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In his letter ‘The “Blue Lady”’ (July 26), Fr Paul Muscat mentions Captain Robert Ingham’s reference to Verdala Palace’s resident spirit. I am pleased to add some references of earlier gubernatorial dalliances with this infamous spectre.

In a letter to his wife, dated June 28, 1878 (only a couple of weeks after taking up his post in Malta), Governor Sir Arthur Borton wrote that his predecessor, Sir Charles van Straubenzee, was “disturbed” by the Verdala ghost. However, the Bortons were made of sterner stuff: Arthur Borton junior seeking the cool respite of Verdala Palace “slept alone with the ghost… and we found him safe in bed when we arrived for an early breakfast”.

We are also grateful to Albert Crawford McFall of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, a soldier-artist who resided in Malta between 1885-1887. He had befriended a later governor, General Sir Lintorn Simmons, who, possibly unable to capture an image of the phantom herself, sketched her alleged abode: the ghost’s tower complete with cloud enshrouded moon and spooky bats.