February 12, 2008
A Haunting in The Booter
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Rosy, St. Andrews, Scotland, September 1994
This occurrence happened in September of 1994 when I was at senior Boarding
School in Scotland. Having spent four years at the junior school, it was
time for me to move up into the senior part of the school. While my parents
and I were traveling to the start of the new school term (we lived in
Africa), we were all talking about the numerous ghosts that were said to
haunt the school houses and surrounding area. As many of you will know, St.
Andrews has more than just golf!
I told my Dad that about 250 years ago our Boarding houses used to be the
homes of very wealthy people and they had slaves who lived on the bottom
floor. This was in fact true as history dictates. Once we had arrived and
were greeted by my new House Mistress, we began the long task of unpacking,
which took time! Half way through the process, one of the senior girls in my
house said that she would take me down to the "booter" which was an area
where all our sports equipment was kept in lockers. Down we went and once we
got there I was shown my locker and started to put my equipment inside.
Throughout this task I was aware of a strange smell but put it down to the
fact that it was perhaps someone's dirty socks or old hockey sticks! From
time to time I kept glancing up at the senior girl and sniffing as if to
imply to the scent but she was unaware of the smell and perhaps thought I
was odd. After about 10 minutes the girl left the booter and went next door
which was the laundry room. I then heard this strange scrapping noise, which
sounded like metal grinding on metal, but it was quite faint. The smell
became really strong and I then placed it to a Scottish soup called Cullen
Skink, which is like a fish chowder soup. Once the girl returned, I told her
about the smell and noise and she said, "The less said about this, the
better."
Several weeks later I found out about a story which I don't know if genuine
or not regarding a little slave boy who was chained to the kitchen until he
could make proper soup instead of boiled fish. Over the next years I spent
at school my friends and I never went down to the booter alone and also did
our laundry in pairs! There are many more stories about my time at school.
