Wednesday 31 October 2012

My Halloween Ghost Story.

Last August I promised you a ghost story at Halloween. Not a made up ghost story but a real one that happened to me 10 years ago. Whether you believe it or not, or can find another explanation for what happened is up to you, but I swear that everything I tell you here happened to me.

So my story is set in Ely, in Cambridgeshire, a place that has been dubbed the most haunted town in the UK. It is a very old town, and for a year I lived there in a top floor flat in a very old building. The building was on St Mary's street, and is opposite Oliver Cromell's House, now the Ely Museum. Three of us lived there for a year and from the start everything was not exactly how it seemed.

The flat was large and occupied the whole top floor of the building, 3 bedrooms and a very large living room, kitchen and bathroom and a long dark corridor connecting all of these areas. Some of the events could perhaps be explained by other non supernatural means, but it is only when they are all put together that you will agree, all was not normal.



The Whispering.

The first thing to happen was the noises. I would often hear a whispering behind, me, especially in the corridor. My friends experienced this too, but we thought at first it was a strange acoustic affect of the building. The sound was like someone whispering quickly and constantly but no intelligible words. It would have the affect of making you turn around, a bit like you feel when you think someone is watching you. It could be extremely unnerving, especially when you were in the house completely alone at night.



Plumbing.

People say that ghost noises can be explained by plumbing sometimes, but I ask, can plumbing also be affected by ghosts?  In my flat there was a combi boiler and it was positioned in a cupboard in my bedroom. Sometimes, I would hear it fire up, even when I was there alone. I would go into the kitchen to find the hot tap full on. Having turned it off, I would go back to my bedroom. A few minutes later, the boiler would fire up again and the tap would be on. This was a regular occurance. Obviously a ghost who wasn't bothered about gas and water bills.



The Haunted Statue.

I showed in an earlier post a photo of a bronze horse I was left in a will. It is very heavy and solid. I had it in this flat on one of the windowsills. One day, my friend and I were in the room with the statue and we were standing by the window talking. I asked him if he wanted a cup of tea and we both wandered together into the kitchen to put the kettle on. A few minutes passed and we made our tea and went back to the room with the statue to find it standing dead centre of the room, a good 3 metres from the window sill. No one else was in the flat and at no time were either of us left alone in the room. It felt like insects straight from the freezer ran up and down my spine that day.



Poltergeist

The girl who was there with us had a shelf with lots of girly things on, perfumes, trinkets, jewelry and the like. Sometimes in the middle of the night, all of these things would be swept off the shelf onto the floor. A ghost that didn't like feminine trinkets, quite clearly.



Presence in my room.

One dark winter night, I was in the flat alone for the night. My friends had gone away and I was having a rare but wonderful me night. I watched some TV (tended not to watch anything scary when I was there alone) and then went to bed. I read for a bit and then turned out the light. The room was on the back of the building and was absolutely black as pitch. I was still awake (definitely) and I felt someone sit down on the bed next to me. It wasn't my imagination, I actually felt the bed go down on that side and felt a presence next to me and a very faint breathing. I was almost paralysed with fear but after a while managed to slowly get my hand out and turn on the light. The room was completely empty. I lay with the light on for a very long time after that.



Skeptics.

I had a friend who had heard all these stories from me, but didn't believe me at all. We were doing a job together up in Wells, in Norfolk and he asked if he could come and stay that night. So we drove back to my house and I set up a fold away bed in the living room for him and wished him good night. When I awoke early the next morning it was to find him gone, no note. I didn't see him again for about a week and it was only then that he told me what had happened. It seems that every time he got into bed, the bed would shake. He would get out and it would stop, in again and it would shake, quite violently he said. He was so disturbed by this that he didn't sleep, but in the end just got up and left, very frightened by the experience. He was no longer skeptical of my stories. Other visitors I had, asked me who it was that was running up and down the corridors all night and complained of strange drafts that didn't seem to come from anywhere.



The truth is out there.

There are countless stories about my year in this place. Ely was a haunted city and there were stories of a ghostly figure that was seen regularly near the Cathedral, eventually, when some building work was done, a very anceint skeleton was found bricked up in the wall next to where the sightings were. You may well remain skeptical, that is up to you, but I know the things that happened to me in that flat, the constant feelings of being watched, the absolute knowledge that someone was behind you, but when you turn around there is no one there at all and the presence in my bedroom.



Sleep well, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh




13 comments:

  1. Saw your comment on one of Johns' posts and thought I'd give you a read. I believe I would've had to leave, too. ;)

    Don't remember any unexplained ghostly events directly happening to me but, I've heard of similar ones from trustworthy folk.

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  2. I believe because I've seen /heard/felt ghosts (or whatever you want to call them).
    Jane x

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  3. Now I'm going to have to sleep with the lights on tonight! LOL

    At least you had 2 roommates to share the experiences with. Here, when things go bump in the night, it can be scary. Once, I needed vanilla extract. I knew I had some. I couldn't find it. I took out everything on the spice shelf, looked, put everything back. No vanilla. Went out of the kitchen, came back, and there was the bottle of vanilla - front and center on the shelf. I yelped and jumped back as if it had bitten me. Yep. No explanation.

    Hope your new cottage is ghost free and benign. Happy Halloween. :-D

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  4. The whispering was enough to give me goosebumps.

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  5. I walked every step with you Dan as I have had loads of experiences all my life, from being a child and asking why the child in the window couldn't come out to play to recently having a similar experience to Kris. My husband, a non believer, has experienced unexplained incidences with me and I think he is beginning to believe. I see apparitions, shadows, hear people talking to me as well as items being thrown across the room. I just love it. Happy Halloween x x x x x x

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  6. Oh man, that is creepy! I'm definitely not watching any scary films tonight now!! (I'm home alone and I have a bit of an overactive imagination sometimes!!)

    I think the creepiest part of the story was the horse head statue!

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  7. I never believed in ghoasts until I saw one myself. I was still teaching dance then, busy locking dance implements away in an otherwise empty church hallwhen felt the door open behind me and a cold draft entered the hall. As I was halfway inside a large cupboard I just shouted out to who ever had come in that I was just about to lock up for the night. I had no answer. As I looked around the cupboard door I saw a hooded figure walk up into the passageway to the toilets. I followed it up there, checked all the toilets but could not find any trace of anyone. There was no other way out of the hall, so the person/figure had no chance of disappearing without a trace. That`s when I knew I had seen a monk in brown robes, a ghoast that was repeatedly seen by other folk that used this hall before me. I hurried to lock up that night and could have done with a stiff drink at home. I made sure not to be in the hall on my own again after that encounter, but never saw the hooded figure again.

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  8. I have got goosebumps now!! I believe but have never seen anything. We did once stay in an old cottage and I could have sworn someone had sat on the bottom of the bed.I couldnt speak properly but made a horrible noise according to my husband who said there was nothing there.Was it sleep paralysis? I dont think so I am convinced there really was someone/something on the bed..We havent been back needless to say!

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  9. I used to live in Ely! Just round the corner from the cathedral but never saw any scary things going on.

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  10. I have never believed in ghosts, however about 5 years ago we took the kids for a farmhouse cottage holiday in dorset and the twins were sharing one room. I was walking up the stairs and heard them run along the landing and into their room so followed them in to tell them off for running around the house, but there was no-one in the room. I put it down to me imagining it until a year later at a family BBQ we were taking about a hotel that was haunted and my mum said she had a funny experience at the farmhouse cottage the year before- exactly the same experience as me and she had not told me as she thought I'd not like it!

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  11. AWESOME story! Thanks for sharing. I totally believe but have never had an experience. Honestly I'd like to have an experience myself just so that I can "know" if that makes sense.

    Again, great to share this with us. And appropriately creepy for the holiday, ha. :-)

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