Thursday 21 January 2010

Ghost Of The Living.....


Just one solitary ghost story to be posted this week folks, but we're sure it will make an interesting read and hopefully inspire readers to contact us with their thoughts or any similar instances(?)

The following matter has recently come to the attention of the WMGC and the author - who wishes to remain nameless - has asked us to appeal for any similar data or references from the blog readers and visitors:

"I should begin by stressing that I loved my previous house – my home from early childhood and then onward for many 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, it should be stressed that, at the time of leaving the property, a lot of anger and frustration went into thoughts of the place. Just prior to this and during the period of leaving, a considerable degree of abnormal psychology was played out there.

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 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.

Since leaving the property, I have, on a regular basis, re-visited 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.

I don't mind admitting that, for some years now I had half joked about ‘myself’ possibly ‘haunting’ my old home in some way(?) In thinking about 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 that I have taken the notion further in actually ‘wishing’ myself on the property at times. I’m embarrassed to admit that this had been done in mixture of frustration and misguided anger at thoughts of my unwanted ejection from the place 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…..

Come forward to the time of writing this piece – January 2010 – and, only a few days ago, I receive a phone call on my mobile. There is person on the other end of the line who seems rather hesitant to speak with me to begin with; but they eventually ask me if I can possibly help them with some details on the history of a particular house? When I reply ‘if I possibly can….’ I'm thrown with the information that it is a place which they believe is known to me…. being my previous home! I initially thought that someone was possibly having me on, but – perversely and instantly intrigued - I still ask what sort of things have supposedly been going on there. I'm told of some fairly standard happenings – including footsteps heard coming from upstairs and voices – and I instantly jump on the latter, asking what the voices sounded like and if anything could be heard clearly? It's bizarre to relate, but I’m instantly looking for a connection with either myself or others I had lived with, and find myself crestfallen when I'm told the voices heard are 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 if anything has been ‘seen’ in the house….. but, again, I’m told that only fleeting ‘shapes’ have been witnessed, and, on one occasion, a small child seemingly saw the figure of 'a man', but was far too young to describe anything about him in detail.

The emphasis on the phonecall is clearly a query over whether I or my family had ever experienced anything of a paranormal nature in all of the time that we lived there. My simple answer is - if that house was haunted back 'then' - well, I am a Dutchman!!

Regarding the details of the happenings, suffice it to say, I could make no blatant or direct connections with myself or any of my family members and the activity concerned. What is mentioned appears to be a standard, poltergeist-like effect, quite typical of pretty much any other alleged haunting currently being reported in the early 21st Century.

I was 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. The current family had taken over the property at the end of one month and, by the middle of the next, things apparently began happening.

A quick digression should be inserted here on the subject of, so-called, ‘Apparitions Of The Living’. Such things are supposedly a recognised phenomenon in ghost-related circles and, according to statistics, 'more apparitions of living people are seen than apparitions of the dead'. Personally speaking, I think such a quote is utter hog-wash, but where 'mechanics' are concerned, the common notion about such things is that someone might think about a building so much, through a passionate love of the place, for example, that they somehow, by some para-physical means, actually ‘project’ an image of themselves onto the site concerned.

Could this be the reason for the 'haunting' in my old home, do you think?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I do think this is the reason for the "haunting". You have somehow projected your thoughts on your old home. I often do the same with my previous home.

W.M.G.C. said...

Thank you for the comment Anonymous - would you care to share further details with us at all?

Best wishes,

The WMGC