What really scares me?

I have  a fridge magnet that declares "You can't scare me - I have children," and it has more or less been my life mantra. I left my husband when the children were still small and I just had to cope with whatever the world threw at me. The truth is I have never been a nervous person. I spent ten years living in a 14th Century coaching inn that was purported to be haunted  and it never once crossed my mind that I might see a ghost. When I was a child I was more intrigued by the vastness of space than the paranormal. I read a few Dennis Wheatley novels and was convinced that I had amassed the necessary tools to deal with attacks by ghosts, ghouls and demons. 

I was nineteen when I awoke to find the figure of a small child in a long white robe at the foot of my bed.  She scared me a bit, especially as she was beckoning to me. Wherever she wanted me to go with her, I wasn't going, so I ran out of the room in fear for my life. I couldn't scream and when I burst into my parent's bedroom, I was unable to speak. That was my first paranormal encounter. There have been many more since. 

One afternoon, I was having lunch at a friend's house. I went along a short corridor to her downstairs loo and as I returned to the kitchen, I passed the open doorway to her dining room.  I saw a man walk across the room and disappear into the wall. When I returned to the kitchen, she said, "You are so pale. You look like you've seen a ghost." I told her about the apparition and she looked shocked.  Apparently both her and her husband were awoken by a loud noise the night before. They got up and checked to see whether one of their children was moving about but they were both fast asleep. What intrigues me the most about this episode is that my friend lived across the road from the local crematorium at the time. 

When my daughter was fourteen, we stayed over night in one of the coach houses at Muncaster Castle on Halloween.  Darkest Muncaster was a special event, the grounds were lit up with strange lights and ghostly holograms. It was very atmospheric. In the middle of the night, I was woken by a very loud male voice.  My daughter was sound asleep in the bed next to mine. She didn't hear it. I got up and looked around the accommodation, I even ventured outside in the dark cobbled courtyard but found nothing. The voice had called out a particular name. The next day we went to the Pennington family churchyard and discovered three graves with that same unusual name. Strange but true. I am drawn return to Muncaster. I believe that we have unfinished business. 

For the last thirteen nights, in preparation for Halloween, Really TV channel have been showing a series of paranormal investigation programmes called "thirteen nights of frights" and although I have seen and heard phenomenon first hand, I have always been sceptical, believing that these programmes are ridiculous. For example, how can a spirit make footsteps when it has no physical form.  I watched for a few nights hoping to witness something that might convince me that the so-called investigators are not complete charlatans.  One night the Most Haunted team filmed an "as live" vigil at Croxteth Hall in Liverpool, purported to be one of the most haunted buildings in England. There were several strange and unexplained phenomenon during the filming. I think that I am finally convinced.  

Most Haunted

A paranormal investigation

At the spooky Croxteth Hall
When they locked down and switched the lights off
Their skins began to crawl.
A poltergeist threw knives at them,
And a cradle rocked on its own,
A tennis ball bounced down a staircase,
A piano played alone.

But the scariest thing I have ever seen
Was a bed that turned onto its side,
In a room that was totally empty,
When the ghost hunters were outside.

It seems that the spirits who haunt there

Just want to be by themselves,
So they throw anything they can
The bottles and books from the shelves. 
I didn’t believe in spooks and ghouls
But what happened was surreal.
Its hard to ignore a haunting
When the evidence seems so real.

Thanks for reading.  Adele