Ghost Stories

Ghosts.

This will be a very long Point of Prue as I have encountered many ghosts in my life and heard many more stories of them being with my family, when I was too young to be aware of them. As I know everyone loves to hear a good ghost story, I will take the time to share them with you, as I have with many people, young and old, who have asked me to regale them with my opinions on ghosts.

Opinions are formed either from experience or from learning. I have formed the Point of Prue that ghosts ARE with us, choosing to either disturb us or not, depending on our mindset at the time. I have formed this opinion from experience, since ghosts are not a subject I have cared to study or learn more about.

The Old Squire.

My first ghost encounter was the most soothing one. I had been beaten and sent to my room again. This time, the anger in me was raging and I felt quite unable to control it. I lay down on the floor (to lie on the bed would have been to attract more beating later if discovered) while the anger suffused my body, starting in my toes and coursing up to my scalp and back down again. After a while, my rage subsided and the tears came. Tears of injustice. This respite allowed me to get off the floor. I went over to the window and sat down with my head on my arms on the window ledge. I started to feel suddenly soothed and calmer. I focused my vacant gaze to below the window and saw a kindly old gentleman smiling up at me. He wore plus fours and a waistcoat of tweed, a jaunty hunting hat and leather hunting boots. He was supporting his body on a wooden walking stick. I don’t think I smiled. Tears still flowed down my cheeks. Still smiling, he took one hand out of his pocket, waved at me, smiled even more peacefully, and turned to leave. I smiled at his retreating figure and went back to lie on the floor.

It did not occur to me that he was a ghost. Of course he was. Old gentlemen dressed in what looked to me like period costume, do not simply appear beneath one’s window in broad daylight! What occurred to me was how kind and friendly he had been, giving me encouragement to be brave and strong. He appeared to me two or three times during that worst of times, each time with his charming smile and soothing countenance. He was truly my friend in my moments of need.

Poltergeist.

My brother had a poltergeist. My brother slept in the room beside me and woke me many times with his noisy movements. I would go next door to see if he was ok, and each time, find him fast asleep on the armchair, wrapped snugly in his eiderdown. Our housekeeper told us that the small door in his bedroom was actually a priest hole, long since bricked up. Previously it led from his room to a tiny, narrow passageway behind the staircase, and round to another opening in the room on the other side, which was now a walk in wardrobe in my mother’s room. Our housekeeper speculated that the poltergeist was the priest of local folklore who had died in our house when the search had lasted for days and he had been unable to escape. She believed that he now came at night to rest in the bed, having to remove my brother safely to the chair first, so as not to disturb him.

Others have told me that stressed and troubled souls attract such ghosts. If they are pure of heart, they are never harmed. My brother was both. I am glad that the priest belonged to his bedroom, not mine, as, during those terrible times, I was never pure of heart.

Chelford Place.

My sister had many nannies as a toddler. My Point of Prue is that she is such a wonderfully social person now because of that. But the reason she had so many nannies is due to the lady who haunted the attic room that she and the nannies lived and slept in. My Dad would tell us this story many times as we grew up, each time, sneaking in more and more details to entertain us, until the stories became silly! I will pare it back to the original, lest you don’t believe it.

The attic windows were always boarded up. And the boards would always be torn down.

The first nanny saw the grilles fall out one night, before feeling a sub-zero chill sweep through the attic.

The second heard loud screams and wails, footsteps over the roof and then the wooden boards being wrenched off the nails that held them, before she turned on the lights and saw the boards fly across the room.

The third lasted the longest. She was very fond of a tipple of Brandy and would drink an amount before sleeping. My Dad suspected later that she would add a wee drop; yes, she was Scottish; to my sister’s milk to help her sleep through the night too. The nanny slept through several rounds of flying wooden boards and one wood and metal round, until she too, left. Partly due to the realisation that she had been sleeping in a haunted attic, partly due to her Brandy habit being discovered!

My Dad found out the history of the house after we had moved. The lady had been the mistress of the house who had fallen out with her husband. He had eventually caused her to try to run away, the only way out for her being through the attic window and over the roof. Unfortunately she slipped on the roof tiles to her death. Local lore had it that she would try to get back in to punish her husband for causing her early death.

Black Man.

I know, I have a black man fetish, but believe me when I say that this has nothing to do with it! In fact, I do believe I did not have this fetish back then. Anyway, I digress.

You have asked me whether I believe in ghosts, and I say, oh yes! My Point of Prue on ghosts is formed from experience; take my close encounter with this guy in Blenheim.

My boyfriend and I were staying in a B&B in Woodstock, just outside Blenheim, while on a driving weekend round the South of England. The room was small, but cosy. We had twin beds, and each was at either wall, with the table and armchair between. We were well settled in for the night, which was a bit chilly, so we were both well tucked up too. I drifted off only when I heard Tom sleeping. I was woken by him climbing onto my bed and lying down squashed beside me, with his face so close to mine I could feel his cold breath. Barely opening my eyes I whispered, “What’s all this? Too cold over there were you? I don’t think these little beds can take two of us!” And then he pushed me further into the wall as if to get me out of bed. Well, how rude, I thought. By then, well awake, I stared into his eyes and hissed, “Oi!”, and then suddenly realised that I could still hear him gently snoring over on the other bed. The man pushing and squeezing me off the bed was not him! Neither was he Caucasian with small, blue eyes. He was definitely a large, very dark, black man with round dark eyes. The cold I had felt was all over me now, not just on my cheeks. I think I screamed. Tom woke up and called out to me and the weight lifted as if it had not been there. I pretended to be asleep, not wanting to explain to Tom what had just happened. Soon I heard him soundly sleeping again, and within minutes, the large body was back on my bed, pressing me into the wall. The face was no longer placid, he looked very angry. I leapt out of bed, grabbed the eiderdown, and sat over on the armchair for the rest of the night. My bed was being occupied by someone, and that someone was not me!

So, I advise you to leave ghosts well alone. If you don’t disturb them, they won’t disturb you. In fact, they may even be your friend.