DARK INSPIRATIONS, INGRID PITT'S STRANGEST CHAPTER BY F.R. JAMESON

18/5/2021

As I say, that’s one chapter. One fourteen-page chapter. But clearly there’s enough material there for a novel, a musical and a Coen Brothers movie. It’s incredible and frustrating to read just how swiftly the whole thing is dealt with.

DARK INSPIRATIONS, INGRID PITT'S STRANGEST CHAPTER BY F.R. JAMESON

At the start of Lockdown One, I realised I had to do something. I wasn’t furloughed from my proper job type job – for which I felt lucky – so I was working at home. But most of the writing I’d done beforehand had been on my commute, and I no longer had that. After the first month, I could feel my writing muscles becoming sluggish. And so I decided, even with all the anxiety of the world outside, I had to write something. I had to take myself away from it. So I created myself some time. While my three year old daughter watched TV for half an hour before bed, I would sit an write chapters of a new book. A ghost story. Every single day without fail until I had finished it.

This book became my novel, Terror of Breakspear Hall.

I didn’t start writing it at the beginning of the story though. Instead I started midway through, with a chapter which seemed to burst out from me. One crammed full of incident. A chapter based on a similar chapter in Ingrid Pitt’s autobiography, Life’s A Scream.

Mostly it’s a breezily written, inspirational story. Ingrid survived a harrowing childhood in a concentration camp to become the embodiment of Hammer-glamour in the early 1970s. The first section is harrowing, whilst also maintaining a childhood innocence; while the second is a collection of well-worn stories she must have used to pay her way on the convention circuit. Ingrid tells us throughout how much she enjoys writing so I presume she actually wrote it herself. Although it does have the whiff of being narrated giddily to a ghost writer.

However, the best chapter in the book – and the one which caught my attention enough to inspire me – is one that’s just rushed over,

It’s a fourteen-page chapter where young Ingrid marries the G.I. who saved her from drowning in a frozen river, moves with him to an army base in Colorado and has a daughter. Her husband (who remains unnamed) starts feeling neglected by the mother/daughter bond and volunteers for Vietnam. Not wanting to be a pining wife at home, Ingrid ends the marriage and joins a terrible travelling theatre company which travels the mid-west and where she never gets paid because the houses are too small. Realising that such a hand to mouth existence will not last, she does a moonlight flit from her guest house and tries to drive to New York towards a plane back to Europe. However, she gets a puncture and comes to a halt in front of a wrecking yard run by Native Americans. She ends up living there with them for six weeks of meditative tranquility, before the urge to get her daughter back to Europe reasserts itself. Somehow, through saving her pennies, she gets the car to the airport, but once there has no money for plane fare. A group of cab drivers comes to her rescue and helps her spruce the car up so that it looks shiny and newish, and Ingrid can sell it to a freshly arrived family of German tourists for $250. Looking up on the board she sees that the next flight to Europe is to Barcelona and slams the money down on the counter to get her and her daughter tickets, and they’re gone within the hour.

As I say, that’s one chapter. One fourteen-page chapter. But clearly there’s enough material there for a novel, a musical and a Coen Brothers movie. It’s incredible and frustrating to read just how swiftly the whole thing is dealt with.

And that was my inspiration. I wanted to write one chapter where an enormous amount happened. Where there were new characters, different cities and a rapid journey for the protagonist. It was the first chapter I wrote for the book (although not the first chapter in the book) and everything else grew out from there. So, for Terror of Breakspear Hall, I have to thank Ingrid Pitt.

In her autobiography. Ingrid – true pro that she was – gave the public what she thought they wanted – tragic childhood, film star anecdotes, a tale of inner strength and survival – but that one chapter makes me wish she hadn’t gone with the well-polished anecdotes and instead focused on the less well known parts of her life, which sound bloody fascinating.

What excruciating tortures await them within Breakspear Hall?

Simone and her brother are con-artists. They target the rich and corrupt, making them pay for their crimes. One night, after pursuing a mark to a casino, Simone is attacked on the street. In the aftermath, the two siblings find themselves spirited towards Breakspear Hall. A gothic mansion whose master has tried everything to keep visitors out.

From her first glance of this dark, foreboding building, Simone knows it could spell doom for both of them…

Within the walls is a history of demonic rituals and human sacrifice. Yet, if the house welcomes you, it’s a home which can offer your greatest desires and ensure every darkest craving can be sated. Although as it does, it elicits a terrible price. One which will drain away your soul and leave you a broken husk.

However, it’s when you try to leave that it inflicts its most appalling punishment.

Trapped inside, Simone knows she has to save herself and her brother. But what can she possibly do against the unspeakable evil of Breakspear Hall?

A brand new haunted house novel you won’t be able to put down!

A STANDALONE instalment in the Ghostly Shadows Anthology series!

Biography
F.R. Jameson was born in Wales, but now lives in London with his wife and young daughter. His work includes the Ghostly Shadows Anthology series: tales of horror and madness which each standalone, but are also strangely connected. There are currently five novellas and one novel in the series, with more coming in 2021. You can find him on Facebook, and on Twitter and Instagram @frjameson.