Interview Transcript

Sofia Scaturro: Hello, my name is Sofia and I'm a 21-year-old student living in Fremantle in Boorloo at the moment. I'm just about to finish my degree and I'm studying professional writing and publishing. Very excited to get out into the publishing world. So, I'll just let Abbey introduce herself as well.

Abbey Carson: Thanks Sofia. Hi to all our listeners. I'm Abbey. I'm a third-year creative writing and professional writing and publishing student currently studying at Curtin University. I'm in my final semester.

So, I have always loved reading from a young age. I particularly love reading young adult books, fantasy books. I try to read far and wide, but I find that particularly young adult fantasy is mainly the genre that I come back to. It's my comfort genre. And that sort of ties into mythology, which we'll be talking about today.

Sofia: Yeah, so Abbey and I have both met through uni, and I recommended her for an internship at Portside Review, which we've both been doing together, and it's been really fun. So, through our conversations at the internship, we kind of talked a lot about our interests in feminism, in mythology, in stories. And it's kind of led us to the topic that we want to talk about today.

So, I don't know about you Abbey, but I've always been a big fan of this show called BuzzFeed Unsolved. I'm a massive horror snob, but I really like watching some light horror content as well. And it's perfect for that kind of viewing. So, have you watched it before?

Abbey: Yes, I have. In fact, BuzzFeed Unsolved is sort of my comfort series. Like, when I go on a YouTube and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to watch, I just click on there, look on BuzzFeed Unsolved and see what episode I haven't seen yet or which one I want to rewatch.

Sofia: Same here. Definitely a very comfort series kind of vibe. You know? So yeah, like you said, BuzzFeed Unsolved is a YouTube series. It began in February of 2016, and it technically ended in November of 2021.

The show takes on both true crime and supernatural topics in alternating seasons as showrunner Ryan Bergara tries to convince Shane Madej of his little conspiracy theories. Now, although it takes on some very serious topics, it's a pretty funny show. Shane and Ryan almost gave ‘good cop, bad cop’ kind of vibes. I don't know if you agree.

Abbey: Yeah, definitely.

Sofia: And I love seeing them play off each other. Fans have been split into what had been called ‘Boogaras’, which is believers in all things spooky and freaky, and ‘Shaniacs’ who are the scientific ones. Now, if you are a true Unsolved fan, the in-betweeners are called ‘Shitfishes’…But that's highly controversial. So, we'll pretend that doesn't exist. So, before we do anything, we need to pick a side.

So, what do you think you'd call yourself?

Abbey: I am definitely a Shaniac. I don't believe in ghosts or spirits per se. But I do believe that other people believe in them and have seen spirits or energies or ghosts, and that it can be a really powerful tool to deal with grief or to deal with your own self or your place in the world. I think it's a really important thing, and I'm not going to look down upon anyone who does believe in ghosts or spirits. But just me personally, I've never seen one. So, I can't claim that I believe in them.

Sofia: You know, seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing.

Now, when it comes to me, I always said I was a Shitfish cos I believe in energies, but not traditional conspiracy theories. But we aren't allowed to talk about that forbidden word. So, I do believe that our sentience can be an energy that might have echoes behind it and that the energy you put into world can come back to us. But not really in like a ghosty way, if that makes sense. So, I do feel like I'm more of a Shaniac. I'm big on how mental health affects you. And I really believe that your brain is a really big, powerful force in making you see what it wants you to see.

There's been a lot of scientific studies where scientists have been able to even trick the brain into feeling ghosts or seeing visions. So, in Sweden, they've succeeded in tricking test subjects into feeling presence in the room and even like phantom touches, which I think is really freaky, but also cool. I also don't really like how people often use ghost or demons to explain away really sad deaths or suicides like Elisa Lam, as I feel it’s super disrespectful to the pain the families are going through and [it] kind of trivialises the effect mental illness can have.

In saying that though I do feel our lore and ghost stories are often just that – a means to make sense of tragedies, things we don't understand or common fears across cultures.

— —

Miss La Llorona

Sofia: Which brings me to a particular episode of BuzzFeed Unsolved I'd like to bring up, which is the La Llorona episode. So, have you heard of La Llorona, or did you watch the episode?

Abbey: I have seen the episode. I had not heard of La Llorona before I saw the episode, and I sort of went into it…I swear, I was like sitting on my bed, you know, relaxing. It was late at night. I tend to watch these things late at night. It didn't give me the same atmosphere, like the spooky atmosphere that a lot of their episodes do have. But the more I've thought about it, I think it's because a lot of their episodes are tied to the history of a particular place and a person, whereas La Llorona is a bit more of a myth that's across cultures and across many different places at once. So, there isn't going to be one place where you go and you're going to see La Llorona.

So, I think they're walking along river and for me it just didn't really give off spooky vibes. But I was really interested in the myth itself and I did more Googling after I'd seen it because I was really interested cos I hadn't heard about La Llorona before and wanted to know more.

Sofia: I definitely agree with you there. And I think it's interesting as well with that episode, because I think it was sponsored by the La Llorona movie, which was a very bad movie.

Abbey: Haven't seen it.

Sofia: Don't watch it. And anyone listening don't watch it. It's just not worth it. It's not scary. They cast an Italian woman as a Mexican woman. Very interesting casting.

Anyway, we're not going get into that. So, I'll tell you a little bit more about legend, though you probably know. So, La Llorona is legend that every country has some kind of version of. But this particular version in the episode is super popular in Mexico and Latin America. The name translates directly to ‘the Weeping Woman’, as legend has it. Her harbinger is her shrieking wail through the night.

So, there are many stories about her. But the main gist of them is that she was a woman, a mother who lost her children somehow – or possibly drowned them – and is now doomed for eternity to search for them forever. So, she's often said to hang around water and canals and is said to be a malevolent spirit. Dangerous to encounter.

She's often used as a bedtime story to scare children into coming home before dark or stay away from the water, which I think is interesting. Hysteric women, phantom women, or how we like to call them, ‘spooky women’ are often used across folklores to teach lessons or interpret history. There’s a version of her in Singapore and the Philippines, the faceless ‘White Lady’ or ‘Red Lady’; in Dahomey in Africa, the ‘Crying Wind’; and, of course, Bloody Mary. I know Bloody Mary always scared me away from staring in the mirror too long as a kid, which definitely sounds like a warning against vanity, if you ask me.

Abbey: Bloody Mary…I definitely came across as a child. You know, you always go into the bathrooms in primary school and kids are screeching Bloody Mary at the top of their lungs, not a care in the world.

Sofia: Yeah, I very much agree with you. My childhood was very much influenced by Bloody Mary. I was always terrified, screaming my little head off. It was ridiculous.

— —

Local ‘Spooky Lady’ Ghost Stories

Sofia: Have you ever heard of the Fremantle Arts Centre?

Abbey: I have, but I actually don't know a lot about the building or the history itself.

Sofia: So, the Fremantle Arts Centre is a beautiful little building nestled in the heart of Fremantle. A great example of Gothic architecture, if I do say so myself.

Today it acts as a cultural and artistic hub, hosting musicians, art exhibitions, workshops, and more. I personally love heading down there to have a look at what local art is on display, or just have a walk amongst the beautiful grounds and grab a cup of coffee from the café cos it's very relaxing, very quiet.

However, a lot of people actually don't know this, but the Arts Centre has an extremely rich and sad history dating all the way back to 1861. So, the Fremantle Arts Centre actually used to be known as the ‘Fremantle Lunatic Asylum’, which is a bit of a horrid name.

Anyways, the Fremantle Colony was a pretty abysmal place to live. Made up of a majority convicts, the place was filled with despair, poverty, and alcohol. And if you were an Aboriginal person, just a terrible place to be. And with those locked up in Fremantle Prison succumbing to the conditions and falling into extreme mental illness, the state began construction of the asylum between 1861 and 1865. Surprisingly, the place was actually built with good intentions.

Abbey: Very rare. very rare with asylums.

Sofia: Very, very rare. But it didn't last long. It was designed to be extremely spacious with beautiful gardens, which you can still see today. You can see the remnant of that. And the doctors mostly had very progressive ideas about the treatment of mentally ill people. I say the doctors, not the nurses. This sadly, as I said, came to nothing as a building, which was designed to only hold 35 patients, ended up having more than 219 in its peak, which is around 20 people to each room.

Abbey: 20 people per room?

Sofia: Yeah. 20 people per room.

So, colonial women were also considered long-term inmates. If you were a woman who was widow, deserted, abused, rebellious, sick, or just considered uncooperative by your husband, you'd have a big chance of having your children taken away and being thrown into the asylum.

I remember there was one example of a woman whose children were taken away by the state because she was too poor. And then when she tried to tell someone that her children were taken away, she got put in the asylum.

Abbey: Oh God…

Sofia: Because they said this can't be true. She's obviously insane.

Abbey: Seems like, you know, paradoxical logic.

Sofia: A little bit, right?Now the asylum had a very long history, as you can tell, and was eventually closed due to these horrible conditions and turned into a smaller women's home. At one point it was even a military base and part of it was blown up by accident before the building was abandoned.

Now, if you're interested in knowing more about its history and why it's considered haunted now, I definitely give May They Rest In Peace by Jane Hall a good read, which was a major source for my research.

But in short, the place is considered big, huge mega haunted now. And one of its more famous ghosts is this woman in black figure, which is where we get back to our point. As one of the most reported sightings there, the Fremantle Arts Centre’s ‘spooky lady’ is said to be between the age of 40 or 50 and wears a black dress with a white collar and frills. Kind of a fashion icon.

Abbey: I was gonna say!

Sofia: Right? So, according to legend, this poor woman was admitted in the 1900s after a mental breakdown when her beautiful redhead daughter was abducted, and she eventually succumbed to suicide. Apparently, she spends her day searching for this long-lost daughter. There was even a report in the 80s that she was captured on film by a little redheaded girl through a window that was too high for someone to look through.

So, the lady in black from the Fremantle Arts Centre is a mother who lost her children. And now is said to be constantly searching for them forever. Sound familiar to you?

Abbey: Yes.

Sofia: I think so. But what is so strange is that these stories are separated by continents, times, and cultures. So why are they so similar?

Abbey: Great question!

Sofia: Right? I personally think that this shows two things: that these stories are an expression of collective fears, fears that connect us across oceans; and that legend is often an easier way to digest and understand horrific events. Just how we're using humour to understand horrific events.

So, I read this interesting article from The Conversation – which Abbey is going to talk about a little bit later – which talks about similar stories in Indonesia as an expression of society's reaction to violence against or mistreatment of women. These stories act as representations of our fear as women whilst also presenting the fear of men that women will reclaim their power in death and seek revenge. Do you agree with this Abbey?

Abbey: Yes, I do. So, yeah, after hearing your conversation around Fremantle Arts Centre and the sort of history and myths surrounding that, I got interested in doing my own research online about the ghost stories we have with vengeful female ghost spirits that we have here in Perth. So, while I was scouring the internet, I found the tale of the ghost of Pinjarra Bridge.

This account is a well-developed ghost tradition that’s based in Pinjarra. It comes from the journal of Thomas Scott who wrote this journal in 1870—1874. What's unique about this story is that it's not like a word-of-mouth story, which most ghost stories are. It's written down, which is quite interesting. It’s written down in quite high detail as well. Scott actually really spins a good yarn out of this story. It’s very interesting, although it might be a bit long- winded, which is why I sort of abridged the version for us here today.

So, really, to cut it short, there's this guy called Thomas Scott who's visiting WA in the 1870s, and in particular he visits Pinjarra. He was there for about three days when he mentioned that he passed an elderly woman dressed in a light white billowing dress standing on the Pinjarra bridge.

Sofia: Ooh!

Abbey: He didn't know it at the time, but what he had seen on the Pinjarra Bridge was actually a ghost who is said to haunt the bridge, which is over the Murray River. So, when he [Thomas Scott] is recounting this story to one of his friends, who is only known as Mr C. Which is very mysterious…

Sofia: Mr C. Very unique names. You know?

Abbey: Definitely. Well, anyway, so this aunt is said to have carked it, and then each year her ghost comes back and for nine days around the anniversary of her death – which is said to have occurred in early July – the woman in this light white dress will appear on the bridge at around about midnight. Curious, Mr Scott asked Mr C if they could form a party and go on the next night to search for her.

Sofia: Little ghost viewing party. Mr John and Mr C.

Abbey: Exactly. Anyway, they went out at night, and they all appeared on the bridge. And in fact, Mr C’s aunt’s ghost reappears. And I've actually got a quote from the journal, which says:

‘The apparition was in the centre of the Bridge and seemed to be on the move. It was quite recognisable by all parties and the same that has already been described. We instinctively stopped to watch it for a few minutes. The signal was given by the other party to apprise it, and simultaneously we all rushed to the spot where the apparition stood, visible as plain as day, and – aghast, we stood gaping at each other scarcely believing our own eyes. The figure whether earthly or spiritual had vanished.’

So, the plan was to ambush this ghost on the bridge, walk up to her and just like, see what happens. I think they wanted to know if it was a ghost or an actual person.

Sofia: Okay.

Abbey: And of course, they approach it, and it disappears. And that's really all the journal had to say about that. So, what do you think about this ghost story, Sofia?

Do you think that Scott really did see a ghost? Or do you think that this is just a well-crafted made-up tale?

Sofia: I can see both ways. I have heard a lot of stories about collective hallucinations where if you really believe in something and you really want something to be there, it will be there in some form.

Abbey: Exactly.

Sofia: It also could have been a trick of the light, which I know I sound like the biggest annoying person when I say that. Also, what I was saying before about grief being a really powerful thing…if this was that guy, Mr C’s dead aunt, it could have been him just really wanting to see his aunt again.

But yeah, I also can see how they could make this up. They could've done it for monetary gain. They could have done it just to have all a little tension in the little town, you know.