For more than 50 years, teenagers have taken part in a touching ritual at the old Goodna Cemetery where they place flowers at the graves of six children.

It is said that the ghosts of those young children return the favour and leave hand prints on the cars of those who tend to their graves.

The urban legend is one of the stories shared in a new Ghost Tour of the Goodna Cemetery run by Jack Sim.

Mr Sim said he had been contacted by a woman who would visit the cemetery in the 1970s as a teenager and described the story in great detail.

“I had heard this story of the little hand prints on the car from other long-term Goodna residents and it is actually a common urban legend to be found in the United States and in England.

“I have to admit I was a little bit, not dismissive of it … but it is a common urban legend of little children’s ghostly hand prints on cars. But this woman added such a rich amount of other detail about the old graves.

“She explained that there was this process where you picked flowers and went to the cemetery and there were very specific graves to visit, and if you put flowers on those graves the little ghost would be so happy with you that when you went back to your car they would leave little hand prints on your vehicle.  

“Six specific little graves. 

“There’s more than six children buried in Goodna Cemetery but these really old graves were the ones where you had to do the right thing and put a flower on them. It was a wonderful piece of folklore that she was perpetuating.”

Mr Sim traced the six graves and featured them in a new tour of the old Goodna Cemetery which was one of his new tours starting up as Covid restrictions eased thanks to funding through the Ipswich Exceptional Experiences Grant. 

Some of the graves are damaged, some have been vandalised and others are subsiding and falling into disrepair.

Mr Sim is working with Batstones Memorials’ stonemasons to repair the graves over the next two years to preserve them for future generations.

The first of the six to be restored is the grave of Beatrice Twemlow who died on May 6, 1896. 

Beatrice was the third youngest of 10 children who died after contracting whooping cough at 1 year and five months. She suffered for three weeks. Twelve hours before she died, she developed convulsions. 

Ipswich doctor, Dr Nicholl attended her, but she died the same day.

At the time her father Charles was the school teacher at Goodna State School. 

He and her mother, Sarah, arrived in Brisbane in 1886 from London, as second-class passengers, along with three children, and a governess. Welsh-born Charles had been recruited to teach in Western Queensland. 

The family were living at the Goodna School House when Beatrice died. She was buried on May 7, 1896. He was head teacher at Southbrook, Walloon, Goodna, Bundamba and Ipswich Central Boys School. Charles died in Ipswich in 1919 and is buried there. A few years later his wife Sarah remarried. She is buried in the Toowong Cemetery.     

The elaborate headstone at Beatrice’s grave is a sign of how loved she was. The headstone has come off its foundations and the Victorian grave edging is broken and subsiding.

Mr Sim believes a cross is missing from the top of the headstone.

The repair work will replace the cross, re-pin the headstone on the mounting and restore the edging. 

“Her parents obviously, like parents today when they lose their children, expressed their grief and their love by investing in these beautiful memorials which they would hope to last for eternity. We are just trying to help out,” Mr Sim said.

“We are going to be telling stories about these little children and it is important that they are seen by visitors as being real people who lived a life and part of that is to make sure that the way the graves are presented is tidy and neat.

“An important part of what we do is to show that they are still thought of and I think fixing their graves is part of that process. It is important to me.”