The Girl On The Train: A Supernatural Warning — Haunted Places

Tony Walker
10 min readFeb 7, 2023

This version is taken from the 2022 lovely hardback Watkins edition of English Folktales, edited by Neil Philip with a foreward by Neil Gaiman.

https://amzn.to/3JKOUwk

Hare says he got this story about Dr Watson from Mrs T. which he wrote down in his journal on April 29, 1879 while in London.

The original story is from volumes 4–6 of Hare’s autobiography which you can read for free thanks to Gutenberg here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42770

The Girl on The Train

Journal.

“April 29, 1879, London.-I have heard again the curious story of Sir T. Watson from Mrs. T., to whom he told it himself, so will write it down.

“Sir Thomas Watson, better known as Dr. Watson, was a well-known physician. During the last years of his life he was in failing health, and only saw patients at his own house, but till then he went about in England wherever he was sent for. One day he was summoned to attend an urgent case at Oxenholme in Cumberland. There was only one carriage in the train which went through to Oxenholme, and in a compartment of that carriage he took his seat. He tipped the guard, and said he should be glad to be alone if he could.

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