The Borley Rectory Incident by Terrance Dicks

I bought this book at the last library book sale because it’s written by an author who is better known for his Doctor Who books, I just wanted to know what other sorts of things he is writing. If you don’t know the background of Borley Rectory you can read about it here.

It was a very quick read indeed, I think it’s aimed at kids of about 8 or 10 years of age, so I’m going to be passing it on to my great-nephews who I think will enjoy it.

As it says in the blurb at the back, Borley Rectory used to be known as the most haunted house in England, until it burned down in 1939. I believe you can still go and see the remains of it.

Matt’s parents split up when he was still in nappies and he didn’t see much of his father over the years but when Matt’s mother died when he was only 12 and then 3 years of being brought up by an aunt, his father Professor Stirling had to do the decent thing at last and take responsibilty for his son. The professor is doing research in the paranormal and has taken his son on as an assistant.

They’re investigating the mysterious deaths of at least 12 important people in the last 6 months – senior politicians, top civil servants, scientists and the like. Meanwhile Matt is having strange nightmares and it turns out that they are all about Borley Rectory.

Seeing as Terrance Dicks is known for writing science fiction it should have come as no surprise to me that it turned out to be aliens at the bottom of it all.

So no spooks, which is a bit sad really but apparently most of the spooky goings on at the real Borley Rectory had been manufactured by a young naughty girl and also a very naughty wife who used the ghostly tales to cover up the fact that she was having an affair.

Such is life! Does anybody have any real spooky experiences?

4 thoughts on “The Borley Rectory Incident by Terrance Dicks

  1. I’m disappointed it wasn’t a real ghost story. Aliens, eh? I’m not very interested in aliens. I love those old ghost stories. The current TV shows about ghost hunters are uniformly disappointing, though. Maybe there aren’t any ghosts after all except in books!

    • Joan,
      I thought it was going to be a ghost story too but obviously Terrance Dicks sticks to science fiction. We have TV real ghost hunting programmes which are screamingly funny, but they aren’t meant to be. I’ve known a few people who claim to have seen ghosts. If you’re interested in ghost fiction I think Susan Hill’s ghost stories are supposed to be good but I haven’t read any.

  2. Hello Katrina

    I was just going to mention Susan Hill – and you had already! I have been looking for good, kind of old fashioned ghost stories and found Susan Hill, I can recommend them, I have read The Woman in Black and (I think it was called) The Small Hand. They would not keep you awake at night, more chillingly engrossing! But if you can recommend any other authors it will be appreciated.
    No real life ghost stories here – but my garden does back onto a graveyard – and its covered in mist this morning…………

    • Michelle,
      Ooh! The dead centre of town! I’m a bit strange because I really like graveyards, especially if they’re old, they’re so interesting. Thanks for the Susan Hill info. I’m sure that I know of another good ghost story writer but can’t think of the name at the moment. It’ll come to me sometime.

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