The tale of Sarah Brocklebank is a relatively well-known “ghost story” in York. There are many people who will be familiar with her but perhaps even more who know aspects of the story… but not the name. She’s…
The ghost on Micklegate Bar
The girl who lost the keys
Just a kid… it was her birthday
An old woman… she died of a heart attack
Stuck on the walls
Roams the city
That’s the problem with these sorts of tales… they get told and retold so many times (and often in pubs after a few drinks) that they become so embellished and overstuffed as to be almost unrecognisable from the “truth”. That’s not a complaint by the way, I mean, it’s literally what I do as a writer (and a husband, if you ask my wife!) and Mark Twain did famously say,
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Sarah Brocklebank is the first ghost Arthur speaks to in The Book and the Blade and when I started writing her character I only had a few “facts”
- Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Brocklebank.
- Thomas was the “keeper of the keys” of Micklegate Bar
- The keys went missing (supposedly, Sarah’s fault)
- Thomas lost his job
- The family were kicked out of their home and impoverished
- Thomas never forgave Sarah and disowned her
There were other bits and bobs and snippets of information floating around in various dusty books, old newspapers, and shiny (albeit darkly aesthetic) blogs; mainly regarding Sarah’s age and the places she haunts.
For my part, I placed Sarah in her mid-20s, I kept the loss of the keys, the family ruin, and Thomas blaming her, but I had Sarah’s ghost suspended in a moment of time before the family were made destitute. In The Book and the Blade, Sarah is frantically searching for the keys all over the city, starting at Micklegate Bar, heading into Holy Trinity church, then the heart of the city and St Helen’s Square. Each night, Sarah is fated to hunt for the keys and return them to her father “before it is too late.” The instant she finds them, however, the night restarts and Sarah appears back on the walls at Micklegate. This has been her existence for over 200 years and has driven her quite mad, which is understandable… especially when you learn that it was her little sister who lost the keys and Sarah took the blame (this little addition appeared in the first draft of the novel and was cut out at some point, but there are still hints. It is also entirely made up).
Like many ghost stories, Sarah’s is one of unfulfilled longing and unrealised destiny. She is the quintessential “hungry ghost” — never quite able to achieve satisfaction, and doomed to spend eternity trapped in a cycle of misery… until the night she meets Arthur Crazy.
Sarah shivered. She was tired. Deep down tired within the very core of her being. But she couldn’t give up. Those keys meant everything, and she had to find them. Tonight was her last chance. Without the keys, her father—her family—lost everything.
It is also worth mentioning that Micklegate Bar used to be a museum of sorts and apparently contained a statue of a young girl dressed in old clothing. In one hand she held a basket but the other was empty. So the staff there gave her a set of keys to complete the look. Perhaps Sarah’s whole story is a bit “chicken and egg” but I think it’s more fun to follow the advice of Mr Twain.
Cheers,
Alex
The Arthur Crazy Trilogy: