![]() So over at peculiar we've been a bit quiet lately not going to lie its kind of hard to keep the enthusiasm levels up when it's looking increasingly likely that we won't be able to run any events until Halloween However if nothing else it gives us a chance to reflect on the time we've been operating and the range of people of different ages, backgrounds and nationalities that have come along on our tours over the past couple of years, interestingly it seems if you run a ghost tour a people tend to bring to the spooky stories to you, and I have to say heard a few tales that are absolutely chilling, so I thought I would share the best ones with you...... Mulled wine..![]() One October I got chatting to a very nice middle aged couple from Muswell Hill, (North London) who had joined us a guests on the Halloween pub walk. As I know the Muswell area quite well I asked them where about's? 'Cranleigh gardens' they told me 'Oh boiled head road!' I replied, as Cranleigh Gardens is nicknamed locally due to its notoriety as the former home of 1980's serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Who would lure young men back to his flat before strangling them, chopping them into pieces and boiling the bodies and disposing of them down the drain (He was eventually caught when a neighbour complained to the council that the drains were blocked!) The couple told me that they had moved to the area in the late 1970's when Nilsen was in residence and had actually known him, apparently at that time Cranleigh gardens was mostly families with young kids and so people were a lot more community minded, 'Everyone knew everyone' they explained, and every Christmas there would be a street party, to which Dennis Nilsen used to come along and get involved. They described being pleasant enough, obviously gay, and a bit quiet maybe but nothing to set alarm bells ringing. But apparently every year when they were planning the Christmas party he would volunteer to do the mulled wine. 'It was his thing' the wife continued ' I remember it so well, he would come along and he'd have all the ingredients, and his gas ring, and his big metal cooking pot and he'd do mulled wine for everyone.' 'But' the husband interjected 'this is where it gets a bit nasty because when he was arrested it was that very same cooking pot that police took away as evidence, turns out that what he'd been using to boil up the bodies'....
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