The Grinning Ghost of Mount Gambier: Ghosts of the South Coast Part IV

Ghosts of the South Coast

Part IV

The Grinning Ghost of Mount Gambier

  In 1937 Mount Gambier was a bustling town, Adelaide's second biggest city, a tourist hotspot, and plagued by a ghost!

Chronicle Thursday 24 June 1937, page 46

  Endless reports over a few weeks were being filed with the local police of a ghost running amok on Mount Gambier's streets. Women were fainting at the sight of it, men were running away scared and the Police had very little to go on. The ghost seemed to magically disappear in the presence of the police.

Descriptions of the ghost claim that it was totally white from head to toe, with glowing yellow eyes and a large grin.

 A rumour also sprung up around the town at one point that the ghost had been captured and hidden away in the local Police cells. the police, who had yet to witness the ghost, denied these claims and stated they did not have the facilities to keep a ghost.

Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW  1888 - 1954)
 Thursday 24 June 1937, page 5

  Two men had an interesting encounter with the Mount Gambier ghost. When walking past the local primary school at 2am one morning, one of the men felt someone tap him on the shoulder. When he turned to see who had tapped him, he saw the grinning ghost staring back at him.

  He and his friend panicked and bolted down the road as fast as they could. They soon gained their wits and courage and returned to the primary school to investigate, where they saw the ghost, who also saw them. The ghost leapt over a fence and ran away from the men!

Town Hall - photo by Allen Tiller

  The men, thinking of outsmarting the ghost, ran around the outside of the school to the front gates, where it seemed their ghostly attacker would be heading. They were in luck!
 As the ghost turned the corner to exit the school, one of the men made to grab him, the ghost startled, turned and ran back the way he had come!

The two men ran to the local police station and awoke the constable there to tell him of the ghostly sighting, but it was now too late to capture him as he had fled the scene....or simply vanished...

  The two men got a very good description of the ghost, which they said looked like a man wearing a woman’s dress over his head, tied off around his waist.

Another person, this time a woman, was found unconscious in Grey-Street later that week. When awoken and questioned she said the ghost had surprised her when it touched her on the shoulder, she had fainted and didn't know anymore.

Another police search ensued, but again, the ghost had vanished.

Things got a little more dangerous when a local minister reported that he had been awoken during the night in his house when the ghost had been watching him through his window. He silently pulled out his gun, and shot towards the ghost, wounding it!

After this final encounter with a religious man, the ghost fled into the night, and never returned again!

© 2013 Allen Tiller