Saturday Spooks

Some time ago, several of you mentioned that you would like to hear more ghost stories especially my own experiences. Well, I have covered just about all my experiences already in my journal, bar one. I do not intend to put that on my journal. For a start it is a very long and involved story and, secondly, people would probably not believe it. Although it happened to me and I have never forgotten it after many many years, even I wonder about it and how it could possibly be true ~ even though I know it was.

So, Becky has kindly consented to let me tell you about a couple of very strange things that happened to her and Dean.

When they got married, they did not plan a honeymoon. They just intended to return to their new house and spend time there. However, her chief bridesmaid, Rachel, had other ideas. Rachel’s Grandmother owned a couple of cottages in Yorkshire. After Rachel had chatted with her the Grandmother kindly offered them a week in one of those cottages. Naturally they were thrilled. It was a small place, what they call a two up and two down in a relatively quiet area with a nice garden.

Their bedroom was at the front of the house and was vaguely lit at night by a streetlamp outside. They slept with the bedroom door open. All went well for the first couple of nights. On about the third night Becky woke up suddenly and looking towards the open door she saw a shadowy male figure standing in the doorway. She thought that it was Dean and that he had arisen from bed to use the toilet. She turned her head only to see Dean sound asleep beside her! She quickly looked back to the door only to find that the figure had disappeared. At the same time she distinctly heard the sound of a steam train although all the trains on the railway were electric. Thinking it must have been a figment of her imagination she eventually drifted back off to sleep. Some time later she was awoken by Dean who asked her if she had heard the knocking. She was puzzled and said no. He then explained that he had been awakened by loud knocking and that it was obvious that the knocking was coming from the opened bedroom door. There was nobody there when he looked. Both of them being now thoroughly unsettled they went down to the lounge and spent the rest of the night there with the lights on. They could not get it out of their heads though and it made them uncomfortable in the cottage so eventually due to their ghostly experiences and to the weather which turned very bad, they cut short their honeymoon and came home, not before she had telephoned me to tell me of the strange happenings.

On another occasion, it was Becky’s Birthday and Dean had booked her a surprise treat - a short stay in a very expensive and exclusive hotel in Nottinghamshire. It had been a stately home until being converted into a hotel. It was very luxurious indeed. It was set in the middle of very extensive and beautiful grounds so when the lights went out at night it truly was pitch black, not a glimmer of light. On their second night, Dean was asleep and once again, Becky was suddenly awakened. She does not know how or why, to see lots of blue flashes of light in the room. She could not understand it because, as previously mentioned it was pitch dark. She turned her head and was confronted by a horrible sight. Hanging in mid-air was a face. She thought it to be female . The face was hideously contorted with bulging eyes and a protruding tongue and the head was over on one side. She said she could only imagine that the person had been hanged. She was very scared although when she looked again, the face had disappeared. She did not get much sleep that night. She said she felt she could not tell Dean. To leave the place would have lost them a lot of money and he had been so happy with his surprise present. Instead, she waited every night until he was asleep and then she put the light on. She eventually told him after they left. She never saw the face again and she never found an explanation for either of the ghostly happenings that she experienced. She has not forgotten them even to this day and especially the face. She does not like to think about it even now.

Finally, something that happened to Dean before he and Becky were married. Dean was originally a chef. He gave it up when he and Becky became serious involved. Due to the unsocial hours they hardly got to see each other.  He was working in a pub at the time, a pub that was reputed to be haunted but then he did not really believe in such things. There was a function on that evening so the doors between the kitchen and the function room had been locked to stop guests from wandering into the kitchen. Dean was not alone and the other chef with him witnessed what happened. Dean went to the fridge to get some butter out. Whoever had used it previously had left a knife embedded in it. He removed it from the fridge and left if on the side to soften. A little while later, whilst they were doing other things, the temperature in the room suddenly fell dramatically and both of them commented on it. Suddenly the knife came flying out of the butter and was “thrown” across the room, luckily it missed both of them and hitting the wall on the other side, it fell to the floor.

Dean could not wait to finish his contract and move on to pastures new. Apparently this pub was well-known for the sound of footsteps when there was nobody who could possibly have made them and for things being moved around after the place was closed and nobody was there.

Don't look behind you!