Island Life - April/May 2011
Photos:
Gay age 6 at Whippingham School 1960
Gay's lifelong fascination for
the Island's ghostly goings-on
Gay Baldwin thinks she once saw a
time I don’t know whether it happened
ghost, but she is not absolutely sure.
or I just imagined it. But I would like to
what is generally reckoned to be the
She was just a toddler living at the
think it was a great granny or someone
most haunted area on the Island, the
family home in Walsall when a little old
who came to see me.”
site of the Knighton Gorges – a place
lady dressed in black appeared in front
of her.
Whatever the explanation, which will
Her most recent publication spotlights
where cars inexplicably break down and
never be resolved, Gay believes that
strange creatures are spotted on top
was possibly how her fascination for
of two decaying stone pillars that were
less clear – was it a ghost, or was it
the paranormal came about. Over the
once part of the imposing gateway to
part of the fantasy world of a then
past 35 years or so that fascination
the Elizabethan manor house, which
four-year-old? She said: “I honestly
has escalated to such heights that Gay
has long since disappeared.
don’t remember much about it, but I
has published no fewer than eight
have been told there was this little old
books centred on spooky sightings and
different from her others in as much
lady who sat in our kitchen which I
experiences of people living all across
that it focuses just on Knighton Gorges
could see, and talked to. After all this
the Isle of Wight.
rather than dealing with stories from
Over the years memories have become
30
Her latest publication is slightly
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