KATIE MARIE

Don’t sit down!

Today I am writing to talk briefly to you about a cursed chair.

That’s right it’s another cursed chair, why are chairs one of the more common cursed items? It’s not something I ever noticed before writing this series. But now that I think about it there are a lot of the damn things. Haunted chairs, cursed chairs? Perhaps it’s the typical horror subversion at work again, something that is supposed to bring rest and comfort actively harms you.

Forgive the distraction, todays chair is the chair of Thomas Busby. An unpleasant gentleman who was convicted of murder and hanged as a result. Prior to the hanging he had a favoured spot in the pub, one chair in particular and perhaps out of spite said that anyone who sat in his chair would be cursed.

Seems like an odd thing to become protective over but who knows what goes through the mind of a man about to be hanged.

The chair remained in place for many years, it became something of a local legend especially during the second world war when soldiers who sat in the seat never returned from the war.

In 1967, two Royal Air Force pilots sat in the chair, only to crash their truck into a tree just after they left.

 In 1970, a mason sat in the chair only to die that same afternoon by falling into a hole at his job site.

A year after that, a roofer died after the roof he was working on collapsed, shortly before this he’d sat in the chair.

Even the pub’s cleaning lady was not spared when she accidentally fell onto the chair, she died shortly afterwards from a brain tumour.

The chair was put in the basement but still was sadly used by a delivery chap who died the same day in a car accident. Eventually, the chair was donated to the local museum and it is stored high up on the wall where it cannot accidentally be sat on.