More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

York Hospital

York hospital was built around 1894 by architect George Temple-Poole. It was originally built to accomadate prospectors and others working in the Goldfields around the area at that time.

It ceased to operate as a hospital in 1963.

Acquired by the National Trust in 1976 it has had various uses including since then including a youth hostel. It has been privately owned in recent years and was supposedly being redeveloped into a B & B.

Holiday Nightmare

Author:
Miriam Howard-Wright
Originally published in Artlook Magazine, April 1980, page 46

Thank you to "Cathy" for the above information :o)

Joan Harrison is not a crank. She is neither neurotic nor given to fantasising. But if ever she had just cause to doubt her own sanity it was solely because of a certain holiday she organised for the benefit of a group of young people during the school holiday period in January 1980.

Having spent many hours in Joan's company whilst putting her story together I can only reiterate that she is a perfectly normal human being. A very happily married woman, the mother of three and to all appearances an average suburban home-maker.

She is an attractive brunette, a little on the plump side which adds to a jolly motherly out-going personality. She adores kids and that is one of the reasons she has for the past several years been very actively engaged in the running of the local Little Athletics Club in her district of Rockingham, West Australia.

Her elder son, twenty year old Paul, is the coach of the club and her only daughter and youngest member of the family, twelve year old Darleen is one of the champions of the club, holding club and State records in the shot-put, javelin and discus throwing events.

Joan had decided at the close of the present season that she would withdraw from the club. There were other interests that she had set aside and she just wanted a break. But not before she had given the boys and girls a last treat as it were to sum up her association with them.

Having discussed the possibilities with the committee and other parents it was decided that a camping holiday would be a fitting climax and so it was arranged. Some twenty eight boys and girls together with Paul the coach, and four mothers of members to assist Joan.

Looking back now Joan says she should have realised from the start that they were all headed for a disaster.

They had booked into a youth hostel in the country town of York about 97km east of Perth, a distance of approximately 144km in total which should have been covered in not more than a couple of hours. The very fact that it took six and a half hours in the hired bus will perhaps give some idea of the frustrating journey with breakdowns and holdups which, added to the above century heat, finally landed an exhausted group at their destination. If they had thought for one moment that their troubles were only just starting they would certainly have turned around and gone straight home.

In the first place, in spite of ordering their food requirements some three weeks earlier, there was absolutely nothing there for them, not even a drink of cold water. However, Joan and the other adults set to work and soon got the children comfortable. This was quite a responsibility, small children away from home, in most instances for the first time, but eventually things settled down - at least until the 'other residents' took over!!

It would perhaps be as well here to give some idea to the reader of the layout of the building.

The building itself was originally the old York hospital, a two-storey stone structure with an annexe added later as a maternity ward. It was this part of the building that housed the sleeping quarters for the group. There was a large dormitory on the second floor of the main building that was supposedly out of bounds.