Tuesday 4th August 2015
The following piece - as mentioned in the previous post on this blog - is an article (of sorts) that I wrote concerning my previous home.... and matters that I had been made aware of, some years following my departure from the house.
As mentioned below, the information here is mainly conjecture about the situation I had been told of at the address, purely based on 'what I knew at that point in time'. As it stands the bulk of the theorising involved turns out, from what is NOW known on the subject, to be wholly erroneous; however, the details do still stand to give an oversight into what the current residents of the property have and probably are experiencing there.....
*I would advise anyone reading through this piece now to refer to the previous post FIRST, before proceeding any further here.....
"A House 'Suddenly' Haunted?
Brief Intro - and potential 'foundation stones'?:
I
should begin by stressing that I loved my previous house - which was my
home from early childhood and then onward for some 25 years - with a
passion. It was where I spent the best years of my life and I would not
have left it for the world if I'd have had any say in the matter. While
skimming for the sake of brevity and privacy, it should be stressed
that, at the time of leaving the property, a lot of anger and
frustration went into thoughts of the place. Prior to this, for a number
of years and over the time of leaving the house, it should be stressed
that a considerable degree of rather abnormal psychology was played out
at the site. There were many angles to such problems, but suffice it to
say at this point, a history of mental illness and a case of ongoing
dementia were overwhelmingly present in the building for a number of
years.
As
some of my friends still live in the area concerned - certainly not a
million miles from my current home - I still occasionally walk past the
house. I'm sure a lot of people would know what I mean in saying that it
'physically' hurts me to see the place at these times, knowing that
someone else now lives in 'my home'. Despite the fact that I've been in
my current address for some 13 years now, started a family and so on,
the old house is still regarded as 'home'; the image that immediately
pops into the minds eye, when anyone mentions the word. Having
mentioned the contents of this paragraph to a number of people now, I
was not at all surprised to find that a great many share the same or
very similar feelings about previous homes - and, in particular,
childhood homes. Needless to say, such feelings are completely
understandable - and possibly worthy of note in the circumstances being
mentioned here.
Since
leaving the property, I have, on a regular basis, indulged myself in
the habit of re-visiting the house in my mind; walking through every
inch of the place, trying to refresh and re-refresh my memory of every
nook and cranny, stair and floorboard creak. There is, of course, a
rather perverse effect to such meanderings, as I do find that I have
been virtually 'torturing' myself at such junctures: not wanting to
somehow lose the idea of what my former residence looked, felt and
smelled like, but quite horrified by the knowledge that it was all now
gone.
I
don't mind admitting that, for some years now - and given my interest
in such matters - I had half joked about 'myself' possibly 'haunting' my
old home in some way(?) In mentally re-visiting the house, I had got
into the way of seldom missing out a ponderance over whether, at some
points in time, my 'apparition' isn't witnessed by the current
occupants, shambling across the living room carpet or perhaps bounding
up the stairs of the property!
On
this subject, I must admit - with more than a degree of embarrassment -
that I have taken the notion further in actually 'wishing' myself on
the property at times. I will readily admit that this had been done in
mixture of frustration and misguided anger at thoughts of my unwanted
ejection from the property and the current residents…. "Look at me!" my
ghost rages, "This is 'My' home that you're living in!". While
moderately cliché, the subject of a thousand and one haunted house
stories, this is a scenario that - embarrassment again - I have
envisioned, in one form or another, oh-so-many times and over the space
of many years…..
In
my defence - from a practical, 'evidence' point of view - I have shared
this 'mental visit' information with a number of people over the years
leading up to the discovery of the events that follow. I state this now
purely as a matter of evidence - as it's all too easy for these types
of story to take on a wholly fantastical slant and, in a great many
cases, people do have a tendency to embroider such tales with what they
take to be confirmatory details - subsequently - which are frequently
only added to give a tale more depth, mystique or drama. Basically,
what I'm trying to say here, is that I can 'call to the dock' people who
had heard my 'do I haunt my old house?' waffling, well 'before' I
learned of the following data...
And So:
Now,
coming forward to January 2010, and I received a phone call on my
mobile one morning while out walking. (Contact via this medium - ahem,
no pun intended! - is almost invariably 'ghost related', as this is the
phone no. logged on our web site for people to ring). There was a
youngish sounding woman on the line who seems rather hesitant to speak
with me to begin with.... but this is certainly no surprise when dealing
with ghostly topics, as pretty much everyone starts off with a rather
'shy' manner when discussing such matters.
She
asks me if I can possibly help her with some details on the history of a
particular house - her mom and dads home and where she herself had
partly grown up - adding that she has called me without their knowledge?
When I reply (with more than a degree of bewilderment) 'if I possibly
can….?' she completely throws me with the information that it is a place
which she believes is known to me…. being my previous home! I initially
thought that someone was possibly having me on at this point, but -
perversely and immediately intrigued - I still instantly asked what
sort of things have supposedly been going on there. She tells me of
some fairly 'standard' sounding happenings (when it comes to these sorts
of matters), including footsteps heard coming from upstairs and
voices. I jump on the latter, asking what the voices sounded like and
if anything could be heard clearly? It's bizarre to relate, given my
overly sceptical outlook on paranormal matters, but I find that I'm
instantly looking for a connection with either myself or the relative I
lived with... I'm truly crestfallen when she says the voices heard are
seemingly those of 'their own family members' who allegedly did not make
the noises heard at the times they have been reported. On the same
tracks, I then ask her if anything has been 'seen' in the house….. but,
again, I'm told that only 'fleeting shapes' have been witnessed, or, on
one occasion, a very young child seemingly saw the figure of 'a man',
but was far too young to describe anything about him in detail.
However, more about my thoughts on this particular angle later on.......
The
conveying of these brief details takes literally a matter of seconds
and I am promised an email from the girl containing further information
related to presumed 'happenings' at the house. It must be said, at this
point, that I am left with a sense of both bewilderment and more than a
little degree of the 'anti-climax'. I find that I am instantly
frustrated by the simple fact that I could make no blatant or direct
connections with myself or any of my family members and the alleged
activity concerned...... What had been related to me in those brief,
few minutes of conversation appears to have been what I can only
recognise as a standard, presumed poltergeist-like effect, quite typical
of pretty much any other case currently being reported in the early
21st Century.
Come
the arrival of the promised email and I am told that another family had
briefly lived in the house immediately after my departure and, in the
mere 12 or so months that they were there, they had experienced some
rather worrying happenings. It is intimated that this activity was at
least partly to blame for their subsequent departure from the house.
The
current residents had taken over the property at the end of January
19__ and, by mid-February, things had already started happening. The
very first occurrence to be noted happened just after midnight on Feb.
14th, when the mother of the family, seated in the living room, reports
having heard crockery banging in the kitchen, as if someone were in a
temper. This sound was closely followed by the kitchen door slamming
shut and footsteps seemingly ascending the stairs. My confidant - we
shall call her Julie - was listening to music in the front bedroom at
this point in time and her mother came upstairs and into the her room in
order to tell her off for making such a racket. Two other people
present in the house at the time - father and sister - were fast asleep
throughout. On going back downstairs to investigate the noise, the
mother found herself slightly ruffled to note that the kitchen door that
she had just heard 'slamming shut' was actually 'open'.
Following
this - duration of time unknown - a 'bad smell' was noted on the
upstairs landing. The odour was reported as smelling as if an animal
had died somewhere and was so blatant that the father pulled up the
floorboards to investigate. The smell apparently vanished as quickly at
is had come, but was then detected in the living room.
Footsteps
have been heard on numerous occasions passing across the rear bedroom
floor, while something akin to the 'scuffling of slippered feet' was
reported in a corner of the front bedroom by Julie. Strangely the
latter is only ever reported as having been detected during the evening -
a sound which was also later heard by the father when he moved into the
room. People using the upstairs bathroom had often mentioned hearing
the sound of someone just outside the door, but, upon investigation,
there was never anyone there.
The
Grandmother of the family - described as someone who doesn't believe in
ghosts - reports having heard an unidentified, male voice whispering in
her ear in the kitchen, apparently saying a single word: 'Cold'.
Other voices heard around the property appear to have been identified as
those of family members, although the people concerned hadn't actually
been responsible for the vocal sounds heard at the time of them being
experienced. In one instance, the bedroom door was heard opening by
Julies sister, followed by the sound of her Mother shouting and
swearing..... The Mother wasn't even present on this occasion and is
described as someone who would never swear anyway! On another occasion,
Julies daughter heard her Nan calling her from outside the bedroom door
- but her Grandmother was downstairs at the time and had not called out
to her.
As
with a lot of such cases, the movement of objects was often reported.
Things are said to regularly 'go missing' and will turn up in blatantly
obvious places.... A 'Simon Says' toy was found on the upstairs
landing, with it's battery compartment cover removed, or dislodged, and
the batteries lying nearby. It was suggested that it would have made a
considerable nose if it had been thrown into this position by anyone,
but, apparently, no one had touched the toy. In another instance, an 18
month old child was heard laughing over a baby monitor and, when Julie
went upstairs to check, she discovered the girls favourite toy in the
cot with her. The toy concerned had previously been situated on the
other side of the room to the cot and the child was not able to have
retrieved it by herself.
At
one point, the hatch door to the loft was heard to give an 'almighty
bang' with no one in it's vicinity. Everyone in the house came to
investigate and found the hatch had seemingly moved in a semi-circular
motion and was now ajar. The same sort of thing has apparently happened
with the cistern lid of the downstairs toilet; a loud bang, followed by
the discovery that it has moved and was now open.
In
their time at the house, the family have gone through 5 televisions
because of malfunctions. The volume of the sets has changed without
being touched, channels have switched of their own volition and so on.
It is said that most electrical items appear to fail or cease to
function properly and lights within the house sometimes flicker and
bulbs 'blow' quite often.
One
of the only times that anything has been physically seen at the house
was when Julies young daughter was standing in the living room, speaking
to her mother, who was situated in the hallway. Suddenly, the child
became very upset, tried to hide and pointed to the stairs saying 'Man,
man....' over and over. At other times, people standing in the kitchen,
facing the rear of the house, report having seen a figure flit across
the hall doorway, via the reflection in the window. Unfortunately, this
is only ever seen very quickly and fleetingly, so no real description
can be given for the figure.
It
was stressed at the time that the above mentioned incidents were only
the tip of the iceberg and lots of other 'silly things' had happened
over the years. Incidents, it was said, would frequently occur for a
while, then cease again for months at a time... and then begin again.
This, it has to be stressed, is most typical of the bulk of presumed
hauntings that you tend to hear about these days. At the time of
writing to me, Julie reported that things had been happening at the
house recently: a bad smell had manifested again in the living room and
an object had been found on the work surface in the kitchen, seemingly
appearing when there was no one in the house. On the very day before I
was made aware of these happenings, someone had been heard noisily
stamping down the stairs of the house by both the mother and father,
sitting in the living room, but on checking the only other occupant of
the house was found to be in bed, fast asleep......
Ghostly Heritage - and subsequent effects?
Firstly,
in light of the above-mentioned data, I can only stress that myself and
my relative experienced pretty much 'nothing at all' that could be
construed as of a paranormal - let alone 'haunting' - nature in the 20
plus years of living at the address concerned. I had to say 'pretty
much' above, as, on a couple of occasions we had smelled (what appeared
to be) cigarette smoke on the stairs of the house........; only ever
smelled and never seen. This had occurred while I was still a child and
my relative had suggested that the smell could have somehow been
related to my grandfather, who had died some years earlier from a
smoking related disease. This is the only, seeming anomaly worth
mentioning.
As
related near the beginning of this tale: considering my somewhat
cynical and sceptical outlook on alleged, ghostly matters, I had utterly
surprised myself at the instant desperation I'd felt to try to somehow,
personally, try to associate myself with this professed haunting! In
truth - and most un-objectively - I had been greatly inspired into such
thoughts by my aforementioned 'mental wandering' about the house and
semi-comical thoughts of my 'haunting' the site. However, what was
truly incredible to note was the emotions that this situation had
instantly raised in me.... to discover that I'd been so easily
bowled-over and emotionally affected by this mildly revelatory
information.
for
the sake of argument, I had to look at the evidence proffered
objectively and as neutrally as possible and consider whether anything
did indeed seem to directly 'tie in' with my time at the property? Of
course - as with most reported poltergeist activity - the happenings
experienced are wholly neutral and ambiguous at best when trying to find
any form of focus or focal point. Footsteps, vague voices and
fleeting, shadowy forms do not lend themselves to much of anything, of
course. Of the little data revealed to me some aspects 'could have'
been potentially pertinent - 'banging crockery', for instance, was a
common enough feature..... It had become an angry habit of my relative
to grab a pile of plates , kept stacked on the work surface and manually
(albeit gently) crash them onto the surface concerned when agitated.
Doors slamming and stair stamping was also a common enough habit at
times too. Of all of the things mentioned, however, the loft hatch was
of particular interest to me, as I'd long used this spot as a hidey-hole
for anything that I'd not wanted my relative to see (ahem!) and so the
hatch had been constantly manipulated - opened, move to the side and so
on - and, usually, allowed to slam shut afterwards...... Again - none
of the above could be construed as definitive or concrete in any
possible way with regards to my time at the house, but, at best, were
recognised features of life there.
Slipping
into the subject of 'ghostlore' itself now, it has to be said that
'phantoms of the living' - e.g. the ghosts of living people - are long
said to be a recognised and much underestimated aspect of the field.
Without going into such things, there are a number of seemingly
impressive cases on file, the world over.... One such 'local', reported
instance concerns a husband and wife who, after moving into a new
house, kept seeing the ghost of a man walk into their living room. Some
while on, they happened to visit a TV repair shop in a nearby town and,
to their horror and amazement, their 'ghost' was the exact double of
the proprietor of the business in question. On tentatively mentioning
this matter, the man concerned revealed that he used to live in their
house and often thought about the place, as he had happy memories of his
time there! Another of the regions most famous ghost sightings - that
of a girl in 70's costume, spotted fleetingly outside the Four Feathers
Hotel in Ludlow - was said to be the apparition of a living woman and so
on. Some so-called authorities have, in the past, gone as far as
saying that more apparitions of living than dead people are seen -
though this is, of course a totally unfounded observation and carries
little weight in the grand scheme of things.
With
regards to the actual 'mechanics' of 'living ghosts' - this is,
needless to say, a matter of complete conjecture. However, it has been
suggested that strong feelings or an overwhelming attachment for a
particular place could possibly instigate such an effect - the
day-dreamers state of mind somehow 'projecting' an impression onto the
fabric of the place being thought of and so on. As mentioned previously
in this waffling, I'd long visited my old house in my mind and
literally 'wished myself' onto the property, mainly as a form of angry
protest...... Couple such suggestions with a more traditional idea for
how some of the more traditional styles of haunting are possibly born:
the theory of 'heightened emotions' or abnormally born, psychological
imprint, leaving a lasting impression on a property? While a completely
unfounded theory, this notion seems to have been a firm favourite with a
lot of researchers over the decades.... the thought that - for example -
the trauma caused by a murderous act could be somehow recorded onto the
very fabric of the place concerned and, at times, under certain
circumstances, be replayed back to frequently unwilling
recipients!!??
Conjecture
again, plain and simple, but should either - or both - of the above
ideas have any form of foundation in this field..... well, the latter
years of my time at the house (and afterwards, of course) were
absolutely filled with lashings of both - to an overwhelming degree, in
fact!Sadly
- after all of the above has been said - I have to simply leave this
matter here, un-finished as it is, with no tidy endings or creaseless
seams. Here is the very nature of these things, however, and it is only
paranormal fiction, delusion or wishful thinking that such matters
become 'rounded off' or 'finished to a high shine' with confirmatory,
historical detail. Laugh! Simply, the matter of the fact here is that,
despite my cynicism for traditional thoughts on paranormal subject,
it's ironic to note that a case which (albeit involves yours truly at a
mere 2nd-hand-level) should clearly contain aspects that 'could'
certainly point towards more traditional and basic
ghostly-theories...... Laugh!!!"