A Noisy Ghost Story -- by Susan Price
Tuning pipes When I was a child, my parents had a family friend who was, in Fast Show parlance, a little bit whoo, a little bit wha-hey. He came by things. He wheeled, he dealed, he knew people. But however whoo and wha-hey he was with other people (I really don't know the details) he was great to us. (And I loved his dogs as I wasn't allowed to have a dog.) Me and my siblings were always in need of drawing paper and the friend would turn up unexpectedly with boxes of pencils, enormous rolls of paper and once, two big rolls of shiny metallic foil, one gold and one silver. On another occasion, he handed a cavalry sword to my brother, albeit a broken, rusty one. He was a picker-up of unconsidered trifles. When I won the Children's Literary Prize, I came home from school on a Friday afternoon, with a cheque for fifty whole pounds. (Note: this was in the early 70s. Banks closed at 3pm and didn't open at weekends.) By lucky chance, our friend rolled in that same ev...