K.M. Cooke

October is not my favourite month. Yet, it’s worth all the broken umbrellas and grey skies London can throw at me, for the promise of Halloween. Besides, this is the best season for breaking out the ghost stories. Who can honestly say they get the same thrill from watching or reading supernatural fiction on a hot August day compared to a shadow filled room with an October down-pour hitting the windows?

While the world collapses, I can think of nothing better to do this month than crack open the ghost stories of M. R. James and challenge myself to a ghost story countdown to Halloween. Look, I know it sounds like denial, but it worked for those Black-death shirkers in the Decameron. It’s impossible to worry about food shortages, fuel crises and the health service when all your attention is on a foolish 19^th century academic who’s about to do something epically stupid involving a spooky object that literally has ‘do not use this thing or you’ll get a supernatural spanking’ carved into it.

If you haven’t come across the brilliant Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) before, there is a nice but long account of his life and work in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker and the Guardian. All you need to know is that a) he wrote great ghost stories in the late 19^thand early 20^th century b) he was a medieval scholar c) he was an English academic who became Provost of King’s College, Cambridge d) he had it in for anyone who defaced a book (very important, you’ll need to remember this).

My Dad used to read them to us as bedtime stories. Which may explain a lot. They’re educational, honest. Before I reached the age of thirteen, I knew it was a bad idea to dig up cursed Saxon crowns, steal a medieval manuscript, or play golf. All handy life-lessons.

 If you’ve never read his work, this is your chance, come procrastinate along with me. You can even cheat and listen to them on audiobook (Michael Hordern is brilliant) or watch the various filmed versions that litter YouTube.

Tomorrow it’s Cannon Alberic’s Scrapbook, a supernatural romp involving superstitious villagers, defaced manuscripts and something sinister with an unpleasant laugh.