Tag: garynahine

From the Stornoway Gazette, 2 August 1960 and subsequent editions.

White Lady Startles Drivers:  a Garynahine Ghost Story

The “Garynahine Ghost,” which promised to be Lewis’s best authenticated spectre to date, has turned out to be a false alarm.  Several motorists had reported startling encounters near Garynahine Bridge with a tall woman, dressed in white to her toes, and carrying a staff, who suddenly loomed up in the light of their headlamps.  Drivers who braked and stopped said that the “white lady” peered in at them before vanishing into the night.

Among the first witnesses was SAC Keith Hodges, of RAF Uig, who saw the lady while driving back to camp from Stornoway on a Saturday night.  He said later – “It was a strange sight to see a woman, all in white, walking the road after 11pm.  I braked hard and she stared in at us.  Her face was white and expressionless.  I think she was wearing a black belt.”

One of his passengers, Cpl A Cox, said he and his friends has got “quite a fright”.  “This thing loomed up in front of us and then stopped at the side of the Landrover, peering in at us.  I don’t might telling you I got a scare.  We didn’t wait to see anything else, but drove off as fast as we could.  Our only idea at the time was to get out of it smartly.”

With them was SAC A Galbraith, who said – “Of course we got a fright.  She was dressed all in shining white and it looked very queer.”

Just ahead of the RAF Landrover was the RAF bus, most of the occupants of which were more than half convinced that they had seen a ghost.  The lady, whom they later christened “The Silver Lady”, stood motionless as the bus sped past.  Some of the airmen declared that she was surrounded by an eerie glow.

Mr Angus Macleod, Perceval Road, Stornoway, was the next to report an encounter with the strange lady.  “I was coming down from Uig about 11.10pm,” he said, “when I saw this woman coming towards me in the middle of the road.  She was dressed in a long gown, but it wasn’t white.  It had a kind of floral design.  She was carrying a stick, and she seemed to hold it up in front of the car, though I didn’t feel it touching the vehicle.  When I slowed down she stared in at me, and although it looked as if her lips were smiling, the rest of her face wasn’t.  I felt a cold shiver down my spine, and I still feel it every time I think about it.”