Have you seen the Woman of Wortherly Woods?

Have you seen the Woman of Wortherly Woods? 

Have you ever walked home in the dark and felt like someone was following you? Have you ever been asleep, woken up and had the sense of a looming source of energy at the foot of the bed? Or have you even sworn you’ve seen someone in the corner of your eye and you’ve turned to only realise that there’s nobody there? These are feelings that I know only too well. My name is Diane and I live in Wortherly, a village housing only 200 people. Wortherly is one of those places in which nothing ever seems to change. Time seems to simply stand still. We all still carry on maturing and growing older but we never seem to change our way of life. The whole village still piles into the pub at 11am every Christmas eve, Dave the milk man still brings our milk on alternate days and the ghost stories that are told to my children are the same as the ones that I was told as a nipper. As a community Wortherly is very closely nit, maybe too closely nit. Everybody seems to know your business before you do. The kids all go to one tiny school. The more elderly folk all go to the same ‘knit and natter’ session on Tuesday mornings. And unbeknown to some of the yummy mummies in the bottom of the village they seem to share their husbands. However there is one very specific topic of conversation that splits the village. The Woman of Wortherly Woods.

This is a story which some of my neighbours have put down to myth while others take it as true fact. Where do I stand? I believe that she exists... well at least I think she does.

My anecdote to this tale is not as cliché as the usual, ‘When I was a child I was playing in the woods…etc.’ When I was told of the dreaded woman in the woods during Brownie camp in 1983 I couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous. I was one of those matter-of-fact children who didn’t have time for fairy tales. I was a proud member of the myth party until last year when I saw something that changed my opinion totally.

I had been at the pub with my husband Tom and a few of our friends. I had had a fair few medium house whites and Tom and me had decided to call it a night and walk home. There are two ways to our house from the pub. The first of which is the route I tell the kids to take on the way home from school. It is along three brightly lit footpaths and takes twenty minutes to walk. The other is through the woods with no lights or path and of course only takes ten minutes. Naturally. Being the sensible adults that Tom and I are, we decided to take the later route. As we walked into the woods I gripped his hand tightly, mainly as I was worried about falling on the uneven pathless ground. We carried on walking discussing the day’s events, checking in with each other so we knew what the kids had planned at the weekend and which bills needed to be paid. Boring stuff.  We were just walking past the west hut when I saw her. I stopped. Frozen. The cold dim light from our phone torches revealed her long dark tangled hair. She was there, stood right in front of us blocking our way. She was turned away as if she hadn’t even noticed that we were there. Her clothes were dirty and draped off her like a load of old handkerchiefs.  You could see the mud on her fingers as if she had been digging the ground. I was terrified, I looked at Tom and his face was as white as snow. Suddenly, she jolted round snapping out of her daze. Her face was hanging almost as if she felt sadness, full of pain. We ran. I broke forwards grazing her as I went passed. She was cold; it sent a shiver down my spine – only pushing me further forwards. We ran faster and faster towards our house. Tom was gripping my hand still tighter than ever, making sure I was safe. We scrambled across the wall onto the road and then though door into our hallway.

I didn’t sleep that night; I lay in bed, wide awake, wondering if what we had seen was real. Had we just imagined it? Or had we seen a neighbour that we didn’t recognise? If so, what were they doing in the woods? I’m not sure. Since that night all I know is that I can’t seem to shake her face, her emotion. I sometimes start to feel sorry for her, all alone in the cold woods.  It’s for this reason that I have decided to compile this book, to display other people’s stories of the Woman in Wortherly Woods. Hopefully, to one day find some truth in her tale, and to help her to get rid of her pain.