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