Among Nelson College for Girls legends is the story of a ghost that haunts its halls. In 1999 a plasterer renovating the school buildings refused to work alone after being spooked by the appearance of a young girl in a white dress with a bow at the neck, similar to a college boarder’s uniform from the 1920s.
A report in the Nelson Mail 11 days after the sighting quotes Steve Renwick of Nelson Plaster Board Stopping, who was working in a corridor beside the school hall when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
‘‘I felt all cold and shivery, and the hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up.
‘‘I turned around and saw a kid about 14 just standing there with a really sad look on her face.
‘‘My God, it scared the living daylights out of me.’’
Mr Renwick did not know how long he stared at her before asking ‘‘What do you want?’’, then the girl disappeared.
News of the ghost sighting was published around the world and an article in the Sydney Morning Herald caught the attention of old girl Molly Leslie.
‘‘You don’t know me, but I’m your ghost’s sister,’’ college principal Alison McAlpine says Leslie told her when she phoned.
Leslie’s sister Jessie Maxwell LeFroy, a boarder, died at the college on October 24, 1924 after being struck down with influenza. The college’s principal at the time, Margaret Lorimer, had been by her bedside trying to nurse her through the illness.
McAlpine says Jessie’s family always believed her spirit had lived on at the college because she had enjoyed her time there.
There have been other sightings of the ghost in the 1940s and 1960s when work was being done on the college buildings.
McAlpine says she tells the ghost story to girls at the preparatory school every year.
(Original headline: Jessie haunts college halls )
