Tour Diary 37 – Charleston – Sweetgrass basket-makers highway – Ghosts in a boat – and I melt in 100 degree + temperatures….

Tour Diary 37 – Charleston – Sweetgrass basket-makers highway – Ghosts in a boat – and I melt in 100 degree + temperatures….

What a great name for a Highway -  'Sweetgrass Basket Makers Highway'. 

Only in America. 

And Charleston..what an incredible city! 

Sooooo beautiful and so steeped in history.  Also the most haunted city in the whole of the USA.  Not surprising given that the slave trade was very prominent here and also this is where the first shots were fired in the Civil war of North against the South.  Charleston has lived through hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires – both deliberate and malicious and accidental and wars, wars, wars…

We only gave ourselves 4 days in Charleston but I think even a two-week stay would not begin to touch the surface of this multi-faceted little place, with no fast food outlets.. no Starbucks either, but that was a small price to pay.  Everything was unique and very unusual.  The gigantic houses are just divine… think Gone with the Wind and you will get the picture.  In fact it was Charleston, which was burned as Scarlett and Rhett escaped the city, taking Melanie to safety.  Sherman burned the city and many other cities once he had conquered the devastated peoples.. People who were starving and demoralised from years of war, conflict and deprivation. Why you would need to punish them further by destroying their beautiful homes is beyond my comprehension.  But then the action of men in wars has always been beyond my comprehension.

We had to choose carefully what gems we would look at and explore with such a limited time and also because the temperature had risen unusually, to over 100 degrees which for me makes it impossible to stay outside for long.  We love to walk cities and the first day we tried that, but it was just too unbearable. So the next day we took the car and being the wonderfully civilized and courteous city that it is, parking is free on most streets and often for up to 2 hours at a time – plenty of time to view one of the gorgeous houses.  We went for the first one because it has a wonderful spiral staircase, the only one of its kind in the country and totally magnificent… breathtaking …as was the house itself.  We saw 3 houses in all. The first was one that had not been restored by the Charleston restoration society. They wanted people to be able to see the old slave quarters and stables complete with rotting carriages… But it enabled you to get a sense of how life must have been for them all.  What I wondered was how on earth did they survive without air-conditioning.  My friend Mary informs me that until air-conditioning was invented not many people wanted to live down ‘South’.  The advent of the cold air machines changed the face of the Southern States and dense population began. The next two houses we viewed were restored to former glory. In the ensuing 200 years since they were built they had been through various guises as Family homes, girls schools, convents, rented accommodations with up to 10 people living in just one of the rooms, and then during World War 2 – a  base for servicemen to await their shipping-out orders for Europe.  I could just picture all these young men.. some of whom might have ended up on my Dads ship on Omaha beach in Normandy just to be mown down inside the Landing craft, without ever having set foot on foreign soil.  My Dad had spent the 6 weeks before the Normandy landings in South Devon with all the American troops in preparation for the battle and the English sailors and the Americans and Canadians became quite fond of each other. There were poignant pictures of all the soldiers billeted within the house….

I have had so many images of past lives… not just my own but also others whilst in this city and maybe that is because of this energy of history, which so steeps every aspect throughout.

One visit we made was to the original Slave Mart Market.  A small building which in fact had no artifacts (thank goodness) apart from a few shackles and whips.

We were quite hostilely met on the door by two black receptionist women and as always Steve tries to engage everyone and said.. “It is almost impossible to imagine how this could happen isn’t it?”  The woman barely answered and I thought perhaps she was thinking that Steve was making light of such a terrible time in history.  However, when we stood side by side to read one of the boards, I realized that one of the images on his famous Mambo shirt was of a black face with three eyes.  Two normal eyes and one in the third eye area.  I was horrified as I never taken real notice  before but the image looked like the same face that used to be on my beloved ‘Golliwog’ rag doll, which I had had as a child.  I made him cover the image up with a scarf over his shoulder and just hoped it wasn’t this she was reacting to.  How inappropriate of us.

Then I got to thinking about past lives and the fact that I have always had such a very strong pull to this era and this area. 

I was an avid reader of all books about the South, especially the works of Frank Yerby and Kyle Onstott. I think I should have taken the opportunity to explore a possible life with my teacher Betty who was able to see all my past lives and discuss them with me, but only if I remembered them in part for myself.  It would have been good to know what role I had at that time.  Slave or not?  My sense was slave….

So if we accept that we have past lives,  for arguments sake, then no-one knows that they were a slave all through their many lifetimes.  In the past the black people could well have been the white slave owners.. and the slave owners… could have at another time been the black slaves.

What a nonsense it is therefore to harbour a grudge against each other’s background, religion, or cultural differences.

If only this concept was accepted and understood and people did not hold on to ‘physical’ ancestry, but tuned into ‘spiritual’ ancestry… wars and conflict would just become absurd.  I would think we would choose different lives and experiences to have each time.  What would be the point of keep doing the same thing, same creed, same religion  over and over again?… That is just a nonsense.

It is why I have never understood the life/lives of the Dalai Lama..

I was very mindful of how difficult it would be for someone who is determined to hate another for past atrocities to get their head around the idea that they might have been in the past.. the one who carried out those past atrocities…

Some of the facts at the Slave Mart just astounded me.  At one point Black Slaves outnumbered the white population by 100,000 to one.  I then got to thinking.. (no groaning there) that we have not moved much further ahead because millions and millions of us have our lives governed by just a small conglomerate of money men, who set up wars and financial crisis’s to enlarge their already humungous coffers.  How can so many still be governed by so few?

The slaves did try to rebel.. silently if not actually.  They would scupper food, work slow.. break tools.. feign illness.. small stands made to try to retain their own sense of themselves… When they did escape they were so severely beaten or killed to serve as a message to others.  But even on the slave ships bringing them over, we are told that they sometimes were able to take over the ship. A gave a big inward cheer at that particular board as I read it.

There was a table of the value of the slave to the owners and in a way I was pleased to see that at this stage of my life I would have been deemed ‘pretty worthless’ and women of our age could have been picked up for a pittance.  However, at age 15 upwards I would have been worth a small fortune.  $50,000 in today’s money. 

The saddest thing I felt, aside from how families were just routinely torn apart with Slaves sold without thought of the grief their family members… was that once a slave had bought his own freedom he would often then take up trading in slavery! I just could not get my head around that one.

The slaves had their own community lives when not working and dance and music was their saviour until the Slave owners realized that their drumming contained information sent out to inform each other of current events and ways to riot and to try to escape.  So their musical instruments were confiscated which led to their magnificent singing voices and a form of drumming with their hands.

They bought their own superstitions with them and one group called the Gullahs are famous in their own right in the Charleston area and featured in our Ghost tour of the river which we took last night, a fantastic end to our trip.

The tour started at 9 p.m. just after sunset and I was at the front of the boat looking over the water rushing past us..  A balmy night with a fantastic story-teller narrating the Ghost histories.  She had over 9 generations of Charleston ancestors who had lived in the city and her mother and grandmother had both been a narrator of Stories of the river, ghosts  and the town.

One story featured a lovely young man who appears to young women and after a minute he gauges to see if his appearance might frighten them.. if not.. he lays down on the bed with them and puts his arm under their heads and cuddles them.  Aaaahhhh!!  However the sister of the person in question woke up and saw him lying on the bed and screamed, so he got up and gently bowed and disappeared.  The ghost is thought to be that of a young man, who was madly in love with his beau since childhood and had a dear best friend.  All 3 grew up together and spent every minute of their childhood together.  The young mans father however, insisted that he went away to University much to the boys chagrin.. When he graduated he returned to a huge party in the families 5 story house… (classed as a skyscraper in Charleston!)  There was no sign of his friend or of his beloved.  Finally someone told him that they were now an item and could not face him.

He obviously could not face it either, as he went up to the fifth floor of the house and threw himself down into the partying  throng and to his death.  This, I thought, was a warning to all parents everywhere to listen to your children when they tell you they REEEALLLY do not want to go somewhere.

Another ghost appeared to a man in his room as just a bloodied torso.  The man was an engineer and so not fazed but instead put out his hand to the torso and was shocked to find that he could actually feel the body and the coarse texture of its coat.  I would like to think that I could do that but somehow doubt it.  However if I could, this would be my next action…

He shook his partner awake to share the experience!

She screamed the place down which had the effect of moving the ghost forward to the bed.. over both their bodies and tried to press them down through the mattress with great malevolence.  Now that is scary…

The thinking on this Ghost is that this was one of the Confederate soldiers who were told, once the city was obviously going to fall to Sherman, to destroy all the ammunition.

Some bright spark (no pun intended) thought it would be a good idea to stack everything up and plug the barrel of the huge cannon with explosives and set fire to it all.  They obviously did not read the instruction on the firework which says ..’Light up and stand well back’ as the explosion was so colossal that even to this day a 500lb piece of metal is still buried in the attic space of a house over 500 yards away. 

(The owners open up the house once a year for people to come and view it)

Unfortunately the bits of ammunition and metal and guns, which flew through the air were accompanied by the bits of bodies of the poor young lads who were set the task.

The last one I will share is of Lavinia.  The beautiful serial killer.  She would board and lodge men in her home and quiz them as to their background to see if anyone would miss them if they were killed.  If she deemed not, her hubbie would dispose of the bodies, once she had poisoned them, by coming up and tipping up the bed and the body would fall through the floor down into a pit which they had constructed under that room in the basement of the house.  Shades of Sweeney Todd here, but they did not chop them up and put them in pies, just left them there to rot.  I can’t imagine it was the most sublime smelling B & B.

Like many serial killers they were caught because one lucky man did not succumb to the poison and escaped to tell the tale.

Both the couple were hanged.. the husband totally repentant saying his beautiful wife made him do it.. but the wife ..not.  She defied to the end and as she was about to be hung, having had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the rope she called out ‘’If any of you have a message for the Devil, give it to me now as I am about to meet him”  There’s true defiance for you.

Our guide who was obviously an ardent Ghost researcher found that in her own geneology a great great grandparent had been one of the  jurors who found Lavinia guilty.

This lovely Guide also has had many career hats and one was a Firefighter like her Dad.

They were called out to a Gullah settlement on one of the Islands to help with a very old woman who had taken ill.  It was an incredibly hot day and evening and when they got to the house there were over 50 silent family members sitting quietly outside on the porch.  When they went into the room there were 3 oil fires blazing and the room was unbearably hot and stifling.  Grandma was under 15 blankets, which they had to peel off to apply the defibrilators.  The girl kept trying to say to Dad  “She is sooooooo dead” but Dad kept shushing her to be quiet.  They put the body in the truck and told everyone that they were going to take Grandma to the hospital.  Where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

The father explained that the Gullah are terrified of the person dying in the house as they then know that the spirit will haunt them.  Allowing the body to cool would mean that they would have to admit that the person was dead, so they kept the body hot until they could get it out of the house!!  The Father was well versed in the Gullah customs and complied by pretending that Grandma was still alive until he could get remove her.

We thanked the guide for such a wonderful tour and she immediately asked as they all do where we were from and was delighted to tell us that she had lived for a while in Hyde Park and one of her most favourite Ghost tours of all time was the Jack the Ripper tour of the old East End.  I love the East End and so I am also delighted by the Huguenot history of this city as it is reflected in and around the East  End with the lovely 3 story houses that are all still shuttered.  These gorgeous  little houses  are some of my most favourite buildings in London and now would cost an absolute fortune to buy but they have had a checked past and at one time were extremely neglected and derelict.

The Charleston Houses, which border the Battery area/tip of Charleston are just exquisite.  Charleston is a peninsula and is so similar in construction as NYC but without the skyscrapers or frantic energy.  Everything here is laid back, slow and extremely genteel still.

The waterfront houses were for the extraordinarily rich Charlestonians but were not used all year round.  I think most of them escaped the ferocious heat in the summer by going for their ‘Grand Tours of Europe’ or to their homes by the sea up North.  A bit like we do really … popping up to Skegness, or Blackpool… or popping over from Dover to Calais on the ferry!

Steve adored the city and once again we spoke with young people whose backgrounds so surprise us.  I suppose when someone is your waiter in England we tend to think that is their career choice and do not see it as a stop gap.  

I am learning that the person who is serving us could well be a rocket scientist or film maker in the case of Tyson in Austin..

At our meal the other evening, it started off so well because as I sat down and could see the ocean a Dolphin swam by… Magic..

The young lad admired as they all do, Steve’s Mambo shirt, he actually made reference to the third eye on the image I spoke about before, so I immediately knew he was more than just a young lad and something would transpire here. He asked us where we were from and then I asked him if he was studying to be a Wine waiter as he seemed so knowledgeable about wines and wanted to share that knowledge with us, but no… although he had worked in the restaurant for 5 years and was indeed very keen to learn all about wines, he had just graduated with an M.A in Economics.  So I asked him what he wanted to do with his degree and he looked at me a bit sheepishly and said quite tentatively….  ‘Well you probably do not know but there is a small group of men.. Financiers.. called the New World Order?’  I said that yes indeed I knew a huge amount of information about the New World Order and the way it is run.  He looked delighted and said that it was his intention to somehow penetrate it from the inside and endeavour to expose the practices and try to make a difference by changing the system.  We wished him well and I felt a great upliftment in my energy as I left  thinking that these youngsters are actually so on the ball.  After our meeting with Tyson and hearing how he is making the Zeitgiest movies and yet still doing waiting tables, I am beginning to look at all waiting staff with a different eye.

Our waitress last night was extremely gorgeous in a way that was so familiar to me and she kept really staring at me when I spoke.  When she bought up our drinks she finally asked where we were from and when we said London she exclaimed that we were near neighbours as she was from Ireland.  I then realized that she looked very much like the singer Enya!  I asked her what she was doing in Charleston and she said she had just got an MA in Hotel management and was filling in with a stint in Charleston until she went out to manage a Hotel in  Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.

4 hard years of training in Hospitality management and taking time out to wait in a Wine Bar for the summer.. amazing..

Finally our receptionist at the last House we went to visit.. a really young looking lad who looked about 15 years of age.  When we chatted he had just finished his M.A in History and this was why he was working as a guide/receptionist in a Charleston House as he so loved the history.  However, he was just about to start training for a ‘serious’ job as a Nurse.  I said “do you not think your History is serious?”

(I wondered what his parents thought about financing a 4 year degree to be told that the child was going to do an about-face and take up another career?).. but when I tactfully tried to explore this, he told me that as a Veteran of the Afghan war.. 2 years in combat!!!… his University fees were somewhat supported by the government.  This is apparently a huge inducer to get the young men into the war zone.. how despicable is that!?….  We will give you an education if you are prepared to go be cannon fodder for us for a while first.  If you survive we will pay for your education.

An education should be the right of every child as they are our future…they should not have to risk their lives to get one provided for them…

Get off your soap box Annie…

He then went on to talk about how his wife felt about it.. How could he be married, an ex marine and a Historian.. he looked about 12!!!

We spoke of all the places he has already visited in Europe and London and those still to see on his 'bucket list' and I walked away again shaking my head thinking.. these youngsters are so incredibly hard working and so diverse and also so ambitious.  Where are we going wrong in England?

Lots of love

Annie