Ogdred Weary
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More Tales From My Guests
- Thread starter gattino
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gattino
Justified & Ancient
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This is...weird.
This morning/early afternoon. I've a US based indian lady sitting in my living room waiting for her cousin in Leeds to come pick her up after checking out. So we're having to make a lot of conversation. And in the downstairs bedroom, my mate is currently staying. He'd been out all night and worse for wear. He came in and out of his room a number of times and up the stairs chatting to me during the course of the morning.
While im talking with the lady, he comes in the living room asking me for a mop and expressing bewilderment at a pool of water on his bedroom floor with no obvious source. I go in. Sure enough there is a fool of water in the middle of the hard floor, covering an area the size of, i don't know, a large melon maybe. Like someone has literally tipped a glass of water on the floor. But there are no bottles, no glasses, no drinks in the room, he had nothing to spill that he knows of, and as i say he'd been in and out a number of times and would have had to step in it if it had been there earlier (ie if it was something he did when he stumbled home at 5am). So by all logic it must have just appeared. We lifted and went through his bags to confirm there was nothing in them that could be leaking. I checked it wasn't coming from the radiator...the underside and pipes were free of any damp. In the absence of something that had spilled the most obvious instinct was to look up for signs of dripping from the ceiling. Nothing at all there. It was a complete mystery. Hours later it remains so and it hasn't returned. (And yes it was just clear water..he hadn't drunkenly peed himself if that occurred to anyone when i mentioned he'd be out drinking!)
Returning to conversation with the lady in the living room and she asking me about uk houses and heating systems and the difficulty in getting repairmen etc In the course of which she speaks of an incident involving water leaking from the ceiling and the plumber saying he'd be there tomorrow even though leak was still going on...and advsing them to go up and lay some plastic down for now. I understood her to be telling me about something that had happened to her in the past. It was only later it became evident that no, in fact she was talking about something which had literally just been happening to her cousin in Leeds while we were sitting there, accounting for his arrival to pick her up being delayed.
Now i don't know how im suggesting a link between these things, but its surely noteworthy and even more weird that as shes becoming aware of water leaking from a ceiling a hundred miles away an utterly inexplicable pool of water is appearing on the floor of my one of my rooms as if it had dripped from the ceiling. But it hadn't.
This morning/early afternoon. I've a US based indian lady sitting in my living room waiting for her cousin in Leeds to come pick her up after checking out. So we're having to make a lot of conversation. And in the downstairs bedroom, my mate is currently staying. He'd been out all night and worse for wear. He came in and out of his room a number of times and up the stairs chatting to me during the course of the morning.
While im talking with the lady, he comes in the living room asking me for a mop and expressing bewilderment at a pool of water on his bedroom floor with no obvious source. I go in. Sure enough there is a fool of water in the middle of the hard floor, covering an area the size of, i don't know, a large melon maybe. Like someone has literally tipped a glass of water on the floor. But there are no bottles, no glasses, no drinks in the room, he had nothing to spill that he knows of, and as i say he'd been in and out a number of times and would have had to step in it if it had been there earlier (ie if it was something he did when he stumbled home at 5am). So by all logic it must have just appeared. We lifted and went through his bags to confirm there was nothing in them that could be leaking. I checked it wasn't coming from the radiator...the underside and pipes were free of any damp. In the absence of something that had spilled the most obvious instinct was to look up for signs of dripping from the ceiling. Nothing at all there. It was a complete mystery. Hours later it remains so and it hasn't returned. (And yes it was just clear water..he hadn't drunkenly peed himself if that occurred to anyone when i mentioned he'd be out drinking!)
Returning to conversation with the lady in the living room and she asking me about uk houses and heating systems and the difficulty in getting repairmen etc In the course of which she speaks of an incident involving water leaking from the ceiling and the plumber saying he'd be there tomorrow even though leak was still going on...and advsing them to go up and lay some plastic down for now. I understood her to be telling me about something that had happened to her in the past. It was only later it became evident that no, in fact she was talking about something which had literally just been happening to her cousin in Leeds while we were sitting there, accounting for his arrival to pick her up being delayed.
Now i don't know how im suggesting a link between these things, but its surely noteworthy and even more weird that as shes becoming aware of water leaking from a ceiling a hundred miles away an utterly inexplicable pool of water is appearing on the floor of my one of my rooms as if it had dripped from the ceiling. But it hadn't.
gattino
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Ok ...if that seemed like a stretch, its now just justified its place in the fortean world....
My other closest friend, to whom i'll often report if he appears in a dream, just uncharacteristically sent me voicemails out of the blue to excitedly tell me he'd just woken from a dream involving me. I'll mention ive not spoken to him for days and he knows nothing of the above. In his dream he was in a new home. I was there. There was a broken ceiling and pool of water on the floor which i was trying to clear up.....
My other closest friend, to whom i'll often report if he appears in a dream, just uncharacteristically sent me voicemails out of the blue to excitedly tell me he'd just woken from a dream involving me. I'll mention ive not spoken to him for days and he knows nothing of the above. In his dream he was in a new home. I was there. There was a broken ceiling and pool of water on the floor which i was trying to clear up.....
gattino
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One of my regular guests is a 60 something lady who comes to visit her nearly 100 year old mother in a care home.
The mother visiting just takes an hour or so of her regular stays and the rest of her time mostly involves being at the cathedral for various organ music related performances etc. The reason for the passion being that her late father was actually the organist there and his ashes are interred in the cathedral walls.
Anyway she's just come in a very happy mood after a lovely day. In the course of it her friend Ian, the current organist, played various things all connected to her father. The thing of interest among the deliberate stuff was that a wedding took place while she was there and to her delight each of the music pieces played in the service - chosen by the couple - were actually *written* by her father. To emphasise the point... these were not foisted upon the bride and groom , it was sheer coincidence.
More in half jokey hope than expectation I asked her today isn't a significant date of any kind is it?
She said it is in fact. Its the 4th anniversary of his death...
The mother visiting just takes an hour or so of her regular stays and the rest of her time mostly involves being at the cathedral for various organ music related performances etc. The reason for the passion being that her late father was actually the organist there and his ashes are interred in the cathedral walls.
Anyway she's just come in a very happy mood after a lovely day. In the course of it her friend Ian, the current organist, played various things all connected to her father. The thing of interest among the deliberate stuff was that a wedding took place while she was there and to her delight each of the music pieces played in the service - chosen by the couple - were actually *written* by her father. To emphasise the point... these were not foisted upon the bride and groom , it was sheer coincidence.
More in half jokey hope than expectation I asked her today isn't a significant date of any kind is it?
She said it is in fact. Its the 4th anniversary of his death...
gattino
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An italian lady and her son have been staying here for the last several weeks. The fortean side of life had never come up in conversation til this morning, when in front of her i was checking with my mate, also staying here, whether a dream about him last night matched reality. As usual, it did. Which is by the by. This was the lady's intro into an anecdote about her father which made her wonder about these things....
He died late last year. He was only 69 and she was very clear in asserting his death was sudden and without any clues in his health, he was a fit man with no obvious infirmities or conditions prior to his death (a heart attack i believe). The other thing which was key to her..and his...sense that something out of the ordinary was involved in this anecdote, was that her dad was a complete non believer in life after death. He had no religious leanings and was adamant that once you're dead you're dead. It was this conviction - having neither hope nor fear to prompt what happened -that made him report with great curiosity, 2 months before his unexpected death, a peculiar dream he'd just had.
He said he dreamed of his own late father (in a wheelchair as he was at the end of his life), and a family priest who had died a decade before, in what "looked like heaven", and they were very happy and told him they were having a great time, were waiting for him, and he should join them.
2 months later, as i said, he dropped dead without warning.
He died late last year. He was only 69 and she was very clear in asserting his death was sudden and without any clues in his health, he was a fit man with no obvious infirmities or conditions prior to his death (a heart attack i believe). The other thing which was key to her..and his...sense that something out of the ordinary was involved in this anecdote, was that her dad was a complete non believer in life after death. He had no religious leanings and was adamant that once you're dead you're dead. It was this conviction - having neither hope nor fear to prompt what happened -that made him report with great curiosity, 2 months before his unexpected death, a peculiar dream he'd just had.
He said he dreamed of his own late father (in a wheelchair as he was at the end of his life), and a family priest who had died a decade before, in what "looked like heaven", and they were very happy and told him they were having a great time, were waiting for him, and he should join them.
2 months later, as i said, he dropped dead without warning.
gattino
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A speculative "just suppose but we'll never know" additional detail about the mother and son mentioned above.
She's a single mum and he's an only child. As far as I can tell there's never been a father in his life at any point. The boy is..or was..10 years old. He turned 11 on Tuesday. Blowing out his birthday candles he was asked what he'd like if he could have anything. Without hesitation he said a sister.
Nothing was made of this, except silently by me. It struck me as intriguing in two ways. The first that perhaps the world has moved on and pre pubescent boys are no longer averse to associating with girls, but it still struck me as a very unexpected reply..much more than if he'd said a brother.
But more than that , unbeknownst to others in the room, several days earlier he'd casually told me in some forgotten context that his recurring dream involved fighting with his step sister. "I didn't know you had a step sister" I said. "it was a dream" he replied. Again there was something eyebrow raising about this.
It's surely reasonable to imagine his biological father would by now have had other kids, though the boy and his mum would be ignorant of it. So I can't help wondering if he's unconsciously feeling the presence of an actual step sister out there who he doesn't consciously know exists. Much as separated twins are imagined to do.
Pure speculation. But they seem in Fortean terms to look like clues pointing in that direction.
She's a single mum and he's an only child. As far as I can tell there's never been a father in his life at any point. The boy is..or was..10 years old. He turned 11 on Tuesday. Blowing out his birthday candles he was asked what he'd like if he could have anything. Without hesitation he said a sister.
Nothing was made of this, except silently by me. It struck me as intriguing in two ways. The first that perhaps the world has moved on and pre pubescent boys are no longer averse to associating with girls, but it still struck me as a very unexpected reply..much more than if he'd said a brother.
But more than that , unbeknownst to others in the room, several days earlier he'd casually told me in some forgotten context that his recurring dream involved fighting with his step sister. "I didn't know you had a step sister" I said. "it was a dream" he replied. Again there was something eyebrow raising about this.
It's surely reasonable to imagine his biological father would by now have had other kids, though the boy and his mum would be ignorant of it. So I can't help wondering if he's unconsciously feeling the presence of an actual step sister out there who he doesn't consciously know exists. Much as separated twins are imagined to do.
Pure speculation. But they seem in Fortean terms to look like clues pointing in that direction.
gattino
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Not Fortean but an entirely different Italian lady with an accent arrived last night.
She came down to the living room and said sheepishly
"I'm sorry..I've a little problem. I think I've shat myself..."
I..er...oh...I see..um..
"...out of the room".
She came down to the living room and said sheepishly
"I'm sorry..I've a little problem. I think I've shat myself..."
I..er...oh...I see..um..
"...out of the room".
catseye
Old lady trouser-smell with yesterday's knickers
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But she wouldn't be his step sister, she'd be his half sister.
catseye
Old lady trouser-smell with yesterday's knickers
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Maybe not, as I've met plenty of adults who confuse the two terms, despite them being hugely different and having massively different repercussions re family relationships.
IbisNibs
Exotic animal, sort of . . .
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Step vs half relative reminds me of how, in reading Dickens novels years ago, I got confused by how he used the term "father-in-law." The character with the "father-in-law" was unmarried. Then I figured out the modern term is "step-father."
catseye
Old lady trouser-smell with yesterday's knickers
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Nowadays people don't seem to ever use the term 'half' for a sibling with whom they have one parent in common. It seems that the term 'step' is being generally used to cover both relationships. Wrongly, but there you go.
gattino
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An update about the boy and a series of tales told by the mother tonight.
The former casually referenced his dream world sister again several days ago. This time i asked "does she have a name?" He didn't hesitate and simply said "Anna".
************
Interestingly of the tales his mother told me today one involves unusual behaviour by the child. They've been looking for a suitable house for many months. Late last year, she told me, she had an offer on one property in a nearby town. It was/is nice, bright, no obvious physical problems with the place but the boy (10 at the time) was increasingly distraught about living there, saying he had a feeling something bad would happen if they move there, and was having nightmares about it, to the point she withdrew the offer at the last minute. What makes this tantrum interesting is that in a matter of mere months she has seen the property return to the market twice. That's to say someone bought it early in the year....and now its listed again at the same price it was previously bought for. It would be interesting to know...and is interesting to speculate...what, if anything drove the new owners out so soon.
*********
There is a religious theme through her other stories, so its worth elaborating that she's a christian but not in any overt or pious way whatsoever. Until the conversation tonight she's not said anything of a religious nature at all. The only clue is the occassional out of the blue and out of character God reference from the kid which sounds like he's been to sunday school. Being italian the mother was raised catholic but coverted to CofE over here, partly perhaps in rebellion against her mother with whom there is much animosity, and a general disgust at what she perceives as the venal money grabbing attitude of the catholic church as she experienced it in Italy at least. A specific example is she says that asking for prayers or masses to be said for dead loved ones comes with a set price list....which she finds outrageous (I ought to say i was raised a catholic myself and this is news to me...i thought that kind of thing went out with the middle ages. But equally i never put it to the test). Anyway this detail is a feature of one of her stories.. Apparently when she was a child her mother told her she had had a dream of her dead father (my guest's grandfather) saying he was stuck in purgatory (!) and she needed the money to have more prayers said for him to get him out quicker! He told her where in the grand maze like house he lived in where his secret stash was. But she could only recall the objects and things around the hiding place. She asked her daughter to use those details to identify the right place in the house. And sure enough...the hidden money was found just there.
********
Here in the UK a few years ago, she was deathly ill...sepsis or meningitis...and the doctor bluntly told her she should get her family to come today. She was half out of it and didn't know why he was saying this, only that she knew her family wouldn't travel from italy that quickly. The doctor repeated his advice and responded to her request for appropriate treatment by telling her bluntly "we don't use medicine we know is not going to do any good." In short he was telling her she was dying, soon, and there's nothing they could do. She decided to post on facebook asking for people to pray for her. Numbers of people responded saying they were praying for her....and she lapsed into ...sleep? Unconsciousness? At any rate she dreamt she was above the earth, and there were angels there...and throughout the dream she could smell the distinct scent of roses. The angels said people's prayers were like perfume to them, rising up. When her eyes next open the same doctor is there, perplexed and saying he doesn't know what's happened but her fever has broke and her signs were returning to normal and he was at a loss to explain it. During a later scan the inexplicable scent of roses returned to her.
******
A few years ago she asked a CofE pastor if God really spoke to people as so many claimed...or were they just deluded/speaking metaphorically. He insisted/assured her God does and he if she prayed and asked him to he would do so to her. Well - i don't know how many days gap - she later had 3 words that kept pushing there way into her mind and that she knew were meant for the pastor. She felt silly but the compulsion to tell him this 3 word message ("Image of God") wouldn't leave her, so somewhat embarrassed and feeling silly she told him this "message" without knowing what it could possibly mean. The pastor's reaction was somewhat unexpected. He basically laughed with exasperation "Not again! I'm sick of this" and said "you've no idea do you?" Apparently whatever its personal meaning to him, he'd been told the same message multiple times by different people over several years...
The former casually referenced his dream world sister again several days ago. This time i asked "does she have a name?" He didn't hesitate and simply said "Anna".
************
Interestingly of the tales his mother told me today one involves unusual behaviour by the child. They've been looking for a suitable house for many months. Late last year, she told me, she had an offer on one property in a nearby town. It was/is nice, bright, no obvious physical problems with the place but the boy (10 at the time) was increasingly distraught about living there, saying he had a feeling something bad would happen if they move there, and was having nightmares about it, to the point she withdrew the offer at the last minute. What makes this tantrum interesting is that in a matter of mere months she has seen the property return to the market twice. That's to say someone bought it early in the year....and now its listed again at the same price it was previously bought for. It would be interesting to know...and is interesting to speculate...what, if anything drove the new owners out so soon.
*********
There is a religious theme through her other stories, so its worth elaborating that she's a christian but not in any overt or pious way whatsoever. Until the conversation tonight she's not said anything of a religious nature at all. The only clue is the occassional out of the blue and out of character God reference from the kid which sounds like he's been to sunday school. Being italian the mother was raised catholic but coverted to CofE over here, partly perhaps in rebellion against her mother with whom there is much animosity, and a general disgust at what she perceives as the venal money grabbing attitude of the catholic church as she experienced it in Italy at least. A specific example is she says that asking for prayers or masses to be said for dead loved ones comes with a set price list....which she finds outrageous (I ought to say i was raised a catholic myself and this is news to me...i thought that kind of thing went out with the middle ages. But equally i never put it to the test). Anyway this detail is a feature of one of her stories.. Apparently when she was a child her mother told her she had had a dream of her dead father (my guest's grandfather) saying he was stuck in purgatory (!) and she needed the money to have more prayers said for him to get him out quicker! He told her where in the grand maze like house he lived in where his secret stash was. But she could only recall the objects and things around the hiding place. She asked her daughter to use those details to identify the right place in the house. And sure enough...the hidden money was found just there.
********
Here in the UK a few years ago, she was deathly ill...sepsis or meningitis...and the doctor bluntly told her she should get her family to come today. She was half out of it and didn't know why he was saying this, only that she knew her family wouldn't travel from italy that quickly. The doctor repeated his advice and responded to her request for appropriate treatment by telling her bluntly "we don't use medicine we know is not going to do any good." In short he was telling her she was dying, soon, and there's nothing they could do. She decided to post on facebook asking for people to pray for her. Numbers of people responded saying they were praying for her....and she lapsed into ...sleep? Unconsciousness? At any rate she dreamt she was above the earth, and there were angels there...and throughout the dream she could smell the distinct scent of roses. The angels said people's prayers were like perfume to them, rising up. When her eyes next open the same doctor is there, perplexed and saying he doesn't know what's happened but her fever has broke and her signs were returning to normal and he was at a loss to explain it. During a later scan the inexplicable scent of roses returned to her.
******
A few years ago she asked a CofE pastor if God really spoke to people as so many claimed...or were they just deluded/speaking metaphorically. He insisted/assured her God does and he if she prayed and asked him to he would do so to her. Well - i don't know how many days gap - she later had 3 words that kept pushing there way into her mind and that she knew were meant for the pastor. She felt silly but the compulsion to tell him this 3 word message ("Image of God") wouldn't leave her, so somewhat embarrassed and feeling silly she told him this "message" without knowing what it could possibly mean. The pastor's reaction was somewhat unexpected. He basically laughed with exasperation "Not again! I'm sick of this" and said "you've no idea do you?" Apparently whatever its personal meaning to him, he'd been told the same message multiple times by different people over several years...
gattino
Justified & Ancient
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A set of tales tangential to the subject of my guests. In this case the connection is only that i accompanied them to a free open guided tour of my local stately home, Croxteth Hall, former estate of the Earls of Sefton.
It has to be said as context that the hall while stately is not some creaking gothic castle but a place that's been added to over centuries and in appearance is primarily an edwardian mansion house in a nice park. It doesn't have any sinister reputation for being haunted that I've ever been aware of - though like any house of its size and type its been several times on the radar of Most Haunted, the highly staged and silly tv ghost hunting show. Including apparently just a month ago. In addition, this was not a ghost tour of any kind and was in the middle of the afternoon.
However the very knowledgeable guide, who didn't seem passionate about the supernatural but merely keen to keep it interesting went of script and threw in personal "scary" stories here and there if people wanted to hear them. Which of course they did.
He emphasised he himself had NEVER seen a ghost (and was politely dismissive of the bs Most Haunted were claiming about the place whenever they filmed there) though several of his colleagues had claimed to. But there was one really weird incident he experienced personally....
A number of years ago, taking school parties round, in one room tables were laid out in a U shape where the kids sat down and various historic items were placed in front of them and they were asked to say what they thought they might be used for. He was standing front and centre as he did this routine, when a girl sitting to his right asked - looking/pointing to his left - "who's that little girl?". He looked around. Er...what girl? She pointed - "the little girl standing next to you." There is no little girl. Her eyes swept around the room towards the exit and she said "Its ok, she's gone now". He carried on with the exercise as if nothing had just happened. Afterwards another adult asked the schoolgirl about it and was was told there was a girl in a white dress standing in the spot but as soon as she pointed at her she walked the length of the room and out of the door. On another occasion he found Edwardian children's toys they sometimes lay out rolling around on the table when the room was empty.
****
One of the people on the tour asked him about apparently famous CCTV footage of a white mist ascending the stairs outside. When we got to another room a little later he returned to that question... He said that footage was never meant to be released (not because of any ghostly related conspiracy of silence, but simply because such footage gives away where security cameras are positioned ) and the bloke who copied and released it lost his job. He says its been seen many times on the cameras inside and outside the property and they don't know what it is. He expressed frustration that they've seen lots of strange things on camera but aren't allowed to show it to anyone and it eventually just gets deleted. The weirdest he'd been shown involved a light bouncing down the hallway with depressions like footprints appearing in the carpet as it went, which then vanished.
A search since i got home would suggest this is the footage that got out:
******
We got to the room with the bed in which the last Earl died in 1972. He told an anecdote of how he was on very congenial terms with the local bobby, a PC Craven. In the last week of his life the Earl became bedridden (heart issues) and PC Craven would always ask the staff how he was doing. Until one day he saw his Lordship - a physically distinct and imposing man of 6'4" - when out during his rounds, and later said to the staff how good it was to see he was back on his feet and looking well. They informed him this was impossible...he had died that morning.
This might just be a typical urban legend but the guide said he was telling this tale to a group one day and a lady among them said "can i just stop you there - PC Craven was my dad!" She said the story was true and for the rest of his life her dad could not process and refused to believe he had not seen his Lordship that day. He never got over it.
It has to be said as context that the hall while stately is not some creaking gothic castle but a place that's been added to over centuries and in appearance is primarily an edwardian mansion house in a nice park. It doesn't have any sinister reputation for being haunted that I've ever been aware of - though like any house of its size and type its been several times on the radar of Most Haunted, the highly staged and silly tv ghost hunting show. Including apparently just a month ago. In addition, this was not a ghost tour of any kind and was in the middle of the afternoon.
However the very knowledgeable guide, who didn't seem passionate about the supernatural but merely keen to keep it interesting went of script and threw in personal "scary" stories here and there if people wanted to hear them. Which of course they did.
He emphasised he himself had NEVER seen a ghost (and was politely dismissive of the bs Most Haunted were claiming about the place whenever they filmed there) though several of his colleagues had claimed to. But there was one really weird incident he experienced personally....
A number of years ago, taking school parties round, in one room tables were laid out in a U shape where the kids sat down and various historic items were placed in front of them and they were asked to say what they thought they might be used for. He was standing front and centre as he did this routine, when a girl sitting to his right asked - looking/pointing to his left - "who's that little girl?". He looked around. Er...what girl? She pointed - "the little girl standing next to you." There is no little girl. Her eyes swept around the room towards the exit and she said "Its ok, she's gone now". He carried on with the exercise as if nothing had just happened. Afterwards another adult asked the schoolgirl about it and was was told there was a girl in a white dress standing in the spot but as soon as she pointed at her she walked the length of the room and out of the door. On another occasion he found Edwardian children's toys they sometimes lay out rolling around on the table when the room was empty.
****
One of the people on the tour asked him about apparently famous CCTV footage of a white mist ascending the stairs outside. When we got to another room a little later he returned to that question... He said that footage was never meant to be released (not because of any ghostly related conspiracy of silence, but simply because such footage gives away where security cameras are positioned ) and the bloke who copied and released it lost his job. He says its been seen many times on the cameras inside and outside the property and they don't know what it is. He expressed frustration that they've seen lots of strange things on camera but aren't allowed to show it to anyone and it eventually just gets deleted. The weirdest he'd been shown involved a light bouncing down the hallway with depressions like footprints appearing in the carpet as it went, which then vanished.
A search since i got home would suggest this is the footage that got out:
******
We got to the room with the bed in which the last Earl died in 1972. He told an anecdote of how he was on very congenial terms with the local bobby, a PC Craven. In the last week of his life the Earl became bedridden (heart issues) and PC Craven would always ask the staff how he was doing. Until one day he saw his Lordship - a physically distinct and imposing man of 6'4" - when out during his rounds, and later said to the staff how good it was to see he was back on his feet and looking well. They informed him this was impossible...he had died that morning.
This might just be a typical urban legend but the guide said he was telling this tale to a group one day and a lady among them said "can i just stop you there - PC Craven was my dad!" She said the story was true and for the rest of his life her dad could not process and refused to believe he had not seen his Lordship that day. He never got over it.
gattino
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I wish I'd had an opportunity or foresight to ask the guide privately more details about the invisible girl story... because there's something nagging at me.
I absolutely believe he was recounting a true event. And of course I'm summarising his summary of a memory. A lot will lost and simplified. But still it represents a common trope: the child who asks "mummy, who's that man?"
You can imagine that question from a toddler, perhaps. But someone of school age or above? Would anyone really ask person A to identify person B in the presence of the latter? Surely if im engaging with you and you have someone else with you or standing close by...would i ever ask you who they were? Surely i'd a) assume its none of my business b) assume it will become apparent shortly or c) ask person B themselves?
If the real event/sequence is essentially as he recalls it it would suggest to me that the schoolgirl already perceived the girl she claimed to see to be spectral in some way. Certainly out of the ordinary. In addition saying "she's left the room now" would lead you to suppose she casually recognized other people couldn't see this for themselves.
Which might indicate she already perceived herself to be psychic and to know this girl wasn't physically there or that she was play acting at that role for her own amusement/a prank.
I absolutely believe he was recounting a true event. And of course I'm summarising his summary of a memory. A lot will lost and simplified. But still it represents a common trope: the child who asks "mummy, who's that man?"
You can imagine that question from a toddler, perhaps. But someone of school age or above? Would anyone really ask person A to identify person B in the presence of the latter? Surely if im engaging with you and you have someone else with you or standing close by...would i ever ask you who they were? Surely i'd a) assume its none of my business b) assume it will become apparent shortly or c) ask person B themselves?
If the real event/sequence is essentially as he recalls it it would suggest to me that the schoolgirl already perceived the girl she claimed to see to be spectral in some way. Certainly out of the ordinary. In addition saying "she's left the room now" would lead you to suppose she casually recognized other people couldn't see this for themselves.
Which might indicate she already perceived herself to be psychic and to know this girl wasn't physically there or that she was play acting at that role for her own amusement/a prank.
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IbisNibs
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What would account for the wobbly quality of the video? It looks like it was recorded with a hand held camera—if from CCTV footage, it would have to have been copied with a hand held camera, which I suppose is possible. The path of the white mist bothers me more. After it follows the path of the stairway, it looks like it jumps off the balcony or terrace and runs around to the left of the screen, like it took flight for a moment. It could be an out of focus dust mote.
escargot
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This doesn't seem like a problem to me. My thought was that the child would only expect to see her own school group there so if another girl turned up she'd stand out as a stranger.
From the point of view of the child who asked the question the interloper was not a ghost or whatever, just perhaps a kid from a different school group who'd wandered off and ended up in the wrong room.
A child who did that might naturally look around, notice she didn't know anyone and discreetly slip out again.
Also, some National Trust places have school groups visiting in Victorian clothing to do little re-enactments of historical life.
My kids did this at Erddig in Wales.
The girl who saw the interloper would be aware of this sort of visit and so whatever the interloper was wearing, either modern or historical clothing, would look natural.
I know Croxteth isn't National Trust and I don't know if the dressing-up visits are done there, but I'd expect the girl to be aware of this sort of process. Hence, she wouldn't be suspicious of a little girl in (say) a long dress with a pinafore.
catseye
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I would have thought though that the girl's natural reaction would be to nudge her friend sitting next to her and ask 'who's that girl?' Rather than asking a stranger who is currently talking. If I remember my school days, 'not talking while a grown up is talking' was kind of Visiting Places 101.
escargot
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I had a sense of her pointing out someone in the wrong place.
gattino
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As an amusing aside on the tour I was accompanying the previously mentioned mother and son who've been staying here for a prolonged period while their nearby house purchase goes through.
Hearing of the multiple rooms and servants and being waited on hand and foot, the 11 year old said to me with socialistic indignation "they're so spoilt!"
I assured him they don't exist any more.
He then said "I wish I could buy a house like this"
Me: "But if you had a house like this then YOU'd be spoilt"
Him: "yeah, but I already am".
Hearing of the multiple rooms and servants and being waited on hand and foot, the 11 year old said to me with socialistic indignation "they're so spoilt!"
I assured him they don't exist any more.
He then said "I wish I could buy a house like this"
Me: "But if you had a house like this then YOU'd be spoilt"
Him: "yeah, but I already am".
escargot
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That's a reasonable car-ride or a bus/train run away from'ere. Tempting.
I do love ghosts.
Dinobot
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They're fond of you, too....That's a reasonable car-ride or a bus/train run away from'ere. Tempting.
I do love ghosts.
escargot
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Well they don't show it half often enough.
Dinobot
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gattino
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Its been a long time since i saw an opportunity to ask a guest if they had any spooky stories, and ive fallen out of the habit of looking for an opening. But, uniquely, tonight a guest asked me...do i believe in ghosts.
He was obviously keen to tell his own tale.
With his brother he's one of a family of four and he reports they have mixed attitudes when it comes to deciding whether the family home he grew up in is a place of paranormal activity.
He started with a side anecdote about a different house....his grandmother's, an isolated cottage in Middleton. He recalls as a young child...and its an incident they continued harking back to for years...staying with his gran, and he and his brother were playing outside when she came shouting and yelling at them what they're playing at putting all these leaves in her house. They had no idea what she was talking about. Inside the cottage, there were a large series of spaced apart small piles of leaves across the floor. Gran didn't do it, they didn't do it, there's no prospect of neighbourhood kids coming in off the street because there was no street, just land.
But on to his main story. Family home, a detached house in Rochdale. Not especially old. One clear childhood memory when he was 4 or 5 is of being in the hallway for a prolonged period when, out of nowhere and without any discernible cause, a small plastic ball came tap tap tapping all the way down the stairs towards him. The stairs had two turns in it and no wardrobe or shelf or the like at the top. So who threw the ball?
About 2 weeks later in the room he at that point shared with his brother, they both awoke in terror to a toy robot - which had sat unplayed with and with dead batteries in the wardrobe for a couple of years - out of the wardrobe and walking towards them, lights flashing and voice going off. They ran in sheer terror to their parents room. He recalls his brother running out first and slamming the door behind him, causing him to run straight into the door!
Brother moved into a different room at some point and so the one above became his alone from then on. Times beyond counting through his childhood he would wake in the night to an absolute sense of presence in the room and would listen intently and fear to always some noise or another.. the sound of an object being moved, a tap, a shuffle across the carpet, a pen being dropped, sounds of that nature. On one occasion low whistling. Sometimes sleep paralysis would be involved, sometimes not. He would wake up frequently at 3am and feel someting near him in the dark....very occassionaly he would find the courage to reach out and switch on the wall light next to his bed. Of course there was nothing there. He'd leave the light on and when he next awoke would find the light was off again.
On one occasion when he was 15 or 16 he heard a low creepy groan coming from the corner of the room and despite his embarrassing age, ran to his parents bed and refused to go back. His dad went and slept in his bed and reported hearing nothing...its all in your imagination.
Into young adulthood and whenever he was left alone in the house while his parents were on holiday he knew something would always happen. In bed the intruder alarm went off and he had to go downstairs and reset it and there was no obvious trigger for it...as soon he went back to bed the smoke alarm started beeping.
One incident that made his mother believe was a loud bang.... they ran to the living room where a large glass vase which sat undisturbed, practically welded to the window sill for years was on the floor as if pushed over. In fact pushing was the only explanation available as the window was closed.
The biggest event happened just 4 years ago when he was visiting, aged 27. He slept in his old room. He woke up to something slowly pulling the bed covers off him, he sat up straight and....with no memory in between, he's in his parents room being physically restrained and asked if he's ok. He'd apparently - again complete blackout - been screaming and shouting as though fighting something...when they returned to his room the mirror was smashed to pieces. His ever disbelieving father looked for an explanation online and found the term night terrors. Its important to note he's never had any of these experiences before, since or anywhere else. He says at this moment of waking he had a flash of an image in his mind - a sort of tree man. A humanoid made of bark and twig like fingers. On the other hand he got some relief from this experience as he thought it means i can fight it off, whatever "it" is.
Finally about two weeks later and refusing to sleep in that room again, he's sleeping on a campbed downstairs.. And he wakes feeling someone is right behind him and some.. energy, tendrils, im not sure, something..at his ear either going in or out. And then he "dreamt" there was a young boy and girl in front of him. The girl just says "Do what makes you vulnerable". Who told you to say that, he asks. And she points over his shoulder to ....a Christmas tree.
Thought i'd get all that down before im unable to read my scribbled notes.
He was obviously keen to tell his own tale.
With his brother he's one of a family of four and he reports they have mixed attitudes when it comes to deciding whether the family home he grew up in is a place of paranormal activity.
He started with a side anecdote about a different house....his grandmother's, an isolated cottage in Middleton. He recalls as a young child...and its an incident they continued harking back to for years...staying with his gran, and he and his brother were playing outside when she came shouting and yelling at them what they're playing at putting all these leaves in her house. They had no idea what she was talking about. Inside the cottage, there were a large series of spaced apart small piles of leaves across the floor. Gran didn't do it, they didn't do it, there's no prospect of neighbourhood kids coming in off the street because there was no street, just land.
But on to his main story. Family home, a detached house in Rochdale. Not especially old. One clear childhood memory when he was 4 or 5 is of being in the hallway for a prolonged period when, out of nowhere and without any discernible cause, a small plastic ball came tap tap tapping all the way down the stairs towards him. The stairs had two turns in it and no wardrobe or shelf or the like at the top. So who threw the ball?
About 2 weeks later in the room he at that point shared with his brother, they both awoke in terror to a toy robot - which had sat unplayed with and with dead batteries in the wardrobe for a couple of years - out of the wardrobe and walking towards them, lights flashing and voice going off. They ran in sheer terror to their parents room. He recalls his brother running out first and slamming the door behind him, causing him to run straight into the door!
Brother moved into a different room at some point and so the one above became his alone from then on. Times beyond counting through his childhood he would wake in the night to an absolute sense of presence in the room and would listen intently and fear to always some noise or another.. the sound of an object being moved, a tap, a shuffle across the carpet, a pen being dropped, sounds of that nature. On one occasion low whistling. Sometimes sleep paralysis would be involved, sometimes not. He would wake up frequently at 3am and feel someting near him in the dark....very occassionaly he would find the courage to reach out and switch on the wall light next to his bed. Of course there was nothing there. He'd leave the light on and when he next awoke would find the light was off again.
On one occasion when he was 15 or 16 he heard a low creepy groan coming from the corner of the room and despite his embarrassing age, ran to his parents bed and refused to go back. His dad went and slept in his bed and reported hearing nothing...its all in your imagination.
Into young adulthood and whenever he was left alone in the house while his parents were on holiday he knew something would always happen. In bed the intruder alarm went off and he had to go downstairs and reset it and there was no obvious trigger for it...as soon he went back to bed the smoke alarm started beeping.
One incident that made his mother believe was a loud bang.... they ran to the living room where a large glass vase which sat undisturbed, practically welded to the window sill for years was on the floor as if pushed over. In fact pushing was the only explanation available as the window was closed.
The biggest event happened just 4 years ago when he was visiting, aged 27. He slept in his old room. He woke up to something slowly pulling the bed covers off him, he sat up straight and....with no memory in between, he's in his parents room being physically restrained and asked if he's ok. He'd apparently - again complete blackout - been screaming and shouting as though fighting something...when they returned to his room the mirror was smashed to pieces. His ever disbelieving father looked for an explanation online and found the term night terrors. Its important to note he's never had any of these experiences before, since or anywhere else. He says at this moment of waking he had a flash of an image in his mind - a sort of tree man. A humanoid made of bark and twig like fingers. On the other hand he got some relief from this experience as he thought it means i can fight it off, whatever "it" is.
Finally about two weeks later and refusing to sleep in that room again, he's sleeping on a campbed downstairs.. And he wakes feeling someone is right behind him and some.. energy, tendrils, im not sure, something..at his ear either going in or out. And then he "dreamt" there was a young boy and girl in front of him. The girl just says "Do what makes you vulnerable". Who told you to say that, he asks. And she points over his shoulder to ....a Christmas tree.
Thought i'd get all that down before im unable to read my scribbled notes.
gattino
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I've just realised something he probably hasn't. He - later - took the Christmas tree to be a possible allusion to Christ. But writing all that down as one account a pattern emerges he's likely not even noticed...the leaves, the tree man, the christmas tree. I've no idea what it indicates but its interesting.
IbisNibs
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Yes! The leaves!
Maybe he's really a natural shaman and a nature spirit is trying to wake him up to that.
This struck me a one of the most evocative and wonderfully original hauntings I've ever heard or read about.
Maybe he's really a natural shaman and a nature spirit is trying to wake him up to that.
gattino
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Some thinking aloud speculation on my part. The tree theme is slightly skewered by the fact that the first incident is decades earlier and in his grandmother's house. And before I noticed it when writing it up here last night, my first thought during his tale was that if there was a "ghost" it sounds like that of a child...the plastic ball, the toy robot...and perhaps the nocturnal vision of a young girl and boy to end the tale adds weight to that.
So what if there's more than one thing involved here. Child spirits haunting the house. but something more...elemental seems a good word...haunting him personally. What if the former gave voice to the latter. What that elemental thing is or wants - good or ill - is another matter. "Do what makes you vulnerable" sounds like some kind of wise lifestyle guidance from a Chinese fortune cookie. But what if it was actually an instruction of ill intent....go back to the bedroom and make yourself vulnerable again to me?
So what if there's more than one thing involved here. Child spirits haunting the house. but something more...elemental seems a good word...haunting him personally. What if the former gave voice to the latter. What that elemental thing is or wants - good or ill - is another matter. "Do what makes you vulnerable" sounds like some kind of wise lifestyle guidance from a Chinese fortune cookie. But what if it was actually an instruction of ill intent....go back to the bedroom and make yourself vulnerable again to me?