In the final of our current series of Ghost Stories from the Ventnor area, Gay Baldwin takes a stroll down to the Botanic Gardens and chat with curator, Simon Goodenough. Ed
And It Still Goes On
Simon Goodenough doesn’t believe in ghosts. A sceptic of the supernatural, he was sure the tales of hauntings at the old hospital were just ridiculous … until he met the ghost of a long-dead patient.
With a scientific background and 12 years at Kew Gardens behind him, Simon took over as curator at Ventnor Botanic Gardens in 1985. With Deb, his wife, who is also an expert in horticulture, and a staff of gardeners and workmen, Simon transformed the former hospital gardens into a renowned centre of botanic excellence.
After just two weeks at Ventnor, Simon and Deb began to experience things they couldn’t explain – silly little things – but puzzling all the same. The couple went into the new temperate house to check their plants and found both doors had been locked behind them – although the only set of keys was in Simon’s pocket.
The open hospital wards where patients ‘enjoyed’ the bracing sea air, winter and summer, were converted into potting sheds. Here, seeds, cuttings, young plants and the gardens’ index file system were kept. On several mornings, Simon arrived to find that the index cards had been removed from their files, neatly sorted, and stacked into piles on the potting bench. The doors were always still locked and padlocked. There was no sign of a break-in; just neat little piles of white cards sorted by a hand that is no longer living.
“Whatever is here seemed curious about our work. The feeling we got was benign. It seemed to approve of what we are doing,” said Simon.
A Sickly Ghost
For several years running, in the week before Christmas, Simon and Deb were puzzled by the smell of hot cinnamon punch, which wafted around them as they worked in the potting shed.
“We both noticed it but could never find out where it was coming from,” said Simon
The mystery was solved after a chance remark to Dr Eric Laidlaw, a former doctor at the old RNH, who recalled it was hospital tradition to serve hot punch at Christmas.
Huge steaming bowls would be taken round on a trolley to all the patients – including those in the open-air wards.
That kindly potting shed ghost may even have saved Deb’s life on the night of the great hurricane in October 1987.
As she worked there alone, unaware of the impending storm, she felt an overwhelming urge to leave. It was as if someone was telling her to drop everything and get out immediately. Deb was so unnerved that she obeyed her premonition and went home.
Later that night, the potting shed was crushed when a huge tree fell on top of it. Surveying the damage the next morning, Deb said a heartfelt thanks to whoever had warned her.
One evening soon after starting his job at Ventnor, Simon met the ghost of a patient from the old hospital near the potting shed.
“We chatted a while. He asked if I been there long. I said about three months.”
The man aged in his forties, who appeared very drawn and pale, told Simon, “I have been in the hospital now for six months.” He then said ‘cheerio’, and wandered off.
“What he had said suddenly hit me and as I drove out of the car park, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I had just seen a ghost.”
Then Simon’s natural skepticism took over. He told himself the man had come from a nursing home nearby. However, two years later, he saw the figure again.
This time, the apparition did not speak, but vanished as Simon watched. Wearing the same clothes as before, a heavy, old-fashioned Edwardian flannel suit, the ghostly patient still looked very ill.
“I was sure then that I had been speaking to a ghost…a very sickly and consumptive one who must have died here at Ventnor.”
Further stories of the haunted hospital and its long-dead patients – and staff – who still roam the Botanic Gardens appear in More Ghosts of the Isle of Wight.
Read more haunting stories from the World’s Most Haunted Island in the Isle of Wight Ghost Books
Thanks so much to Gay for sharing her Ventnor ghost stories with our readers. If we’re lucky we might have some from other parts of the Island coming up soon.
