sandals. Ignatius appeared to the rector's wife many times and in several different rooms in the house.

Mr Underwood goes on to tell how, one autumn night, Mrs Bradshaw was sleeping in the visitors' room in the rectory as her husband was ill. Her dog, who usually slept in their bedroom, was behaving in a strange manner and refused to stay in the room at first. She was eventually able to drift off to sleep, only to be awakened by the sensation of something throttling her. She managed to switch on the bedside light and find that a tendril of wisteria growing on the outside wall had somehow made its way through the open window and wound itself around her neck. She tore it away, at the same time feeling herself being thrown across the bed.
Then a dark shape loomed over her and a pair of gnarled hands clutched at her throat. She thought she was about to faint as the hands tightened their grip but suddenly Brother Ignatius appeared and pulled them - or it - away. She fell back on to the bed exhausted, but again the spectre leaned over her and this time she could see its huge head and red face. Mrs Bradshaw managed to drag herself free and fled to her husband's bedroom. He later confirmed to investigators that her throat had been very badly bruised.
Mr Bradshaw maintained that Ignatius later told her that the frightful spectre who had attacked her was the spirit of a man who had been murdered in that room years before. He added that by saving her life he had been released from his penance and his appearances would now become less frequent.

I was in Elm in June 1984 when I was told that the rectory had been empty for two years. The Reverend and Mrs Bradshaw are now both dead but the stories remain. An old lady who lives near the vicarage told me that she had known the Bradshaws well and that there had definitely been two ghosts there, one good, one bad. Before the bad one would materialize she said that the Bradshaw's dog would fly through the air.

Somewhat bewildered by these revelations I made my way through the graveyard towards the pub for a stiff drink. The stillness of the early evening and the dying light reflected on the skull and crossbones of several of the tombstones inspired my 'haunted' imagination.'

Extract from Simon Marsden, 'The Haunted Realm. Ghosts, witches and other strange tales', 1987, p.18-19