Hunting pictures - the Ghost of Eyeworth

Some of you may never have seen this picture before so I thought it worth putting the story on the website.

The photograph was taken at the end of a Saturday meet in January l987. The meet was at the gatehouse cottage by the entrance to Eyeworth Lodge. It was a frosty morning so the meet had been put back to mid-day. A friend was riding with me and as hounds left the meet his wife ran over the bridge to take a photograph of hounds coming towards her. They went back to London where a few days later she had the film developed at a branch of Boots. The two photographs are shown just to indicate that the figure appeared within a few seconds, between the two photographs being taken. Who or what she is, is open to discussion. All we are certain of is that there was no one there on the day that looked or was dressed remotely like her. The film has been looked at by an expert and it is definitely not a case of double exposure. Some people say she is holding a camera but, even if she is, how was it that no one saw a very grey person dressed in these clothes on the day?

I thought the photograph was interesting enough to take it to the local paper and they printed a story with the pictures which lead to an approach from an independent photographer who asked if he could buy the negatives from us. I suggested that we let him exploit the photographs, as he had the expertise, and we go 50%/50% on anything he made out of the story. He agreed to this and over the course of the next year a double page spread appeared in the Sunday Mirror, the National Examiner in the States ran a big story on it and a glossy Japanese magazine also picked it up – and that is but a few. I was sure we were going to enhance hunt funds by thousands of pounds and be able to do some much needed repairs to our property- if not a total rebuild! Alas, when I tried to get some of our 50% , the man had turned to straw – or maybe to a ghost!!

Pat Hudson