Ghost Stories

[St Landrew]

Yep, the Beeb have been trotting out some good old ghost stories from the likes of Dickens and the famous Cambridge Provost M R James. I've seen them all loads of times before, and now have a recorded copy of nearly everything the Beeb has produced from this cobwebby old genre.

 

Still thoroughly enjoyable.

 

Merry Christmas everybody, and Good Night.

[Master Bates]

Ok, I was expecting your ghost stories, you must have a lot.

 

I have one on abctales.com, but i'm not posting it til someone tells one of theirs first.

[miserableoldgit]

Ok, I was expecting your ghost stories, you must have a lot.

 

I have one on abctales.com, but i'm not posting it til someone tells one of theirs first.

O.K. heres mine. A few years ago I was at a company do at New Place near Shedfield. At the end of the evening I went to the toilet before leaving. I had not been drinking as I was driving. I was stood at the urinal "doing the business" and there was nobody else in there with me. I heard the door of the toilets open and I heard and "felt" footsteps walk through the toilets,past the basins and round behind me, but there was nobody there. I didn`t feel scared. It was just a feeling of, I suppose, "wonder" that something unusual was happening.

[St Landrew]

Ok, I was expecting your ghost stories, you must have a lot.

 

I have one on abctales.com, but i'm not posting it til someone tells one of theirs first.

 

Oh OK. Here's one that involved my brother when he was a youngster.

 

The family were on holiday in Italy, and they had all gone to a village to visit some distant relatives. They had also done the Italian family thing, which was to visit the grave of the recently departed grandmother. Anyway, my brother had gone into the church to explore, and somehow had gone through a door, and got lost. He started to get a bit worried, but he saw some monks [as he says] walking up a flight of stone steps. He went over to the last one and asked if he knew the door to the outside. He couldn't see his features because the hood covered the face in shadow. The monk stopped in front of my brother, and then silently walked around him and up the stairs. But something was peculiar. The monks habit was disappearing into the steps as he walked up the flight, and not being creased by the floor. What's more, his feet seemed to be below each step.

 

Eventually my brother found his way out, and ran to meet the family. He told his story, and when he told the bit about the steps, they informed him that the steps had been renewed about 20 years previous, by removing the worn parts and cementing a new step on top of each old one. So the monk had been walking on the old steps..!

[St Landrew]

Here's another you might as well have while I remember to tell it. Again this was in Italy, in the town of Roccasecca, and it happened to me when I was a kid of 12 years. I'd been exploring some ancient ruins that were said to be an old house that some distant ancestor had once owned, and was walking back to where we were staying; when I started to walk down a particularly sunny and open path. It was broad, but reasonably steep, so every 10 ft there was a small stepped drop of a few inches. The air was so warm and dry, and nowadays I realise why so few Italians suffer from arthritis, aches and pains. The climate is just so good..! That day it was especially great... but as I proceeded, I saw a little white stone with a black catholic cross, and a tiny number on it, by the side of the path. It was hardly any bigger than a few house bricks bunched together, and as I passed it, the air suddenly went much colder. I thought it was a sudden breeze, but it was still air, and anyway, all the breezes had been warm. The path continued for a good 50 or so more yards, and all the while I was getting colder and colder, despite the Sun blazing away, and I was quite claustrophobic, as if something unknown was getting too close. At the end of the path I turned a corner, and once more the warmth returned, and I felt fine again.

 

A couple of days went by, and we were back in the hotel room when some talk turned to what I had been doing on that other day. I explained the path and the white stone. My Dad started to smile. He asked who told me the joke. I said that I was being serious. Well apparently, it really wasn't a joke, because there was a story of an old man who had fallen and died, and the stone had been placed there. And it was said that if anyone walked down the path on their own, he would accompany them down the path until they got to the bottom. It was his way of looking after them.