Australiana for you....

I'd almost entirely forgotten about the Fisher's Ghost Festival, lol. Although, it's nothing to write home about; stalls, parade etc etc. And it's in Campbelltown (AKA Scrambletown).

Anyway, the story of Fisher's Ghost is a pretty well-known part of Aussie folklore and it's my favourite local ghost story. Because I'm lame. I remember my dad telling me the story when I was a kid...Back when we lived near enough to Campbelltown to give me the heebie-jeebies everytime I heard it.

A hundred or so years ago when Campbelltown was being settled, it was all farms - much like a country town. A well-known local called Fred Fisher disappeared suddenly. This bloke, his neighbour, named George Worrell (I think his name was) told people that Fred went back to England and wouldn't be coming back and that Fred gave him ownership over his whole property. I'd like to know what people thought about that!

Anyhow, this one day, another bloke called John (can't remember his last name...Begins with "F", I think) ran into the local pub looking aggitated and weird. He told the other people in the pub that he'd just seen the ghost of Fred Fisher sitting on the rail of a nearby bridge. He told them that the ghost pointed to the creek and then faded away. I want to know what they thought about that, too!!

So, I think they didn't pay too much attention to that story, but because Fred left without  selling up his property and no one had heard from him, they decided to take a look around.

Here's where it gets interesting. Some of the townspeople gathered together and used an Aboriginal tracker to see if they could find Fred's body. The tracker lead them down past some paddocks and right to the creek where there was a oily looking film on the surface of the water. The tracker told the people with him that it was white man's fat. They dug around a bit, and sure enough, they found Fred Fisher's body buried loosely in a shallow grave next to the creek.

They wound up arresting George Worrell and he admitted to murdering Fisher. They hanged him not too long after that.

The other interesting thing is that there was no mention of the ghost sighting during the trial, and they never said in the reports about how they came to find Fisher's body. I'd say because Aboriginals were still being treated as subhumans at this stage.

So there you go. Love that story. It never gets old. It's especially cool when you can drive through Campbelltown and point to the old theatre and go, "That's where Fred Fisher's property was". I told you I'm lame.