My Paranormal Experiences
The youngest experiences I can remember were at Whitley Road. I used to always know that there was something there. I used to sometimes hold my breath and hear deep breathing.
When I was about six years old and Dave was five we were playing in my bedroom and I asked him to hold his breath too. We both heard deep masculine raspy breathing and also scratching at the closed door. Thinking it was Tracey playing a trick on us we opened the door but no one was there. We called out and everyone was downstairs.
The second experience I had that I recall was in the same room and I was maybe nine years old. I awoke at night and I could hear the sound of a what I could only describe as a rocking chair creaking over the other side of my room (there was no such chair in my room), and I was too scared to open my eyes. It felt very threatening and oppressive. The sound got closer and closer. I was petrified. Then just as it was right next to me by my bed it just suddenly stopped.
It only happened that one time thank god!
The house in Whitley Road always felt strange to me. Even in board daylight I would feel like something hostile was there on occasions.
The third experience that sticks out as my biggest was the Spanish beach one.
I was twelve years old and we were on holiday at a key Camp. The one we were staying in was around 200 metres from the beach. It was quite late at night, maybe around 10pm. Dave and I decided to take a walk down to the beach with Barry who was ten years old and the son of the family we had gone on holiday with.
The walk to the beach was down a straight track that had a sort of marsh either side of it with long stem green plants that were about a metre tall. It was a bright night light by a big moon but it was still very dark.
As we approached about three quarters of the walk suddenly there seemed to be a wavering light source around ten metres or so ahead of us floating a foot in the air. I can only describe it as like a vertical reflection of the moon on the water, it was not solid or a whole shape. It hovered briefly before moving to the left and fading/ disappearing into the marsh grass. At this point I believe we had all stopped in our tracks but not a word was spoken between us. As this apparition faded then around 20/30 metres away I could see the torsos of perhaps 5 men which I believe looked as if they were marching towards us. They were only black silhouettes but they were definitely large masculine ones.
I stood open mouthed gawping for a few seconds before turning to run, only to realise that the two boys were already running back ahead of me. I was older than them and a good sprinter at the time so I managed to overtake them on my way back!
When we finally caught our breath we each shared our account of the experience. I don’t remember a great deal of variance other than either one or both boys claimed they had also heard marching and seen many more silhouettes than I had!
My fourth experience was in my Mum’s pub. The Anchor Inn. It is a sixteenth century building that had been used for all sorts of things during it’s time. Dad has also had his own experiences in the building along with multiple other people.
When I moved in with my Mum when I was Fifteen years old I lived in a room in the converted loft space. It had wooden beams and solid wooden doors that closed via an old fashioned latch. There were two bedrooms and a landing space in between them.
I had been there a few weeks when I noticed that my door was often open a few inches in the morning when I woke up. I thought to myself how sweet it was that my Mum was checking on me whilst I slept like she used to when I was a child.
It happened a few more times before I mentioned it in passing. Mum’s face went a bit pale when she assured me that it wasn’t her opening my door.
I went upstairs and closed the door. I pushed and kicked it and gently wiggled it around – nothing would open it from either side other than the latch being properly pressed to release it.
After that it still regularly opened at night and sometimes the sound of the latch flicking off would wake me up. The door was never opened more than a few inches.
Over the years the activity did decrease and it used to reoccur every so often with no pattern that I could distinguish.
My fifth experience I will group under footsteps. I can’t remember when I heard the footsteps in the pub or how many times as they were so frequent!
The pub has three levels. The bar area, the first floor living area and the loft area where my bedroom was.
The first time I heard the footsteps I was sitting in the living room on the second floor and I heard them walk across the landing outside my bedroom. I was already aware that no one was up there and they were so clear with each floorboard creaking under each footstep that they could not have been anything else.
My Mum was very sceptical about paranormal as a lot of people are so she would often dismiss things that happened in the pub. We had a lodger called Dave that stayed in the room opposite me and one evening I was sat in the living room again and as my mum walked past the door the sound of footsteps came from above her. I asked her, ‘Can you hear that Mum?’, she replied, ‘Yes, Dave is up there’. She went downstairs only to return within a very short time and she said to me, ‘Caz, Dave is downstairs’, I replied, ‘I know!’.
Another time I was running the pub and Dave was still lodging. I got up in the morning and as I made my way downstairs from my room I heard footsteps with the usual floorboard creaking below me (the staircase was an L shape so I was unable see the floor beneath me), I called out ‘Good morning Dave’ and continued to walk down the stairs. The footsteps stopped and I suddenly remembered that Dave would have left over an hour earlier to go to work. As I rounded the corner this was confirmed by a totally empty landing and house!
During another time when I was running the pub and Dave was no longer lodging I came home and walked through the bar. As was about to go up to the living accommodation I noticed that the four men in the bar and the barman were all staring at me and were a little subdued. I stopped and smiling said, ‘What?!’, one of them said, ‘ Caz, we have been sat here for the last hour and we have all heard someone running across the landing above the bar, Killer (the barman’s nickname) went up to check and there is no one there!’.
I then had to go up there by myself, luckily nothing else happened that night!
My sixth experiences are a couple of going on’s within the pub.
I went on holiday and during the time I went away my Mum the sceptic woke up to a very large crash from my upstairs landing at about 4am. She went up to check what it was and a large flower vase of mine was broken all over the floor. We had no pets and the vase was in a secure position originally. No windows were opened. We had no problem with rats or mice, Mum was unable to explain how it had come to break.
Another time I was in and heard a loud crash and all of my DVD’s had been pushed from a shelf onto the floor and again there was no explanation.
My seventh experience was another shared one. The reoccurring walking silhouette man.
I was having a late night lock in with around ten of my friends and Ross in the pub whilst I was running it again and it was around 2am when we all witnessed a silhouetted shaped man walk across the doorway of the saloon bar from the main door to the bar. It repeated this a few times of which a majority of the group saw it at the same time. Since then multiple other customers have seen this including my brother Dave. Mum also once excitedly admitted to seeing it one night only to be disappointed when we all said ‘Yeah we’ve all seen that!’.
The flat
My eighth experience is a group one about the Flat.
I believe that I am slightly sensitive to atmospheres and I can often feel things. When we moved into the flat I was aware a lot of the feeling that there was someone in the hallway that would ‘stare’ into the living room. I had not seen anything, it was more that feeling when the temperature changes and you get goose bumps. Ross is sceptical but admitted he felt it too.
Dave and Nika stayed and were freaked out by the flat. While they were here they regularly thought they heard doors opening and a glass candle holder blew out a chunk of glass from the back of it that hit the wall with a lot of force. It was near a plug so this could be debugged.
Dad came over with his Ex-wife Lorraine and she whispered something to him, I asked what she’d said and Dad prompted her and she said, ‘There is a young boy and an elderly man who visit, they are not permanent and they are not related, they pass through sometimes’
Last year I was speaking to my neighbours and they said ‘Your flat is haunted isn’t it?’, I replied,’ How do you know, did I tell you?’, they laughed and replied, ‘No, they are all haunted, there is an old man who died in one of them and he now haunts the whole block.’
He told me that the activity is very great in their flat. They hear footsteps, doors open and close, lights turn on and off and other electrical equipment such as televisions turn on and off. They have also seen a floating face of him and said he has a beard.
Alexia as a baby used to look, smile and wave at someone a lot when she was a baby. A psychic asked me if I had noticed and told me that Nanny wanted me to know it is her visiting.
Once Ross and I simultaneously watched some kind of beautiful floating light go across and up the wall. It was purples, pinks, blues and whites and a foot long. It was quite quick and just vanished into the ceiling. I was happy Ross had seen it too or I would have thought I’d imagined it!
Blake has a friend. I am hoping it is Nanny again but I don’t know. In our living room there is an archway that opens into a small office area. When we are feeding Blake, since he was a tiny baby, he will suddenly stop feeding and turn and stare and sometimes smile and baby talk. It is like someone has called his name to get his attention first. I have been looking at the area and on a number of occasions now I am sure that I can see a shape of someone/something. Recently I also saw a misty haze within it too.
When Dad comes to visit he either brings people with him or people come to see him. Every time he comes over I get a heightened awareness of people in the hallway. It is often at its strongest when we are discussing paranormal events. Sometimes I get a sudden cold feeling and it is tense and other times it is warm and comforting (I believe that one is Nanny with him). If I mention it or sometimes as I feel it he will feel it at the same time and stop and ask a question to whoever is there. They have not been forth coming in communicating with him yet!
A few times during his visits I think I have seen his Aura too. It is bright white and projects an inch or so around him. I have never had this experience with anyone else.
I think that is it! I have also had some white feathers from time to time but nothing significant enough to mention!