Ghostly Goings On V

Haunted Houses

I've stayed in a few places that are supposed to be haunted so I thought I'd tell you the tales. 

First there was Beamish Hall:

It is now a hotel, looks nice if you are ever in the North East of England it is worth checking out there and Beamish museum - Link

I stayed there twice while I was at college.  It was an optional part of our English course and was great fun, groups of 16 to 18 year olds away from home in a haunted house!  The house at that time wasn't a hotel but hosted residential courses, it was quite basic with a lot of the house unmodernised.  At might it was very spooky and there were a lot of unexplained noises but nothing to prove haunting.

Beamish Hall allegedly has a few ghosts, the most famous is the Grey Lady:
"Legend has it that the grey lady was in love with Mr Shafto, but was promised to another by her father.  On the day of her wedding, she ran to Beamish Hall to escape from her appointed suitor and hid in a casket in the lowest cellars within the hall.  Unfortunately, the lady locked herself in and suffocated to death, being found some months later.  Her restless spirit wanders the hall today, her wedding dress-grey with age, rustling as she moves."

Others include a man in a tweed suit patrolling the corridors, this is thought to be Mr Shafto.  A lady in pink sitting in the Eden room with her companions including a cat and a parrot.   Amongst the others are children in the attic and a nasty spirit in the kitchen.   It would seem the kitchen spirit had an adverse effect on the food, it was pretty bad, we ordered pizza.

So we are there for a weekend do lots of interesting team building exercises and bits of drama.  One of the things our artistic English teacher decided we should do was scream.  As in arrrrrrgh.  Just as a release.  So there we are taking turns to scream when a blood curdling scream comes from elsewhere in the building.  The screaming increased from there and that was the end of that session.  No idea if it was an echo, the staff joining in or the sound of a tortured soul.

Years later I stayed in Chillingham Castle:

This is a lovely place to stay, check it out - Link the website includes details of the many ghosts, it is allegedly very very haunted and has been on many TV shows.  I went with a large group of friends for a weekend that included a murder mystery evening hosted in the coaching rooms. 

The group I was part of stayed in the landseer rooms,  I shared my time little room with a gay guy and we had a great laugh.  I woke up the first morning and was reading when he woke up and said "shit, this is like a prison cell."  That was before he knew we were locked in!

The downside of the weekend was that I had just split up with a guy I'd lived with for 7 years, he was there too.  I had a great time but there were some tense moments.  At one point I had to escape a, and crept into the next suite where I say on my own and had a good cry.  Other guest may have heard the wailing and thought it was a ghost, sorry guys just me.

The couple staying upstairs from us had a massive fight one night leading to a lot of bumps and bangs which again other guests could be forgiven for assuming it was the blue boy having a party. 

I had to go and collect my dog before we went home.  I was very naughty and let her have a sniff round.  Little Looby didn't notice anything strange so I'm not convinced by the Chillingham ghosts.  Lovely, interesting place though.

Finally at the suggestion of Dan I have added another haunted place that I have stayed.  Edinburgh is allegedly one of the most haunted cities in the world.  I've been here nearly 10 years so I've obviously visited less tourist attractions than the average American would do in a weekend but let me try to summarise out ghostly residents. 



Looking at my fantastic picture of Edinburgh you can see the castle on top of the volcano.  The streets running down from the castle are the old town and this is where most of our ghosties live.  From the Royal Mile you can take a few different ghost tours.  I've done most of them now, the most famous is Mary Kings Close.  When I first visited this tour was very rough and ready, done by student guides.  It was great.  This is a narrow street (or close) that used to run from the Royal Mile to the Nor Loch.  They built new buildings on the Royal mile but left this street underneath.  The story goes that during a plague they walled it up and left everyone there.  The horrible history aside it is really interesting to visit.  They have now done this up to make it a proper visitors attraction, it had taken away some of the character but is still worth a look.  They just did their first public over night stay for Halloween, wish I'd known I might have joined.

The one I like best is the Vaults, Edinburgh's underground city.  This is basically a bridge where they have built both sides and the arches have been filled with vaults.  A quick pic:

You enter the vaults through various buildings, some of the buildings are using parts of the vaults as store rooms.  Some of the pubs are actually in vaults.  I've been down here a few times and it is always different.  They definitely have a spooky feel, you are under the city so there are strange noises.  They have odd temperatures with hot and cold patches.  In addition there are dark doorways and random little storage areas.  There are definitely rats in the vaults so you do hear them.  It's history is nasty too (a pattern forming here), Edinburgh's poor and criminals used to live in the vaults.  I think the famous Burke and Hare stayed in the vaults at some stage (might be wrong).  I'm sure they were dark, smelly and unpleasant then, they still are.

The first visit I did was with work, it's hard to scare a group of 40+ people so it wasn't very creepy.  The second time I was with 2 friends and the total tour group was 6.  The thing I noticed was the temperature changes, very obvious when you take one step from warm to cold.  The best bit was one of the girls on the tour who claimed to be psychic.  She kept describing the spirits she was seeing.  Old women sitting knitting in one vault.  A man running down the centre corridor shouting at us to get out.  She seemed genuinely scared and wanted to leave.  We had been drinking so we were equally but very differently affected by spirits, I've not often laughed that much while trying hard not too.

One of the bars that backs on to the vaults is Whistle Binkies, very popular as it often has a late licence.  This bar has it's own spirit in the form of a long haired 17th century man who sits at the end of the bar, he's called The Watcher, because he watches (see what they did there).  Apparently he has been mistaken for a tour guide in the vaults, not sure how interesting he would have been as I don't believe he speaks?  A lot of people have seen him.  I'm not one of them, I don't drink much, I'm not sure if there is a connection between these things.  They have a second unseen ghost called The Imp which stops clocks and locks doors, more scary than the Watcher.

There are a huge number of ghosts around Edinburgh's old town.  A lot of the bars, hotels and theatres have ghosts, just have a flick through the list on this interesting paranormal site - Link.  I suppose since history says there has been settlements in Edinburgh since it was a hill fort in the 1st century.  Yep a lot of people must have died here so even if only a tiny, tiny percentage hang around we would have a lot of ghosts.  We've also had a lot of influential and famous residents who may have left a residual influence.  I'm particularly looking forward to the first sitings of Dolly the sheep's ghost, she now lives in the national museum.

I think my favourite ghostie is Deacon Brodie (also a great pub on the Royal Mile) he was the inspiration for the Jekyll and Hyde story, a respected business man by day but a criminal by night.  Apparently he was hung using the gallows he designed.  He is said to still walk around The Royal Miles carrying a lantern, with all the strange things on the Royal Mile I'm surprised anyone notices.  In August all the ghosts in Edinburgh could parade up and down the Royal Mile and no one would bat an eyelid, they'd be lucky to sell any tickets for their show.

Ghostly Goings On IV

Suspicious Psychic Snippets


While I haven't been back to a spiritual church meeting since I was in my mid teens I have occasional encountered a psychic, other than vague suggestions of personality and relationships they haven't ever said anything that has astounded me. Other members of my family either seem to attract or seek out psychic types and therefore I have an interesting collection of things that have been said that are a bit strange.

My Aunt went through a phase of visiting a spiritual church after her mum died. She had noticed at home that two of her clocks kept stopping at the time her mother died and could smell lavender occasionally. This made her think her mum was still around so she went hoping for a message. Her mum had been ill for a long time, cancer and later some sort of Alzheimer's type memory loss. It was very sad and could be distressing but at times she could be unintentionally very funny. She was a lovely lady and kept her humour throughout her illness so was able to laugh at her own antics when she realised what she had said or done.
Amongst the many messages my aunt got where some that have stuck in my mind, she was told:

"You have a knee in a draw?" She had her knee cap removed and had kept it, it was in fact in a draw in her bedroom, she swears there is no way anyone could have known this.

"Hickory, Dickory, Dock, the mouse ran up the clock" A nursery rhyme her mum used to keep saying while she was ill, there was no reason for it.

"Do you have a son in the spirit world?" No she didn't. "I am been shown an image of someone climbing out of a bedroom window and running away, it is definitely a male in spirit." My Aunt had a dog called Fred who used to unlatch the bedroom (first floor) windows, jump out and run away. She would be sitting down stairs and would see him land and head off down the street. She had moved since Fred died so didn't think anyone there would have known about this.

She was also told that her mum was making her presence known so that she could feel the love that was there. I don't know if this is true but it probably made her feel better.

My Dad gives off some sort of come and speak to me vibe while walking down the street and often gets stopped by people who will give him things or chat to him. It's not the buy some white heather thing, we were walking around London one day while I lived there when a very very old gypsy lady came over to him and gave him a good luck charm. She stood talking to him telling him all sorts of random things. She said he had two children one who was academically clever (me) but that the other was more intelligent (my brother). I still haven't gotten over this!

He had another lady approach him in a similar way when he was on holiday, he really thought he had been set up by his friends or something. She knew so much about him, predicted that his mum would have another heart attack in amongst other health issues but that she would be fine, that all happened. Told him he would buy a new house and move within the next 6 months which he did. Described his personality so well it was scary. Told him things he hadn't known about his grandfather and great uncles. He was really quite shaken by the accuracy of what she said.

My Dad is a big guy, he has always had a manual job and isn't really the type I would expect to believe in the supernatural but due to a number of events over the years he is a strong believer that there are people who somehow are in contact with spirits. Although not the clincher I think one of the deciders was been told many years ago that he would spend his later years living with a woman who wasn't his wife and have two children with her. At the time he was happily married with two children and laughed this off. Now he does live with a woman who isn't his wife and they have two children. My mum and dad got divorced but ended up back together.

Anyway not so much a ghost story just a few oddities. What do you think, can people contact the dead? Have you had any strange messages?

Ghostly Goings On Part II

A spooky experience I had in the early 90s when I was about 16.  I had a good friend at the time called Jill, she was really into rock music and had embraced the whole Goth life style.   I liked some of the same music but not everything she liked, we both loved a good vampire story but she could get a bit macabre.

She wanted to go to a spiritualist church so asked me to go along with her. I hadn't been anywhere like that before and didn't really know what to expect but thought it might be a laugh.  So off we went on a Monday night.  The church was a corrugated iron hall at one side of a big field in the centre of town.  We got there to find that the majority of the congregation were pensioners.  There were 3 or 4 people sitting at the front and then a few rows of mismatched chairs in a semi circle.  We took some seats in the second row just off to one side.

The meeting / service whatever you would call it started with a prayer and then the people at the front started giving people messages "from the other side".  I wasn't really very comfortable in the meeting because I was freezing, I had goose-bumps and was close to shivering.  During the break I spoke to the ladies we were sitting next too and one of them said something strange. 
"If you feel you have something to say you should just speak out." 
I just said "OK, I will." 
Later in the break Jill said she heard the woman say, "she definitely has a message but doesn't want to share."

Jill asked me if I had a message.  No, I told her that I had a song stuck in my head, I thought I must have heard it before I left the house.  This was the song:



Towards the end an old man focused on me and said "you have a strong spirit guide with you, she is protecting you from harm."

I was a bit shocked to be picked out but probably just gave a nervous smile. He went on to say that The guide wasn't a relative but an oriental girl who had drowned.  He said that I had a experience where I could have drowned (which I did) and that this spirit had protected me.  He said that I should listen to my guide.

Not long after that a lady stood up and said she had a message but wasn't sure who it was for, she said she had a young woman from the spirit world who had taken her own life. She mentioned that there was a strong Scottish influence.  Someone said that might be for them.  She went on to say that the girl had a difficult life and couldn't see any way out but to take her own life.  She wanted to apologise for all the pain she had caused but that she needed to end the abuse.  The lady said that she thought this was her niece and that she had shot herself.  None of the family understood why she had done it, they knew she was unhappy but thought it was just teenage moods. 

If you know the Aerosmith song story (or just watched the video) you might see some similarities between that and what was said about this woman.  By this point I was shivering, it was absolutely freezing.  I had an urge to say something but I never did, I don't think it would have been right.

When we stood up to leave I noticed that there was a gas heater just behind where we were sitting, Jill had felt warm through the whole meeting.  This freaked me out so much that I never went back.  No amount of begging from Jill would make me, she persuaded some other friends to go instead.

Faith

Recently I lost a little soul who was very close to me and it brought me to the obvious question - what next?

I don’t have the type of faith that leads me to believe that there is a better place waiting for us after death. I would like to have that deep seated belief that nothing can shake but the truth is I don’t and never have.

I love the idea that after death we all move onto a place where we will get to see the people we have lost. I want this to happen, I want to be re-united with my Gran and to get a chance to know my Grandfathers, one that I never met and one who I remember only as a big man. I guess as my life goes on there will be more and more people to add to this list and more reasons to hope that I will see them again.

At the moment I am most missing my little dog, my near constant companion for the last eleven years. I watched her go to sleep in my arms and I did it for all the right reasons but I'm still not sure if it was really right. Who gave me the power to decide if she should live or die? I want to believe that sometime I will see her again and that she will understand what I did. If there is a heaven, a better place then she deserves to be there, probably most dogs do.

Deep down I’m a scientist, I can’t just accept this idea without a hypothesis to prove or disprove. When I speak to people who have faith they know they are right so they don’t need proof. I want to believe but I can’t without knowing. I can’t know so I can’t believe.

I do believe in God but I don’t do religion. I think that the universe contains more than we could ever know or understand. I think that there may be higher powers (a God or gods) that have at some stage influenced us, but if this is the case much of it has been twisted by people hungry for power and control over others. I think it is human arrogance that leads us to believe we could understand the will of a God or gods. I think people take what is there and use it for their own purposes, adding strength by saying it is "the will of God".

At the base of all religions are some lovely stories trying to teach us how we should live. As far as this goes it is great, we all need guidance on what is right and wrong, how to respect each other and how to cope with difficult times. How do we know the stories came from beings that were more advanced than us, they could just be stories written by clever and insightful men and women. Maybe heaven was invented so that people would accept poverty and hardship here because of the promise of something better later. Nothing in the religious texts proves they came from God, not to me anyway.

I have read accounts of life after death experiences, people who died for a short time and had “out of body experiences”. The often repeated images of hovering over your body, seeing a light and even seeing family members on the other side. It sounds good, and maybe I should accept this as proof but the mind is a wonderful and complex thing. At the point of death the brain is firing rapidly and could easily be producing images, hallucinations. If you have heard these stories, seen them in movies or have some knowledge of religion these images could be recreated in your own conscious at the point of death. I hope this is not the case, I hope that it is really the light from a better, cleaner, purer place and that your friends and family are there to welcome you.

Something I am fascinated with is psychics, people with the ability to speak to the dead. I don’t understand this and it seems that there should be an explanation. I have watched the TV shows where a guy stands up and gives people messages. Some are vague and the things said could apply to a lot of people but others are so specific and seem to really know things they shouldn’t. John Edward I find particularly interesting, he has often told people things they didn’t know and he is so insistent. The audience member then goes home and speaks to other members of the family and it turns out he was right. That rules out one of my theories that he was somehow reading their minds (hey I’m talking about speaking to the dead here, why is mind reading less believable). So that leaves me with the idea that they have really good researchers. Maybe if I had the experience myself and was left thinking there is no way he could know that I would believe it was a message from “the other side”. See I want to believe this to!

So can I take the evidence here and use it to give me faith that there is something after death. If I had faith I wouldn’t need this evidence to prove anything because I would just know. The fact that I need the evidence means I don’t have faith.

I can’t know so I can’t believe but what I can do is hope.