Things that go bump in the night

Things that go bump in the night or do they?

Not everyone’s cup of tea, at least not my Aunt’s, “rubbish” she would say or “Never heard so much twaddle in my life”, I tend to disagree, but then as the title suggests, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But what am I talking about? The traditional white sheeted figure gliding through the house at the stroke of mid-night? or those unexplained noises that one hears just as you are going to sleep leading to the question, “was it the cat? Or something else?

Ever since I was a small child I have had an unusual fear of ghosts, one of my earliest memories is of visiting my best friend when I was perhaps seven or eight years old, he lived about two streets away from me, so the journey would take say under 10 minutes when walking and about 5 minutes if running from house to house. During the summertime it was fine but as winter approached it became more difficult. I can’t put my finger on what it was I was afraid of, but I just could not make the journey on my own and had to get my best friend to come with me. So he would walk with me, leave me at the gate and then go back to his house alone. Now this was in the 1970’s and our neighbourhood was quite safe for children to walk the streets alone, unlike today. The same problems happened when I went to bed at night, from very early on I could not sleep with the light off, in fact it was difficult to go upstairs alone. I have a very clear memory of the first time I saw midnight. Usually I slept soon after going to bed, bedtime being about seven o’clock or half past seven, quite early, but there would be school in the morning. I remember this particular night, I had a clock which I will always remember, it told the story of the tortoise and the hare, the big hand being the hare whilst the little hand was the tortoise. There was a poem on the clock face which as far as I can remember went something like this, “The hare and the tortoise had a race, twelve times as fast the hare will go, but watch the tortoise and watch the hare, at twelve o’clock you’ll find them where?” On this particular night, I did not sleep and I can still remember the absolute fear of the clock hands closing in on midnight. Expecting demons and ghosts to surround me at the stroke of midnight, I remember sobbing , too afraid to call out to my parents, the clock past midnight and of course nothing happened.

But this revelation did not help, the fear still did not fade but became an interest at such a young age it felt strange that something which frightened me so much should, if not completely dominate my life, always be there in the background. A bit later on, this unusual fear of mine may have been of concern to my parents, how else could I explain that fateful visit to my Uncle Donald’s house, where he told that his Grandson had similar fears. Now their house was big and old and lots of people lived there, 6 people in all, the house had two floors, many rooms and lots of corridors, perhaps it was not that big, but being quite small at the time it felt like a castle. Anyway Donald went on to tell that his grandson never liked to go upstairs on his own, whilst his Granddaughter seemed to have no problems. But when the dog also refused to go upstairs, then the problem was taken more seriously. “There is something definitely up there”, he would say. Later on he fell and broke his hip, but it was the story he told about how it happened which the most is interesting. Walking along the corridor, heading for the bathroom he had to pass a small corridor which connected to the spare bedroom which was not in use except for storing boxes and things no longer needed in the house. The door was always closed, but this time it was open and out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed someone sitting on the end of the old bed which was stored there. Being surprised he tripped and broke his hip. Another time visiting this house I remember perhaps my first close encounter, sitting with my father and grandmother by the fire, my grandmother said that she saw someone pass the French windows which were situated behind myself and my father, moving from left to right. She was so certain that she had seen someone that she asked my father to go and look, which he did. Well no one was there, as well as the fact that it would have been impossible for anyone to have moved from left to right as it would have meant that the person would have had to have come through the wall.

So with all this going on I suppose it is not surprising that I had this fear of ghosts, but as I have gotten older I have started to wonder if these “stories” and “fears” have not been based on truth, “rubbish”, I hear my Aunt say! “Imagination”, others will say. But nowadays I am starting to look at things in a more adult way, why has this, can I call it an interest have followed me into middle age? I have never researched ghosts until quite recently when, something really strange happened to me, but shall leave that for another time. I have recently read about people who have the ability to either contact or have contact to people of the past, I feel that writing the word “spirits” is taking things too far. I would not say that I can contact the dead. But still so many things have happened, which I cannot explain, leading me to wonder if this is not entirely imagination. Was my unnatural fear as a child founded on some sort of factual events? Charles Dickens wrote in “A Christmas Carol” the line which I shall try to quote as closely as I can remember it; “The spirit was as close to Scrooge, as I am to you now, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow”. Powerful stuff and describing exactly how I have felt on many occasions, as if someone is standing beside me which I would like to go into further detail, again on another occasion. But if you are still with me at this point I would like to go on.

What of proof, if these words are not ramblings, can I give you proof or at least something to say that these are not the stories of an over active imagination, well to be truthful, not really, BUT! One interesting photograph came to light, many years after the date, in fact after I had moved to Finland. My Father died in 1982 and my Mother in 1998, by this time I was already living in Finland. We managed to get as much of my belongings over to Finland although a lot of stuff had to be left behind. Photograph albums were of course very important and all of those came with us. Documenting our many family holidays, one jumped out at me as being quite strange. It shows a picture of me and my Father standing in the ruins of Whitby Abbey, but if you look at the picture closely, there seems to be a white misty figure in the picture as well. The figure stands between ourselves and my mother who took the photograph, slightly to our left. Another picture taken by the same camera does not show the shape, so it cannot have been dirt on the lens. It could have been some light defect which has been suggested, but still it does seem to be the figure of a lady.

Strange shape on the photograph

Unfortunately the negative has been lost and to tell the truth I am not sure myself if this shows what it appears to show. I’ll try to get a better image of the shape.

Picture two

 

I had some trouble getting this photograph put onto the blog and ended up having to take a photograph of the photograph, but i think that you get the idea. These are my earlier experiences which I would like to share, later I shall tell about happening which have been going on quite recently. Once again I shall leave it to the reader to decide whether they are factual or just the result of an over powered imagination. But for the people involved they feel real enough, although there is usually a simple explanation, or as my Aunt would, “Absolute rubbish”.