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Posted: 19-04-2011 10:08 Post subject: Ghost tales from everyday people!

I am 60 this year, and I have been amazed just how many rational people have admitted they have either seen or felt a ghost. I got to talk intimately with men and women when I was a nurse and carer, so perhaps they felt they could confide in someone who would give them a sympathetic ear.

I have never doubted a single story because they are all fleeting, and occur in such mundane and undramatic circumstances.

Here are a few to amuse you.......

The 50 year old mother of a friend bought a fisherman's cottage in Mousehole, Cornwall. She did some major alterations, including the insertion of a new door. One evening, as she sat knitting alone in the lounge, she felt 'aware' of something, and looking up, saw a small man in old fashioned dress, standing in the new door frame. He appeared to look the frame up and down, looked at her and smiled, then faded away. She said that as a child they moved into a semi and she saw the figure of a woman who was 'shaking', in the corner of her bedroom. Eventually she found out the previous owner had died in the room and suffered from Parkinson's disease.

A carpet layer told of how he was alone in an unoccupied Victorian villa, and had started to lay carpet, under the window, with his back to the door. He heard heavy footsteps coming towards him on the bare boards and when he turned to see who it was, found he was still alone!

Only last year an elderly couple told of how they were taking a walk in the meadow at the bottom of their large property when they both saw a figure walking across the meadow in what looked like sacking with some kind of belt. He was invisible from about the knees down, they observed him for a few seconds, then he faded away. Others have seen this man, who is believed to be following an old track from the village to the sea.

I was at nursing school with a lass from Yorkshire who said her farmhouse was built around the remains of a monastery. The whole family had regularly seen what appeared to be flickering candles in some kind of procession. Nothing else was visible.

A boyfriend said that he and a mate left a pub in Exeter? (memory fading, it was definitely in Devon), and found a phone box. They were looking for a taxi number when they heard the sound of a horse galloping. They both looked and saw a horse and rider galloped past at full speed. The rider had a billowing shirt, long flying hair and a distraught look which both blokes witnessed. They stepped out of the box to get a better look of him riding up the street, but he was gone. No sound. He was not sure if it was a ghost or real, but at about 11.00pm, he had his doubts.

My deceased Mother in Law said she went down to make a cup of tea one evening and saw her dead husband, standing at the sink.

An ex husband said that while he was in hospital and fearful for his life, he had a visit from his ex wife's uncle who walked up to the bed and said words to the effect that all was going to be OK and he would make it. The man had died two years before. He said later that had he wanted to conjure up a guardian angel, the ex wife's uncle would not have come to mind!

My favourite seems more of a time shift than a ghost and was told by the son of a very educated and down-to-earth Hunting Estate manager in Scotland. His father had been stalking, observing his deer in the summer, flat to the ground, lying very still. He saw a near naked man, with tangled hair and a beard and a long spear, silently 'loping' across his field of vision. The fleeting 'vision' then faded away and he was left with the impression he had seen a Prehistoric man.

I am not a writer trying out my skills on you all, these are genuine!

Posted: 19-04-2011 12:29 Post subject: Re: Ghost tales from everyday people!

Posted: 19-04-2011 16:03 Post subject: Re: Ghost tales from everyday people!

Posted: 19-04-2011 17:48 Post subject:

I like the Prehistoric man story! Who knows how many woad-slathered apparitions are wandering the wilds of Scotland with nobody to see them?

Posted: 19-04-2011 18:47 Post subject:

Hello Hypermetropia. I found the post interesting, especially the introduction saying how you heard the stories, as well as the parkinsonian apparition and the one with the sackcloth.

Although I'm deeply sceptical of poltergeists, If you've got time and don't mind I'd be interested to know a bit more about this

Posted: 19-04-2011 21:14 Post subject:

Fascinating tales! I enjoyed that.
The prehistoric man apparition is particularly rare, I think.

Posted: 19-04-2011 23:28 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2011 10:23 Post subject: Re: Ghost tales from everyday people!

Posted: 20-04-2011 11:23 Post subject: Re: Ghost tales from everyday people!

Posted: 20-04-2011 11:47 Post subject:

Just recalled a great story, while posting elsewhere. When I was a matron at Brentwood Prep School there were quite a few ghost stories based around the time it was a private Edwardian 'Mental Home'.

The two most convincing was that when a former Headmaster was walking down the stairs, the ghost of a female glided up towards him and passed through his side. The cleaners told me that they once had a trainee teacher staying up in an attic room (former servant's quarter). They took him a mug of tea every morning. One morning they found him drenched in sweat and in a state of shock. In the small hours something had woken him and he saw a female figure, dressed in old fashioned costume with a mob cap, standing looking over him. He had pulled over the blankets and not moved until the cleaners found him.

Posted: 20-04-2011 19:20 Post subject:

You have some very good stories here, thanks for posting them. I particularly liked the one about the ex-wife's uncle. It's unaccountable stories like that which always seem to be the most credible to me, ones with no neat explanation to them.

Posted: 20-04-2011 20:21 Post subject:

Posted: 20-04-2011 21:34 Post subject:

Really interesting stories Hypermetropia, thanks for posting them. I liked the one about the old guy and the door frame in particular.

Posted: 20-04-2011 22:30 Post subject:

Thanks for the reply. Did the door actually shake or move in any way, or was it just the sound? I ask as I've had a similar series of events myself, sound only.

No offense but personally I don't think the patient's ex wife's uncle flies. There are far too many more mundane explanations there. Firstly patient's actual recovery or otherwise don't necessarily fit the given prognosis, and due to his condition it's hard not to think of conditions like ITU psychosis first.

I'm not saying that it's possible to say one way or the other, just that I think there are far more likely explanations.

Posted: 21-04-2011 11:00 Post subject:

I liked the one about the carpet fitter, and it's very similar to many experiences I had whilst working in a (vaguely) similar job in London. I worked for a property maintenance firm, and the vast proportion of our work was in peoples houses/flats whilst they were at work. There is a spooky feeling you get being in someone elses house when they are out!