Story-by-story: British Chemicals

The third story in Intervals of Darkness draws on research I did for an article published in Fortean Times a few years ago about a haunted factory.

My dad worked at the factory in question and we often talked about what might have made it feel spooky.

Point: the land was ancient, with old ghosts.

Counterpoint: everyone was exhausted and off their tits on chemical fumes.

This story, which Rowan Lee has suggested recalls the work of Nigel Kneale, is an attempt to explore that line between rational explanation and genuine supernatural experiences.

I also had in mind Danny Robins’s radio and TV series Uncanny which, especially in more recent episodes, has included ‘cases’ which seem less than convincing.

I asked myself in what context an account of a haunting might seem truly beyond doubt.

Perhaps being shared in private, behind closed doors, by someone who definitely isn’t seeking attention – and who has a strong commercial incentive not to have seen a ghost – might be convincing.

Working on this story on and off for the past couple of years I quizzed Dad to harvest convincing details.

Those were added to the stories I’ve been hearing for years about life working at British Cellophane, and other factories.

I also drew on my own teenage experiences of factory work, including the time I accidentally got high on solvents while cleaning a protective suit and floated across the shop floor giggling, unable to feel my legs.

Hints of worldbuilding?

The story takes place in a post-war new town called Newhamstead. That name also crops up 

in another quite different story in Intervals of Darkness, ‘The Night of the Fox’.

I’ve always loved the way H.P. Lovecraft and his literary circle casually reused the names of places, characters, forbidden tomes, and monstrous entities.

That there’s no particular coherence in the way they are applied (despite later attempts by nerds to tidy things up) only adds to the sense of intrigue.

See also: those throwaway references in Star Wars to the Kessel Run and the Clone Wars.

So, I don’t know if the Newhamstead in these stories is the same place, exactly, or if this will one day add up to a ‘cycle’, but I couldn’t resist the deliberate internal reference.

Intervals of Darkness will be published on 7 September. You can pre-order the eBook now.