Gibraltar - Place, History and Ghosts

 Image byjunko-214956/ on Pixabay

What is it about ghost stories that seem to be so rooted in a place and its history? 

I found myself pondering this as I was jotting down a quick note of a conversation I had with an elderly chap at the bus stop one morning last week. He had been telling me that as a young man he had been working in one of Gibraltar's tunnels and had heard footsteps walk by him when he thought he was on his own; his companion had gone to fetch some more water for the two of them while they completed their task. His response had been to look along the tunnel in the direction the receding footsteps were heading.

Phoro by DariuszSankowski- on Pixabay

"I expected to see one of the team of workers there," he said, "and I did see someone. And it was dark, so I couldn't quite make out who it was, but there was a man and by his ankles I could see a small dog. I couldn't move, because  I was scared, because I had heard that there was a ghost in the tunnels, the ghost of a soldier and his dog. And I also heard that if you follow him, he will lead you deep into the tunnels and you get lost and that's it,  no-one will find you and you die."

A ghost soldier and his dog. A well-known local ghost tale, as is the Grey Lady of the Convent, the wailing babies walled up in various buildings, angry officers in Princes Caroline Battery, Landport Tunnel and the Gibraltar Museum, hooded figures around the old St Bernard's Hospital, and various military types lurking in graveyards, tunnels, caves and parks around the Rock - just to name a few. There's also supposed to be a child-devouring demon in one of the caves somewhere on the northern end of the Upper Rock.

Since I was already pondering on why ghost stories seem to hold such an important place for humanity across the world and across time, it was an easy step to consider what ghost stories tell us about a place, its history and its people. I wonder if the ghosts of a place reflect the times, events and the state of mind of the people of a particular place?

Imaeg by Bruce Bouley on Pixabay

After all, having lived in Kent many years, I had heard tales of galloping Templar knights by the banks of the Medway by Strood, marching Roman soldiers that disappear through brick walls, headless horsemen chasing runaway carriages through the woodlands near Luddestown, dead drummer boys in the Napoleonic forts, ghost ships appearing at the foot of cliffs in storms, a whole variety of weeping Victorian widows lurking in old churchyards, mad monks near Rochester Cathedral, vicious beadles in the old workhouse buildings, and the rumbling of a Spitfire, the wailing of a siren and the sound of the boots of ghostly airmen at an old airfield. All of these could be linked to the events in the past of the places where they were purported to manifest.

Gibraltar not only  has a rich military history, but it has been the scene of much conflict and suffering. Ghosts of unhappy soldiers - such as the ghost of a lovelorn soldier, persecuted for his forbidden love for another man that is supposed to haunt the Alameda gardens - are perhaps bound to be encountered. Anger, mistrust, deception, violent deaths whether in war or through execution, murder or other killings, are phenomena always present in places where there have been wars fought, where violent people are put together in close proximity in difficult circumstances. Gibraltar under British occupation was full of soldiers and sailors. Recruitment to the British military a couple of centuries ago was often enforced, and were also a place that would absorb the country's criminals. The men were trained to violence, brutalised by their officers and dehumanised by the conflicts they had endured. Rape was a commonly used weapon of war - and still is - and would have happened in Gibraltar. Theft and cheating would also have been commonplace among both the military and the civilian population, leading to deeply disturbing emotions and probably violent encounters. And with so many drinking establishments (ghosts in military attire are also reputed to haunt the sites of many of Gibraltar's pubs), alcohol fueled violence and deaths were many. Gibraltar's military ghosts readily reflect these aspects of Gibraltar's history.

Disease was also a  major feature of Gibraltar's history. As a busy port for  much of its history, disease would have readily entered the city through its regular contact with the rest of the world, as did yellow fever during the eighteenth century. A stroll through Trafalgar Cemetery will soon reveal graves of people who died of fever. Epidemics have been well-documented and there have been isolation hospitals in Gibraltar since the sixteenth century at the very least. Many people living in close quarters in hot conditions with poor hygiene also resulted in cholera epidemics. Childbirth was dangerous, natural infant mortality high and the numerous sieges would have meant many deaths from injury, disease and famine. And we should not neglect to mention that port cities with a garrison would have had its contingency of prostitutes and a prevalence of venereal disease.

First Isolation Hospital in Gibraltar

As mentioned in my previous post, Gibraltar also has its share of religious ghosts which relates to the power of the Catholic church in Gibraltar through the Spanish occupation. Religious observances and superstitions also gave rise to rather unhappy ghosts, from baby-murdering nuns to love-lorn novices forced to die for their 'sins', and the hooded figures of cruel monks that disturb the nights of those living near places like the old St Bernard's Hospital.

One of Gibraltar's many caves

And a final word on the child-munching demon of the Upper Rock. That classic came at me from my friend's mother's greataunt. Why was that generation (this woman was already old in the 1960's) so keen to terrify kids with stories like: "there's a demon living in those caves up there and it likes nothing better than to dine on the limbs of children who don't eat their greens"? I still hate cabbage and avoid it, but then, neither have I ever really ventured up into those caves! Anyway, Gibraltar had been an important place for the Phoenicians, that great sea-faring civilization. Phoenician artifacts are still being found in Gibraltar's caves and it appears that these were being used as places of worship for their gods. 

And it just so happens that one of the Phoenician gods is Melquart, a powerful god identified with Hercules (Gibraltar is one of the Pillars of Hercules -  the connection grows!) and he was also associated with the sea, with cities and with commerce. He was also son of Baal or El, the supreme god of the Phoenicians and a god of the underworld. I can see the link with the cave. There is another point here that might link the worship of Melquart - or other Phoenician gods - to the demon of the caves of Gibraltar's Upper Rock, and that is that there appears to be growing evidence, other than stories from the ancient Greeks and Romans, that the Phoenician's practised child sacrifice. (Might be worth eating those greens after all!)

Votive figure of Melquart from https://www.ancient.eu/Melqart/

This all points me to the conclusion that herein lies the importance of stories to a place and to the continuously evolving identity of a people. Ghost stories are one form, one genre of stories, one way of exploring places and events, and a particularly effective way of examining emotions, feelings and the way of thinking of people during a particular period or epoch. There must have been a time when local parents tried their best to avoid their children being selected to be sacrificed to their god. The sexual strength of young women was controlled by Gibraltar's patriarchy through terrifying tales of walled-up women and dead babies (not to mention that human remains found during building refurbishment indicate the truth behind these legends). The horror of torture and execution and the seeking of justice, the permanent human struggle between good and evil and search for understanding of what is meant by morality, are all present in ghost stories, not least in Gibraltar's ghost stories.

And this, the stories of our people, in all their ghastly, grim and tortured forms, is why it is so important for Gibraltar to learn about its ghosts.