Spooky Staffs: Paranormal Staffordshire and Haunted Staffordshire, by Anthony Poulton-Smith, Philip Solomon

Given that Amberley Publishing and the History Press are both covering the country with their paranormal guides, it is not surprising that they frequently issue books on the same areas.  Those on Staffordshire in their Paranormal and Haunted series respectively were published just a few months apart and offer a useful opportunity to make a comparison.

Anthony Poulton-Smith’s Paranormal Staffordshire (Amberley) appeared in 2011.  It is the longer of the two and takes a straightforward geographical A-Z approach, which means that it is easy to navigate.  Poulton-Smith is a general author on local subjects, and although he has previously written paranormal books about the Cotswolds and the Black Country, he does not appear to have specialised knowledge; as an indication, Sir Oliver Lodge’s name crops up, but while it is mentioned right at the end of his various accomplishments that he wrote about ‘life after death’, his long involvement with the Society for Psychical Research (including its presidency), surely relevant in this context, is not referred to.

The contents are the usual mix of folklore and anecdotes culled from previous books and newspapers, with what appears to be the odd recent case drawn to his attention by an appeal for stories.  He includes an intriguing experience he himself had in the 1990s, involving a phantom coach and horses going at an impossible speed where no road has ever been.  One curiosity: he notes the frequency with which pubs appear in his stories, and also churchyards.  He speculates that this is because these are common meeting-places after sunset.  Pubs maybe, as they are definitely common meeting places after sunset – but churchyards?  One glaring error: Lady Jane Grey was executed in 1554, not 1654.  And he takes the ‘Green Stone’ questing nonsense (subject of a couple of books by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman) more seriously than it deserves.  Overall it’s well written and enjoyable, containing just the sort of unverified stories you expect from this type of collection.

Philip Solomon’s Haunted Staffordshire (History Press) was published in 2012 and is a lot thinner than the Amberley volume.  Solomon is the “agony uncle” for the Wolverhampton Express & Star, if that is a recommendation, and more pertinently he has hands-on experience of paranormal investigation with local ghost-hunting groups.  He also has a number of paranormal writing credits, including one with Hans Holzer, so he has some prior familiarity with the subject.  Instead of plunging straight in, he provides a little background on his view of ghosts, and a brief, too brief to be useful, overview of the county’s history.  Like the Amberley book the stories are arranged in alphabetical order by place, but there is a paucity of sources here as well.

Both books are well illustrated, though Solomon’s pictures feature himself more than is necessary to complement the text, giving a sense of padding.  Each volume concludes with a brief list of relevant books, and newspapers that cover the county (The History Press publishedParanormal Stoke-on-Trent, by Matt Hicks and Terri Setterington in 2009, but it appears in neither bibliography; it’s a competitive field).

Naturally there is a lot of overlap in the contents, though some stories appear in only one.  A completist might therefore want both, but as sources are rarely provided in either, they are useful only for the casual reader, and anybody with a serious interest in Staffordshire‘s paranormal heritage will quickly note their limitations.  They are the same price so if only buying one, the deciding factor would be the range of accounts and the amount of detail supplied.  Despite his relative lack of experience of the subject, Poulton-Smith’s effort is more substantial in every way, so of the two Amberley’s Paranormal Staffordshire is the one I would recommend, though with reservations.