Holy ghoulies! As Halloween (31 Oct) looms, Adrian Gillan unearths some homo-hauntings…

It’s hard to tell a gay ghost - since they don’t all have limp wrists, frequent designer stores or hold their own Pride marches! Yet there are just as many gay ghosts as there are gay people - possibly more! And even though being gay has historically caused many an untimely angst or end, homophobic taboos have also suppressed many a “phantom fag” story. But not these…

• Popo Bawa – Legend has it, this horny male spirit tries to have his wicked way with unsuspecting fellows on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar in East Africa, as they lie in bed indoors at night; prompting some to sleep it rough outside instead. Some suspect Popo is now in league with the soul of the island’s most famous, yet oft locally-vilified, son - Freddy Mercury!
• Montgomery Clift – The gay big screen star allegedly haunts the ninth floor of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in LA where he stayed during the filming of the 1953 classic From Here to Eternity. Apparently, he just wonders endlessly around the corridors going over and over his lines!
• Bishop Atherton – This 17th Century Bishop of Waterford in South East Ireland lived with his male warden-cum-lover, but was outed by a disgruntled neighbour over a land dispute, thereby going to the gallows in Dublin Castle on 5th December 1640 - only to return to haunt his exposer, who himself went insane, ending his days in a lunatic asylum!
• Ladies of Llangollen – These two Irish lesbians eloped and relocated to Wales in the late 1700s, becoming darlings of the local aristocratic set; and are still spied – always by men, and for some reason always on Christmas Eve - in their old home in Llangollen, dressed in male clothing of the day, as was their custom!
• Lord Byron – Some claim to have encountered the iconic bi romantic at Torkard Church, Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire where he’s buried - the poet sidling up to visitors, regaling them of the wild parties he used to throw there!
• Oscar Wilde – Youthful Oscar’s supposedly spotted in and around his old student haunt, Magdalen College in Oxford – either on a uni balcony, in his old digs or even on the River Cam, punting!
• Mother Clap’s Molly House – The notorious 18th Century gay sex club and brothel in London was raided in February 1726, many of those caught going to the gallows. Locals swear a faint and flickering image of men fleeing down a long-gone road near its former site, now the Holborn Viaduct, can be seen every night around midnight - especially during cold Februarys!

Adrian Gillan