You know that feeling when you rise out of your body, and float down the stairs? Or go up through the roof and fly around the top of your house? I do. Was fun! It used to happen to me all the time when I was seven. It’s called astral travelling or an out-of-body (OBE) experience, and I can still remember them like it was yesterday.
But spooky things have always been a part of my life, and I’m used to them now.
As a very young toddler — maybe around two — I nearly drowned in Hyde Park’s The Serpentine. My nan took her eye off me for a few minutes, and next thing I knew, I’m upside down and under water. A man appeared literally out of nowhere and pulled me out. Was he my guardian angel? Who knows.
Or the time I was playing with a friend in his garden. His dad thew a heavy butcher’s bone for their dog, but it was on course for the back my young head. Would have caused some real damage. My dad, who saw this, said before the bone hit my head, it lifted up and went right over, as if an invisible hand had nudged it out of the way. Hmmm.
That was a really haunted house we lived in as kids. My parents wanted to build an extension on the side of the house to expand the kitchen and add an extra bedroom. One day there was a knock on the front door. It was a traveller looking for some help. He got chatting to my dad about the construction on the side of the house, and he advised my dad not to continue.
“Why not?” asked my dad. “Because that’s where the spirits walk,” the man replied. “They won’t be happy.”
The extension got built anyway. And that’s when really strange things started to happen.
We had a very nice 100-foot-long garden, and my dad’s friend Bob who was working on the extension, was at the far end. He looked up to the kitchen window (at the back of the house) and saw who he thought was my dad staring out at him. “Make us a cup of tea, John!” he shouted. The figure just stood there, no wave or acknowledgment, which Bob thought was strange.
He walked up the garden, and went into the kitchen. No one was around. Just then my dad came in through the front door with me and my sister. He had been out picking us up from school.
Another time my parents were planning to take us kids to our nan’s place in London. We couldn’t find the car keys anywhere, not even on the regular hook in the kitchen. After about 15 minutes of searching, we just stood in a circle, looking at each other, and wondering what to do.
The keys appeared in the air, just above our heads, and fell at our feet. I saw them materialize and drop, similar to that scene in Poltergeist where things are falling out of thin air, but without any noise, or flashing lights. Just silence and then “clang” as they hit the floor.
My mum refused to discuss this for many years, but my dad and I think we were going to get in that car, and have a bad accident. Someone (or thing) delayed us by 15 minutes, and prevented that from happening.
My dad walked in the front room one day and say my dog standing on her back legs, like something invisible was holding her up by the front paws.
When my grandfather died, my nan came to live with us in — you guessed it — the spare bedroom in the extension. We got his car, and was sitting in it one day ready to go for a family drive. My nan was in the passenger seat, and asked who was smoking, as she hated it. No one was. But she could see a wispy swirl of smoke going around her and in the car that none of us could.
As a result of all these spooky events, I got interested in the paranormal as a teen, and still am to this day. I’ve been to see many mediums, attended mediumship classes, and read/watch a ton about the subject. It’s not scary, it’s fascinating.
When my dad died I had quite a few “dream” visitations, of him sitting up in his coffin and saying, “I’m not dead,” to being relaxed in a nice garden with a fountain. (He told me that as a kid he had an OBE, and went to Heaven where he saw colours that didn’t exist on this earth.)
My mum died a few years ago, and that night both the TVs in my living room and bedroom turned on at the same time. I “dreamed” of her too; she was in her early ‘30s, and we were in our old house that she loved. I asked what she was doing there, but she had no idea she had passed on. I gave one detail of that to my friend Jackie (one of The Rescue Mediums) and she confirmed that in her class the night before, she was talking about a famous person who I mentioned my mum looked like in the “dream.” I will leave it at that.
I often hear my name being called when I’m alone. No idea why that happens! It’s frustrating. I see (what I think are) spirits now and again. Just a brief glimpse, nothing solid, or that hangs around too long. Not evil or scary, just there. And I have no clue as to the meaning or why it happens.
So, that’s my spooky stories. Take it or leave it!