Why Journalism

I’m moving along to do some non-fiction again because it opened up so many character sketches and short story lines as well as being enjoyable and getting me involved with other people. Let me do a bit of show don’t tell – I was researching the history of a wine farm and went to interview one of the past owners to get some colour. She told me it had been hard making the place pay and that the farmhouse was haunted. Someone had been sitting sewing in the front room when a young woman dressed in the style of the early 1800’s walked through. The person sewing had asked everyone in the house who it was, but no one else had seen the young woman. They realised it had been the ghost of the original occupant, who died as a young woman in the house. A spirit on a wine farm
was too good a promotional gimmick to miss so the owner and her partner, glad of anything that would help bring in money, spread the news around. Unfortunately, at that time, the fashion was to pick the grapes at midnight and the pickers, having imbibed the story and full of superstition, fled every time there was a rustle of wind among the vines and took a lot of persuading to go back.