Witches & Ghosts of Cambridgeshire

There was another large turn out to welcome the return of Mike Petty, former Librarian for the Cambridgeshire Collection, to the Society’s March meeting. On this occasion, Mike entertained us with his talk on the Witches and Ghosts of Cambridgeshire starting by introducing his brand new book of a selection of 350 photographs of Cambridgeshire from the photographic survey by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.
Starting with Naomi’s story, Mike chilled us with ghost stories from throughout the county based on contemporary eyewitness accounts and backed up by facts from the usual family history sources – records of births, marriages and deaths, electoral rolls and newspapers. In between the ghost stories, we heard tales of witches from the time of Hereward the Wake up until 1915, grave robbing and hangings.
Although, as Mike said, “not a proper lecture” there was a strong lesson about how we can test and flesh out our own family history stories with solid research. Yet again, a very enjoyable and informative evening.
[Sue Paul]