4th Armada Ghost Book

1972 saw Armada publish its 4th Ghost Book. Peter Archer was responsible for illustrating the book's cover and internal pages. This was the first of the Armada Ghost books to ditch the familiar running boy motif on the front cover Whilst the running boy motif

I love seeing the prices on old books -you could leave a bookstore with this little beauty having spent just 20p!

This is a delightful collection of stories with some genuine stand-out first-class spooky entries nestled amongst the lineup. It's great to see children introduced to the Master of the Macabre, M.R. James, who adds literary class to the ghoulish fayre with his tale The Haunted Doll's House. And I remember E.F. Benson's classic The Bus Conductor giving me the heeby-jeebies when I first read it as a child in my bedroom at night. This tale haunted me for a long while afterwards, adding to my reluctance to open my bedroom curtain at night to peek out into the dark! The tale was made famous by featuring in the 1945 portmanteau Ealing horror Dead of Night.

Just what I need...

... a new project to justify my collecting and give me something new to work on...

3rd Armada Ghost Book

1970, two years after their previous anthology, the 3rd Armada Ghost Book hit the bookshelves. This time, a new Captain had taken the helm - Mary Danby. 

Danby's name was to become synonymous with the ghostly Armada franchise over the next thirteen years. Much to their reader's delight, as well as curating the stories presented in the anthologies, she was also happy to include her own spooky outings amongst their number.

Peter Archer was the chosen illustrator for this third volume of ghost stories, and he did a sterling job - even keeping the now familiar running boy, crooked tree and flying agressor motifs on the cover artwork.

Archer also delivered the scariest story illustration so far in the series. Imagine laying in bed as a child reading scary stories and coming across this image! 

Out of the Blue

I do love it when a new project infatuates me out of the blue...

Caturday

The 2nd Armada Ghost Book

Armada were quick to follow the success of The Armada Ghost Book with the publication of The 2nd Armada Ghost book the following year.

Christine Bernard retook the helm as the ghost story compiler, but her choices in this second volume suggest this book might have been a bit of a rush job. The clue to the kind of tales required for this book was surely in the title. But Bernard's collection of far-flung tales appears as though cribbed from a possible alternate venture, and hemmed within the Armada Ghost Book franchise as a quick cash-grab after the popularity of the first in the series.

Whether Bernard's selection really was a misunderstanding of her brief, or she was annoyed the change of book title had made her anthologising skills look questionable and so turned down the offer of the third book, the lack of ghosts within the pages of this second book in the franchise did not go unnoticed and a new editor took the helm of the series for the third Armada Ghost Book...

Gino D'Achille's 'running boy' motif artwork kept the franchise's visuals on point, with the cover art appearing to depict the lad racing from a ferocious bat borne from the fiery pits of hell itself. Only when the book is flipped over to read the advertising blurb does the reader realise the location is actually an ancient graveyard with subsiding tombstones, set beneath a stormy blood-coloured sunset.

Armada Ghost Books

With my Seth's Christmas Ghost Stories up-to-date (it turns out the book I am waiting for doesn't reach these shores until May), I decided to grow the odd few Armada Ghost Books I have into a real collection. 

I will share them as I add each next volume in the series to my shelves, but I wanted to use today's post for the very first book in the series, which by 1978 came in two editions.

With the plume of ghostly anthologies being published in the gloriously creative 1960s, it was hardly a surprise when, in 1967 Armada produced a children's version of the great and hugely popular Fontana and Pan ghost story collections:

Whilst the collection was aimed squarely at older children, their covers promised genuine eerie content and their intended audience lapped them up with relish.

The Armada Ghost Book's cover featured a young lad racing from a huge and terrifying spectral lady in white. The whole scene is beautifully illustrated by artist Gino D'Achille with a suitably crooked tree and a ragged fat crow completing the front image: 

The rear cover continues the scene and introduces more crows and an archetypal haunted house in a stage of creepy disrepair. A sole light shines from a window beneath its tall tower and suggests the boy, has awakened something he oughtn't have whilst investigating the decrepit property. 

It's a great cover, and, to ensure a prospective reader purchases the book whilst browsing its pages in a bookshop, the artist was commissioned to illustrate several of the stories contained in the volume.

The book contains 11 eclectic tales and was a huge success for Armada, spawning another 14 entries in the series before concluding in 1983.

To blend the book seamlessly with its sequels, it was republished with a fresh reworking of the original cover art and a new title in 1978:

The book's contents, however, remained identical:

Lophophora

I couldn't resist purchasing one of these these rare sacred cacti plants from the garden centre today 🙂

Explore Gower - Faery folklore on the Gower Peninsula

Pwscat proof-reading my book

I unexpectedly booked a day off work today, and spent it completing the update to my Explore Gower book - The Verry Volk ~Faery folklore on the Gower Peninsula:

A Day in the Garden

 Today felt like the end of an era as I continued work dismantling our no-longer-needed chicken run.

It felt good to spend some time outside in the open air again and see the signs all around me that the horrible winter has finally passed.

My Chalice Well sycamores are really starting to come into their own now. I grew these three trees from seeds collected from Glastonbury many moons ago now:

Happy Budhha continues to smile no matter what circumstances he finds himself in - a guide for us all:

I caught this earthy fella mid-snack as I lifted him to his feet again after he'd spent the last winter face down in the soil:

It really was an enchanting afternoon, well spent in the rare Welsh sunshine!

#Caturday ~ 4 Paws & a Tail

 

Gower Ghosts.2

Well, what a cracking start to Spring! Day 1 and I have only gone and completed the update of the Explore Gower book - Gower Ghosts!

Purchases

Look what beauties arrived today:

 

Alluring Trees

These trees always catch my eyes whenever we drive home after picking my son from work. And now I can share the with you 🙂

Frustrating February

Whilst January 2025 seemed to last 80 days, Febbray seems like it lasted just 8 days. But what a frustrating 8 days they were.

The month started out well with Familiar, my last novel, getting published within the first week of February. Unfortunately, things kind of went downhill after that. 

Whilst I managed to complete one more creative project this month - the update and reissue of Guy N. Smith - 50 years of Pulp horror, it was not an easy edit and took three weeks of nightly configuration to get my original word doc aligning properly on the final book proof.

So, what is in store for March? 

March will (hopefully) see the republishing of x2 Explore Gower books, namely The Verry Volk and Gower Ghosts. It may also see me start work on the second edition of the Guy N. Smith zine. At the moment, I still don't know whether this volume will see the light of day as I don't think I have received enough content for it as of yet. With the deadline for contributions being the close of March, there is still time for an avalanche of contributions to reach me though. 

Whether the second Guy N Smith zine goes ahead or not, I will continue to get as much work done on my first ghost story, which was originally intended for that zine.

March will also see my first field trip of 2025. I won't be heading out far, just Parkmill, or more specifically, a field near the village where I have spotted some trees that have grown into and have been mutated by metal bars placed around their girths to protect them as saplings. These should hopefully provide for some interesting photography. 

So, by the end of the forthcoming month, The Verry Volk + Gower Ghosts should be be back on sale in superior manifestations, the bones of my first Christmas ghost story should be assembled, and I should have produced some nice pics of characteristic Gower trees. 

Watch this space to keep up with my progress on these and maybe other creative projects as we finally say goodbye to winter and take a welcoming step into the early Spring...