For Comp. 3473 (and Halloween) you were invited to submit ambiguous ghost stories in which the ‘presence’ may or may not be explained by a more mundane phenomenon. There were lots of entries of a high standard – though a few strayed a little from the brief – and it was hard to whittle down the winners. A mention for Tom Adam and Shirley Curran and their genuinely spooky offerings, as well as for J.C.H. Mounsey’s literal shaggy dog story. Among the other runners-up were Frank Upton, Sophia Jackson, Elizabeth Oakley, Alan Millard and Neil Richardson. The winners of the vouchers are below.

At the ruins, we stopped for sandwiches. Suddenly this clergyman appeared. I say clergyman because he had a dog collar as well as hiking shorts. I say appeared because we hadn’t seen him coming.

‘Are you hoping to hear the mad monk?’ he asked, with a lopsided grin. We didn’t encourage him, but he told us the legend. Some cleric murdered for mocking a titled lady, centuries back.

‘Since then,’ said the clergyman, ogling Marjorie as he spoke, ‘adulterous women have heard his laugh and, well, things happen.’ Marjorie disliked his tone, and communicated as much. The bloke disappeared, and that would have been that, except we suddenly heard this horrible bleating laughter. We were poleaxed. We heard it again. An aged goat in the next field, lopsided like the clergyman.

We laughed, but a week later, Marjorie had her accident. It couldn’t be, could it? Marjorie wasn’t like that.

George Simmers

He was a right old one was George. Marlene said she would marry him if only she could see him. She had found his Ouija board in an antique shop in Bridgewater many summers ago when Barry and her were still an item. Such a sense of humour George had. Marlene’s mascara would often run with tears of laughter. If she thought hard enough she could feel his hand slide under her dressing gown. His glass had once been real crystal but Benjamin the cat had knocked it over on the way to the window and now he was just a John Smith’s glass that had been Barry’s favourite but which she used as an ashtray. Ask George who would win the 2.20 at Wincanton and he never would give you a straight answer. Ask him if it was time for another vodka and he always said yes.

Jamie Burnham

As Great Aunt Hecate’s only surviving relative, I inherited her Highgate flat, and subsequently took possession, with my bibelots, and Stalwart, my wolfhound. Stalwart, a nervous creature, soon drew my attention to otherworldly noises emanating from an interior wall – the drumming of metal or wood on plaster, unearthly cries and groans, sometimes the faint gurgle suggestive of a garrotting. Most horrible of all – when Stalwart barked his alarm, it sometimes provoked a reciprocal and infuriated banging, a response, if you will, from the spirits beyond.

Miss Dishforth, my charming neighbour, heard nothing, and was bemused. A secretary for a missionary society, she took dictation each evening from various gentlemen accustomed to westerly time-zones, one of whom, a satirical man for one of his admirable calling, kindly performed an exorcism following Mozarabic rites. Subsequently, Miss Dishforth accompanied him, in an administrative position, to Inhambane and, coincidentally, the haunting ceased altogether.

Nick Syrett

‘Tis only the gin as stills the ’orror,’ she slurs, accepting another from a man at the bar, ‘for I have seen a Ghost, a thing not of this world. My husband, a midshipman bethought drownded these seven years off Valparaiso, left me but a mite to live on and less for. Atop me troubles, I sees, the other evening in the dim of a damp sea-mist outside my cottage, some Thing a grave hath disgorged. Blacker’n a twelve-day corpse and swole as an Admiral’s purse, it were, yet walking, after its fashion, up and down, yeller eyes bare seein’ what were there, affixed on what weren’t. Took all me courage to shoo it back wherefrom it come. Reluctant to go it were, too, outraged I would not know it.’ From the snug, a drunken sawbones interjected, ‘Madam, that was no spectre: your midshipman is home, albeit with the scurvy.’

Adrian Fry

What had woken her? Was it Fritz, hypersensitive and tuned to any change in the atmosphere as only a Siamese can be, stiffening and staring at the door, a low growl in his throat? Moonlight falling across the duvet showed him tense, his spine hairs ridged. Did the door move? Just a little? No sound – but not everything has sound.

Fritz growled again, but softer, as though fearful. She touched his flank cautiously but he ignored her. So there was something, or a something. She’d checked all the doors and windows, twice, as usual, before coming to bed.

Again! A flash of light, or half-light, beyond the door but within the house. Ashy, unearthly, as though a message from another world, or spirit, not quite malevolent but with nothing of warmth in it. Fritz hadn’t moved. If only she could call someone, but her phone was downstairs, charging on the hall table.

D.A. Prince

It was the funniest ghost tour I had ever experienced. The guide dropped his dowsing rods, told ridiculous stories about an evil presence, and showed photos of orbs. Orbs! To help him, I knocked on the wall.

People jumped. The guide glared at me. But after that, things improved. The knocking grew constant. I silently applauded whoever was following my lead. Tour members turned nauseous, shaky. A lightbulb flickered. Then the door slammed shut and wouldn’t budge. Our guide attempted phoning for help. Everyone tried. No reception.

The guide snarled that it was my fault. Then his eyes bulged. I saw him counting heads. We had one more person than we’d started with.

The door finally gave way – we had to break it down – and I quietly thanked whoever had sneaked on to our tour. Some people were hysterical. But that extra member had certainly livened things up.

Janine Beacham

No. 3476: Gulliver again

Gulliver’s Travels was published 300 years ago so you’re invited to submit a passage in which he or some of the peoples he encounters find themselves in the here and now (150 words max). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 11 November.