The Boy Who Was Late

Late as in delayed or late as in dead? In one of his Random Recollections RL Ashcroft mentions the myth of 'The Boy Who Was Late," whose ghostly footsteps were sometimes to be heard running across the Quad to the Chapel.

Terrace in the dark

At the weekend I was told that Colin Cobb (staff 1940 - 84) was once outside the chapel on an empty Quad when his dog became very disturbed and Mr Cobb thought he heard running feet on the supposed route of the 'Late' boy, down the centre of the Quad and off to the cloisters.

I have theological views about ghosts (or the lack of them), but there is an interesting theory of 'place memory,' which I found in a small pamphlet about his work written by one of the Cowley Fathers who was an exorcist.

Place Memory is a fairly common experience as when we go into a church and say 'this feels prayed-in,' or less spiritually, 'it is peaceful,' a remark written countless times in church visitor books. Similarly a place which has known bad things can have a lingering 'atmosphere.' I remember the sense of emptiness I felt when I visited Dachau concentration camp many years ago. Place memory can be redeemed, as seems to be the case in many of the cemeteries over which Sir Reginald Blomfiled's (E 1869) Cross of Sacrifice stands.

Maybe the Boy who is Late is a form of place memory, and one I guess that has faded with the decline in seriousness of punishment for those who are late. There is another possible example of this associated with Haileybury. More soon.