Here we will publish letters or stories from any contributors, just email yours and leave the rest to us.
We hope to publish a new item each week. Notifications of each new item will be added to the forum where we will be pleased to read your comments on these tales.
Our ferret, Seajunky has volunteered to start the ball rolling. We look forward to seeing more in the future
The lady in the floppy hat!
Many years ago I used to work on a golf course. One of my hobbies at that time was badger watching. Which sometimes meant being on the golf course at silly o’clock: It was one of those really warm summer nights that we used to get down south quite often. The ground was damp, and you know the way a river will steam sometimes when the air is cold, it was just like that on the golf course, it was all a bit eerie really, the mist stayed below waist height, so badger watching was out for the night, so a friend and I started on our way home at around 0230am We were walking along the side of a bit of a hill, and the mist was rolling down the hill, Very horror film like, we stood and watched it for a while feeling a bit cold by now, a shiver run down my neck and back. The moon was out which gave the mist an eerie glow. In the hedge row was a gap of some 30 yards or so, in the middle of the gap was just one solitary blackthorn bush. We was watching but not believing what we was seeing, it was a lady dressed in a very flared Victorian type dress, with a tight bodice, and a very large floppy brimmed hat, that rose at the front as she was walking very fast, almost on the verge of running. She appeared to be floating in the mist, we couldn’t see her feet. She passed behind the solitary blackthorn bush in the gap. She didn’t re-appear on the other side. Not feeling like investigating this, we made a very quick exit from the golf course. The tree was always referred to as the lady tree between us from then on. And this area was always given a very wide birth by us each and every time we went badger watching from then on.
Copyright Seajunky 2010
The one that got away.
Since I started this thread, I suppose had better add my piece, I have 2 great memories that will always stay with me. The first one was that I had booked my very first sea fishing trip, back in the early 70’s aboard a boat called the “Lady Sybil” skippered by Bill Wilkinson, (Wilky) at Margate in Kent, it was to be a 4 hour trip. It was in August, it was a very bright day, a bit windy. I had been to the local tackle shop and bought some bait, and hired a rod, or should I say broom handle, it had a winch fitted to it loaded with line that must of been 70 or 80 lb breaking strain line, through fear of maybe loosing a hook I suppose. I went down to the harbour and was told the forecast was for rising winds, and that the trip had been called off. The skipper could see how disappointed I was and invited me to fish off of the end of Margate pier, to save wasting my bait and rod hire. There was a bar at the end of the pier. So there I was catching the usual fish, mackerel, pouting, garfish, the odd whiting. The skipper came out of the pub, pint in hand to watch me fishing. I caught a pouting of about 1/2 a lb. He said leave it on as bait, and I might catch a bass. This I did, I just dropped it over the side of the pier, propped the rod against the railings and turned round to speak to the skipper when the butt of the rod hit me in the ass, I quickly picked up the rod, the line was screaming off of the reel, I didn’t know what to do so the skipper put his beer down and became my mentor, he leaned over and tightened up the clutch as tight as it would go, the line was still running off of the reel, so he told me to apply thumb pressure to both sides of the spool on the multiplier, this I did, it was still trying to pull the line off, I got blisters on both thumbs. This had been going on a while, and by now a crowd of people had formed, a guy was down at water level with a gaff. We hadn’t even seen the fish yet, it was making huge runs and taking back all the line that I had got back onto the reel. Not to drag this out to far the line snapped, this had been my very first serious sea fishing experience. Fish lost but what an experience. Bill Wilky became one of my best friends, and I started to work for him on his boat after that.
The story doesn’t finish there,
The very next day I was down at the harbour just having a look around when a small gill net boat came into the harbour with a fish laying across the gunnels’, it’s head was hanging over one side and it’s tail over the other side. It was a tope, it was 70lb, the record at the time for a rod caught tope I believe was about 50lb. And you guessed it, it had my hire tackle hanging from it’s mouth. I had hooked and lost a record tope on my very first sea fishing trip.
I sometimes wonder who hooked who, did I hook the fish? or did the fish hook me? 
Copyright Seajunky 2010
O no it’s a dead body
The wife an I went fishing to Shoreham harbour, we had set up on the beach, it was a lovely still night, very calm, and we were getting bites straight away, mainly from flatties. When out of the corner of my eye I saw a hand sticking up out of the water. O my god it’s a dead body. The hand was blueish, as it would be if it had been in the water for any length of time, so one would imagine anyway. I couldn’t reach it, it was just too far out, The wife kept saying lets call the police, she kept saying it. And for once I stood my ground and insisted that we would call them in a minute when we get the body out of the water, by now she was half a mile up the beach. The current very slowly moved the body more inshore, closer and closer it came, until at last I could reach it with the tip of my rod. I tried to ease it towards me, it moved towards me, I could almost reach it now, Very slowly it moved towards me. I put my rod back on the beach and waded out I could now reach it, as I got hold of it there was no weight to it, I lifted the blue marigold glove out of the water. Air had been trapped inside of the glove making it float in a very menacing way; we often have a laugh about that to this day.
Copyright Seajunky 2010
Well, here we go, the second in the saga of tales from Seajunky.
The black dog Inn
Just after the hurricane hit the south of England in 1987, Geraldine and I had booked a holiday in Dorset. We had been out for a run out down to Lullworth Cove. We sat in the car park right next to the beach. The sea was still extremely rough; it was still so windy that we could feel it trying to pick the car up, it was battering the car quite badly. Some of the houses on Portland Bill still had sand bags against their front doors, and these houses were a good 100 feet above sea level. But with the wind blowing the sea high in the air it was travelling up hill and flooding the houses as it run back down.
We were making our way home and we decided to pop into a pub which is fairly close to our lodgings. By now it was really raining as well. As we entered the pub just imagine the site that greeted up, a huge log fire in an inglenook fire place, laying on the floor in front of the fire was a great big lazy black Labrador, and laying on him was a big fat ginger cat, they both lifted their heads as we walked in and lay back down, and apart from us and the animals the pub was empty. I said to the wife to site down by the fire to get warm as I made my way over to the bar. The landlord appeared from a back room behind the bar, and he greeted us by saying, good lord customers. He went on to explain because of the weather it had been very quiet. I asked for a pint of the locally brewed beer, and a drink for the wife. I asked him about the pubs unusual name “The Black Dog” He smiled and then he asked if we would mind if he poured himself a drink and joined us by the fireside, we of course said that he would be most welcome. He then started to tell us about how back in the 17th century the pub was very popular with the Dorset smugglers, who used to meet at the pub before and after any skulduggery that was going on. Under the pub there had been a long tunnel dug, this was used to enter and leave the pub unobserved, it came up about 250 yards from the pub behind a hedge row. The entrance is still there but it is barred up. As he was telling us this story, the wind was howling outside , and the rain was lashing against the windows of the pub, the landlord got a pipe out of his pocket and slowly packed it with tobacco and lit it, the smoke was sucked towards and disappeared up the chimney. (You could smoke in the pubs back in those days) Anyway One day the customs men had been tipped off about the men using the pub, and what they got up to. And even in those days would you believe it, they had sniffer dogs, they were trained to sniff out tobacco and booze. The customs men had caught some of the men from the pub, then one day the customs men found the tunnel, and put their sniffer dog to work. Well the dog run the full length of the tunnel and came up in the pub, the smugglers got hold of the dog and killed it by chopping its head off. The windows rattled in their frames, At this point in the story he asked us to walk over to the window and look outside. There was an emergency run off, like you would have at the bottom of a big hill, (I think they call it an escape ramp, for when your brake fail) well the road outside the pub was dead flat; we sat back down by the fire. The landlord went on to explain that even to this day cars keep swerving to miss a headless black dog that runs across the road in front of the cars just outside of the pub, and its always in the same place. And sometimes on a still night the sound of a howling dog from deep under the pub can be heard.
Copyright Seajunky 2010