7/29/2019 Gubberamunda Ghost http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/gubberamunda-ghost 1/3 Sunday Mail (Brisbane) (Qld. : 1926 - 1954), Sunday 5 January 1941, page 2 National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98252371 ? Ghosts of ? Queensland-No. 1 IN spite of its bare century of white history Queensland admits to a number of ghost stories a sprinkmg at most which can lay any respectable claim to rival those of less recent communities. Because, no doubt of architectural limitations our ghosts find it difficult to compare in blood with the restless which go clanking their chains up and down the stairways, or strolling headless along the moonlit midnight corridors, of the old Because the ghost of Gub beramunda, of all our Queens land apparitions, provided a certain continuty of appearance and because a judge of the Supreme Court once bent his august mentality to an attempted solution of its mysteries, we must accord it pride of place. On the score of alliteration alone It must be conceded that the Ghost of Gubberamunda starts this series with certain advantages over other ghosts which have haunted town and bush In Queensland. The title has the genuine smack of necro m an ti c a ut he nt ic it y. The story of the Little Old Woman to Grey coming down to us out of the seventies under such a delightfully ghoulish title might have been ex pected to survive to better-known extent than is the case in this generation of Queenslanders. So evil are the days upon which our ghosts are fallen that the Ghost of Gubberamunda proves not even to be known to a direct de scendant of the Lalor family who owned the property upon which was the hill where the cottage stoods through which the ghost prowled. However, this member of that family which has had an uninterrupted ownership of Gubberamunda since it was taken up about 80 years ago has forsaken the ways of the bush these many years. However, the Lalors who remain on Gubberamunda to this day know about the Uttle old Woman in Grey, even if the spot where she was wont to materialise is no l on ge r p ar t of Gubberamunda. Gubberamunda in the seventies was a much larger property than it it Is to-day. Its area then was about 500 sauare miles and its gates came almost to R om a. Nowa days, what with pastoral re sumptions, closer settlement, and. other signs of progress, the sates sumptions, closer settlement, and. other signs of progress, the sates would be about 20 miles from Roma and the area but a fraction of its once spreading domain. Although suspense is the first and most important requisite in the telling of any ghost story it might be as well if. without further pre amble, a short allusion was made to the circumstances In which the Gubberamunda ghost mani fested itself. THE story begins with an ageing and eccentric couple named Bonnor who built a four-roomed weatherboard cottage and kitchen on the hill behind the Roma hospital at a p oin t just inside the boundary fence of the farthest out paddock of Mr. James Lalor's big property. There is little that can be learnt of Bonnor except that he was a carpenter. He had followed, this and other bush occupations and had probably done a considerable amount of work for the Lalor family, for they appear willingly to have allowed him to erect his cottage on their property. It is with Bormor's wife that the story is principally concerned. She attracted the attention of all. Even in the seventies when strangely at t ir ed c ha ra ct er s were more fre ouently encountered in the bush than to-day she was a conspicuous figure. Contemporaries have left on re cord that she was never dressed otherwise than in a grey frock of a design and texture belonging to a day much earlier than the seventies. She wore over this a grey three-cornered shawl pulled tightly about her shoulders. Another peculiarity was that she would neither greet nor return the salutations of those she met in her trips to and from the town. Her habitual air was strangely ab trips to and from the town. habitual air was strangely ab stract. Beyond these character istics there was nothing that sug gested the part she was to play in the experience and legend of the district. THE Bonnors lived in the house on the hill for years. Without explana tion they suddenly disappeared, and the subsequent investi gation failed to provide a hint of their whereabouts or a clue as to either the manner of their leaving Roma or their intended destination. The house on the hill stood de serted for some time, and not even the most imaginative or nervy resi dent of Roma r ep or te d a ny th in g untoward about it. No noise save that of the wind in the trees that grew about the house or the flap of a loose shingle broke the still ness of the night that wrapped the Bonnors'. home. Mention was made later of a grey cat which either had been aban doned by the Bonnors or had wan dered to the house on the hill and found an abiding place beneath the flooring. Not even the most credu lous, however, were able seriously to suggest that this member of the cat family, which has always been such a recognised ieature of witch craft and grisly legend, was any thing more significant than a domestic cat gone shy and wild. In the course of time the cottage on Gubberamunda was occupied by a family named Johnson, the head of which was a saddler with a busi ness in Roma. When telling of what happened in the cottage John son, his wife, and their surviving children stated that they were never happv or comfortable during the time they lived there. There was something creepy and unnerving about the cottage on dark nights, a strange feeling that someone or something lurked, always watching, but never dis
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