by Victoria Price
This is a true story as a lot of my friends and family would tell you.
Let me take you back to 1989, when I was in primary school and living with my parents and my older brother and sister. As long as I can remember, my family seemed to always have paranormal activity going on in the house we were living in and it seems to follow us to the next house. Thank the lord this was to be the last house, or so I thought.
It all started when I was at school one day and I was playing with the younger year school group and I saw (what looked like) the end of a very long black cape go past the classroom window. As far as I knew I was the only one who saw this. Thinking nothing of it, I never mentioned it again. The strange thing was after my experience, I saw the end of the cape a few more times; but only at school. This (so called) black cape I then saw again as I was walking down an old railway track. Now starting to get a bit scared, I then told my mum. She said not to worry about it, but that if it was something, she would keep an eye out.
Anyway, a few weeks went past and I started to forget about it until one night I was in my room. I had a little black and white TV on a seat by my bedroom door. The TV had little knobs that you had turn to get to each channel. I must have sat in front of it for about five minutes trying to find a channel (which was strange because I had never had trouble finding a channel before). Then my brother came and stood in the doorway and started chatting to me. I wasn't really looking at him...just talking to him, but at the same time trying to sort out my TV. Then when I did look at him (as my brother describes) I went as white as a sheet and had a terrified look on my face. What I was looking at was a black figure - no face, just covered from head to toe in black. It was terrifying and just behind my brother's shoulder. I screamed at the top of my lungs and as you can imagine scared the shit out of my brother. As I screamed, this black figure went and it looked like it went into my sister's bedroom (next to mine). My brother didn't believe in ghosts until that night. I can't remember much more about that night but I was only nine.
A few weeks passed and I was having a sleep over at my house with two of my friends. My friend Amy and myself were on my bed having a really good laugh. My friend Nicola was sat at the bottom of my bed talking to us with her back to my open bedroom door, when I saw the black figure again in the doorway looking right at me. Even though it had no face, I knew it was looking at me. As I screamed it disappeared again, as if screaming at it was scaring it in some way...or disappearing because I was scared of it. Not much more was said about it, as not many people would have believed a nine year old girl being haunted by a black figure...but talking to my mum about it seemed to help. My mum suggested that it was trying to get my attention or just looking out for me, as it didn't seem to want to hurt me; but I really didn't like it either way as I doubt many people would have.
After that, a few more little things happened such as one night when I was sent to bed, the rest of my family were downstairs. I got into bed and with my door open, I went to sleep. I woke up to the feeling of the end of my duvet being lifted up to reveal my feet. Being frozen with fear, I lay as I only could (frozen) and feeling the same thing a few more times. Even though this was the type of trick my brother would have pulled, I knew that he couldn't have done this (because even the slightest of movement would have made the floor boards creak, as the house dates back to the 17th century when it was a public house). All I remember after that was waking up the next morning feeling so glad that it was morning.
On my 16th birthday I had a friend staying over. That night when I was in the bathroom, I heard her talking to someone. I left the bathroom and walked into my bedroom expecting to find someone else with her, but all I saw was her looking quiet shaken. When she calmed down she said she saw a black figure walking out of the bathroom and across the landing. As she thought it was me, she started talking to me but when I didn't walk into the bedroom, she walked out onto the landing to see where I was (but I was still in the bathroom). After that night, any one of my friends who stayed the night always saw something when they were left on their own. Who knows? It may have been the black figure checking up on them.
When I turned 18, I was with a friend of mine in their house and one of their neighbours walked in. As me and the neighbour got talking, he just asked me where I was from and I mentioned my parent's house. He then asked me if I had heard of the ghost that use to haunt the house and seemed to look after the children that were there before we moved in? Being so shocked that it wasn't just me going mad and that the ghost was real, I said, "No. I haven't." Then he told me that before my house was a pub, it was a monastery and that the black figure that haunted the house was in fact a monk.
Well writing that story has brought back some memories and believe me when I say that isn't the only ghost story from my past and I'm only 25.
This is the update. I recently had some paranormal private investigators (spooks) as they are called, come to my dad's house, as he is now selling it and I wanted it to give me closure before it was too late. They picked up on 11 ghosts in that house altogether, and in my bedroom one of the psychics straight away picked up on a spirit monk called Father Francis...and went on his knees and started to pray. Well by this point, I had left the room in tears. I then was asked if I wanted to return, which I did and he needed me to say that he was forgiven for scaring me...and that he was there to protect me. I said it was OK and the psychic then came out of his trance. Bear in mind that before these people arrive you are not allowed to tell them anything about the house or what you are after. They didn't even know it was my dad's house; they thought they were investigating my house.
So this is my story, and I hope that it has been a pleasure to read.