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The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was a hit when it was released in 1947, the tenth-biggest grossing film of that year, and it's hard not to see why. A romantic but not melodramatic story, it had just enough wry comedy to draw an audience of both men and women, and a veneer of literate quality that lands it square in that middlebrow sweet spot that once did a lot to broaden any film's appeal. You can even go a step further and speculate that the romance at its centre, between a young widow and a recently deceased ghost, might have...

My sister sent me this link to Sky News this morning. Coinkidink? I think not!

The Landlady's Tale By SWORDMAKER copyright 2000Preface The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parents their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (so much so that although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the divorce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible, in front of my sister and me after she told us the story, that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it.In the 1970s, I personally...

A grandpa’s haunting Thanksgiving ghost story appeared to help two brothers uncover a near 200-year-old “murder mystery.” Bill and Frank Watson were told a chilling tale about 57 Irish immigrants who died at a railroad site in Pennsylvania during the cholera epidemic in 1832. The area is now known as “Duffy’s Cut” as the rail workers’ boss was named Philip Duffy. It is a stretch of tracks located around 30 miles from Philadelphia. The brothers were told the chilling tale by their grandpa – a railroad worker – every Thanksgiving. They believe the rail workers died violently and not from...

The Landlady's Tale By SWORDMAKER copyright 2000Preface The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parents their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (so much so that although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the divorce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible, in front of my sister and me after she told us the story, that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it.In the 1970s, I personally...

The Landlady's Tale By SWORDMAKER copyright 2000 Preface The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parents their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (so much so that although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the divorce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible, in front of my sister and me after she told us the story, that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it. In the 1970s,...

The Landlady's Tale By SWORDMAKER © copyright 2000 Preface The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parents their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (so much so that although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the divorce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible, in front of my sister and me after she told us the story, that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it. In the...

The Landlady's Tale By Andrew Smith (Swordmaker) Preface The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parents their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (so much so that although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the divorce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible, in front of my sister and me after she told us the story, that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it. In the 1970s,...

The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parents their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the divorce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible, in front of my sister and me after she told us the story, that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it. In the 1970s, I personally confirmed some of the more mundane parts of her story....

Boy kills himself to "become a ghost" Kuala Lumpur, Dec 14, IRNA -- A 12-year-old schoolboy, who wanted to be a ghost in order to see the world, leapt to his death from the 8th floor of an apartment block in Lip Sin Garden in Malaysia's northern Penang state early Friday, a report said. The Standard Six (primary six) pupil from a Malaysian Chinese ethnic group family had left a brief suicide note addressed to his parents and elder sister. The note, written in Chinese, stated: "I am a ghost without strength. I want to become a ghost so...

The following story was told to me by the woman who rented my parent's their first home in California when they moved to Sacramento in 1939. A devout Catholic (although she had been divorced by her husband, she did not consider the diverce valid and did not remarry until her husband died many years later) the landlady swore on her Bible in front of my sister and me after she told us the story that it was absolutely true. She was quite serious about it. In the 1970s, I personally confirmed some of the more mundane parts of her story....