31 October 2002

Brampton Railway Station isn’t actually in Brampton. Quite sensibly, it was built near the village of Milton. That sensibleness was good enough for us at least, because this way it’s nearer the village of Talkin, which happens to be our almost-final destination. We were in fact headed to Talkin Tarn, a Country Park only a mile from Talkin.

It is said that in August of this year, in broad daylight, and witnessed by 23 people, a bloody apparition emerged from the lake. We’d heard that the story made the front page of the local paper. And it was because of this that we were arriving at Brampton Railway Station, 15 minutes late, on the Newcastle to Carlisle train at 19:45, on Halloween, 2002.

The countryside is dark at night. There are no streetlights, traffic lights, or road markings. Only a network of narrow roads wind around in the wilds of the Cumbrian wilderness. Our taxi driver, complete with his drawling western accent, drove these roads fast, there is no need for caution, for nobody uses these roads, except the occasional lost townie that wanders in circles looking for villages with names like Little Horn or Windy Nook.

Surprisingly, the taxi-driver hadn’t read the story about the apparition, however, he had seen a UFO. He described seeing a green beachball shaped flying object land in a field beyond the road when driving these very roads. He drove on. On the way back, he saw figures in ‘spacesuits’ holding an umbrella-type device by the roadside. While it wasn’t a ghost story, it definitely put in our minds that more odd things happen in these parts than in our native cities. There are the hundreds of square miles of uninhabited fields, forest, and small roads. There are no streetlights, the sky is clear, and it’s very dark. Even if were are no ghosts, fairies, big cats or UFOs, the countryside still has a dark and creepy feeling about it.

With these thoughts we arrived at the Hare & Hounds pub and B&B in Talkin, and bundled ourselves in. The village is probably only home to about 100 people, and there are plenty of pubs to choose from for the locals. It’s quite possible our arrival was eagerly awaited, because the pub was bustling with people wanting to catch a glimpse of the Strangers. Perhaps news of our ghost hunt had appeared in the local paper, because everybody seemed well informed of what we were up to.

The pub itself was at least 300 years old. There is no need to look at the architecture to confirm this; it was only necessary to walk around on the first floor. With the floor not being most sturdy thing in the world, I would imagine it was designed for a race of smaller, lighter people, for when fairies ruled the wilds of Cumbria. In our rooms we unpacked our things, and re-packed only those things that would be needed. My new flask took 3 kettles to fill up, but I gave up after the second.

I was well prepared with tea, milk, pasta and a wrapped cake. I had waterproofs and plenty of warm clothing as well, and all of this went into my backpack which weighed about 16lbs in all. I might have been carrying 10% of my bodyweight, but at least I wasn’t going to go hungry in this dark place. Kenco however, had no intention of carrying any more than a fraction of his bodyweight, and decided he didn’t need any food or hot drinks. There is no sense in being able to move faster, if you can’t eat. I decided I would point this out to him in about 2 days time, when we were lost and hungry, and wandering in giant circles and kept tripping over strange piles of stones, but I’d keep quiet for now.

‘Where do you want dropped off?’, asked our taxi driver. ‘Nowhere’, I thought - this place was a lot darker than the road. The car park was a large dark clearing surrounded by trees. In fact, this also served as the camp site and the caravan park. Surprisingly, for the middle of winter, nobody was doing either of things this night. We ventured out of the taxi and into the darkness of the forest. Having visited Talkin Tarn the previous week, we had a good idea of the layout of the place. But that didn’t stop us becoming disoriented from after about 30 seconds. The car park was nowhere near the tea room, so before we were able to get a feeling of the place we were already on the track headed towards our base – a undercover pavilion from which provided us some shelter from the drizzle, and where we could see the lake.

At this time, the lake, the forest and sky were all various shades of black, but nonetheless were easily distinguishable. Even so, it was dark. The forest was the darkest and most intimidating of the three things, but the noise of it was drowned out by the lapping of the lake, which was actually very noisy. This made things worse because it made it more difficult to hear anything that might come out of the forest. The forest surrounded us, it was dark. There could have been anything, or anyone, in it. I wasn’t looking at the lake, I was looking in to the forest behind us, and trying to listen for footsteps or voices. I was paranoid that other people were in this forest behind us. Surely they couldn’t be up to any good. Although a lot of the forest noise was drowned out by the lake-noise, there was still a fair amount of noise coming from it. There were definitely owls and foxes here. The ducks were also making quite a lot of noise, and sometimes could be mistaken for a barking noise.

To the left of us, in amongst the forest, I saw a flash. It was probably a camera flash, and was no more than 50 meters away. But who was taking pictures, and why? And what were they taking pictures of? The flash was too far away to be aimed at us. Perhaps it was a villager trying to scare us. A short time later, a car drove into the car park – we could make this out from the headlights. A door slammed, and the car revved up and drove off. This road goes only to Talkin Tarn’s car park. Who was in this car? Who were they dropping off? And where were they going? There were now at least two other parties in the forest – on both sides of us. I was keeping a careful watch on the forest in the direction of the car park. I was certain somebody was going to emerge out of the forest.

We had been shining torches around so much we were lit up like a lighthouse, so there would be no doubt to anyone in the area where we were. We hadn’t been there for more than 30 minutes and we weren’t alone. They knew we were there, and exactly where we were.

This thought scared me and everybody else silly. We turned our torches off for a while. Rob wanted to stay put, but I wanted to move out on the theory that we were safer if they didn’t know where we were. And the 2-mile circumference of the lake was plenty-dark for this purpose. And so we headed off – in the direction of the flash, rather than the car park. I decided to stay at the back and I was absolutely convinced someone was behind us in the forest so I was constantly scanning the area with my torch.

The path ran very close to the edge of the lake. After a while, we had entered, and left the forest at the other side. The forest was now between us and our home base at the pavilion. To the left us was empty fields. At least the forest kept us undercover, but now we were exposed to whatever was out there in the dark wilds. This was certainly the part of the park with the darkest atmosphere. I had expected the forest to be the creepiest part, but actually, this open space was far worse. Everybody has images of dark places where you just don’t want to be. This was one. It was open, wild and dark. To make it worse, Rob made up a story about townies going missing at Talkin Tarn.

There was a hut by the waterside. To be in dark, wild place is one thing. But to know that it is, or was once habited makes it worse. Wild places are fine, as long as nobody is there. I was keen to keep moving. We were approaching the well-lit Tarn End Hotel, which is approximately half way around the lake from where we were at the pavilion, and the path had re-entered the forest. We decided to find a place to sit down and have a cup of tea. Unfortunately the seats were wet due to the drizzle, and so we continued along the lake’s circular path.

Being closer to the light, and away from the Wilds, I was feeling better. The forest was less dense here, and continuing along the path we re-entered the forest and eventually reached our pavilion. At this point we were all feeling much happier, and for some reason, the whereabouts of the other people didn’t seem to bother us anymore. I can only put this down to the cold affecting my mind, because thinking about it afterwards, other people creeping around in the forest is an extremely worrying thing.

Our second trip around the lake started at just after midnight. I surprised that it was much darker now and it was more difficult to distinguish between the lake, the forest and the sky. This trip was uneventful, being basically the same as the first, except in the opposite direction. The Wilds area was a lot darker. I realised that the Wilds are the only the point where you can’t see either the lights from the Pavilion or the hotel. Kenco kept stopping because he thought he could hear voices. I couldn’t make out voices, but I could hear a noise like horses galloping. I was pleased to re-enter the forest.

Back at the pavilion, we had about an hour before we were due to head back to our B&B. After sitting for a while, I noticed a light in the forest to the right of us. Rob could also see a similar light on the other side of the lake. The light disappeared after less than a minute. I was too fixated on the light to our right to see the one across the lake, but once again, I was sure that somebody else was out there. Rob thought the lights were car headlights, but I was unsure about that.

At about 1.20am, Rob wanted to walk the lake a third time. At this time, it was even darker than earlier. The lake, forest and sky was practically indistinguishable, and I wasn’t keen on re-entering the Wilds in this light. I was pleased that John didn’t want to walk the lake either. Rob suggested he and Kenco walk it together, but in the end they didn’t. I assume each of them have a part of the Talkin Tarn that they hold in the same fear as I do with the Wilds. At 1.40am, Rob suggested walking the lake again. I suspect his mind was suffering from the cold, because both previous times it had taken us well over 45 minutes to cover the distance, and that was in much better light, and we had a taxi booked to take us the distance back to the B&B at Talkin.

With only 10 minutes to go, we were all feeling much happier. Kenco suggested that the car we heard at the beginning of the night may have been picking somebody up, rather than dropping them off. I was sure he was right.

At 2am, we headed back to the car park. Interestingly, a car was parked there. We were eager to know whether there was anyone inside it. There obviously was, as the windows were steamed up. The car must have arrived while we were on our second trip, because we would have surely heard it and seen it, and may well have had something to do with the lights we saw.

To see four dark figures emerge from the forest at 2am was probably very scary indeed. Figures emerging from the forest was exactly what I was scared of. But, at the time I wasn’t thinking of that. I asked everyone to turn their torch off – we couldn’t be seen in the car park without them – but John insisted on shining it around, which was seriously annoying me. I hadn’t survived the flashes, lights and the Wilds to be run down by a Cumbrian Charva in his Fiesta.

Our trip to Talkin Tarn was actually a great experience. It was really the possibility of other people there that scared me more than the prospect of ghosts, although the Wilds area had an extremely dark feeling about it.

Andy Markwell (2002)