A childhood experience

[TonyM]

Not my first experience as my mother told me I used to talk to the old woman in the corner of the bedroom I shared with my sisters as a toddler but I have no memory of that of course.

I thought I'd share this story of a childhood experience when I was eight years old, something I often think about and more recently had discussions about it with other family members, I never spoke about this at the time nor for many years afterwards.

I grew up in an industrial town near Glasgow famous for shipbuilding. My parents, two sisters and I lived in a cramped tenement building with an outside toilet so the offer of a council house with three bedrooms and proper toilet was very welcome and we duly moved in about the time of the summer school holidays.

It was an exciting time, being the eldest I got my own room and even got to choose the wallpaper and we got our first dog a black labrador called Glen. Not long after we moved in the strange events started to occur. The dog would never go upstairs where my sister's and I had our rooms and would often stand at the bottom of the stairs growling with his hackles up. My father worked nightshift in a local factory so was never around much in the evenings and after we children were in bed my mother would hear footsteps on the stairs as did the dog which would start growling and getting agitated. Thinking it was one of us sneaking downstairs she'd check but nobody there and we'd be sleeping. My father also mentions hearing footsteps during the day and on his nights off.

I remember waking several times during the night and although dark there was enough ambient light from the streetlights outside to see a figure standing at the bottom of my bed, I could see it was a man thinner and taller than my father but couldn't make out any features. Needless to say I was terrified and I don't mind admitting that until I became an adult I kept my head under the duvet when in bed in case I saw something. I didn't mention this to my parents until much later.

Also around this time one or more of us would get sick during the night, headaches and nausea but this was put down to some bug or other that was going around something children often succumb to.

I didn't find out till years later that the house became vacant because the previous occupant had apparently commited suicide by gassing himself in the kitchen, no suicide note was left nor any indication that he was unhappy for any reason.

Being Catholic my parents had a priest come around to bless the house but the incidents still continued. About this time they bought a new gas cooker to replace the very old model currently installed. When the gas fitter arrived to install it he was horrified to discover that the pipe leading to the old cooker had a large hole and was leaking gas constantly. Had it not been a warm summer and all the windows being left open we could have died and the small amount of gas building up during the night was probably responsible for us getting sick.

That discovery also solved the mystery of the suicide which of course wasn't, it appears the guy had come home from the pub and decided to make something to eat in the kitchen but fell asleep. The buildup of gas had killed him and it was of course accidental.

My parents tracked down his mother to tell her what had been discovered and after that the strange events stopped and nothing more disturbed us for the many years we lived in that house.

That was the first of several experiences I've had over the years, more to come if you're interested.

 

[Lynne]

Wow LG, sounds like the ghost may have been trying to warn you all. Thank god you figured it out in time. Glad they poor soul got closure too.

 

[Debi]

Not my first experience as my mother told me I used to talk to the old woman in the corner of the bedroom I shared with my sisters as a toddler but I have no memory of that of course.

I thought I'd share this story of a childhood experience when I was eight years old, something I often think about and more recently had discussions about it with other family members, I never spoke about this at the time nor for many years afterwards.

I grew up in an industrial town near Glasgow famous for shipbuilding. My parents, two sisters and I lived in a cramped tenement building with an outside toilet so the offer of a council house with three bedrooms and proper toilet was very welcome and we duly moved in about the time of the summer school holidays.

It was an exciting time, being the eldest I got my own room and even got to choose the wallpaper and we got our first dog a black labrador called Glen. Not long after we moved in the strange events started to occur. The dog would never go upstairs where my sister's and I had our rooms and would often stand at the bottom of the stairs growling with his hackles up. My father worked nightshift in a local factory so was never around much in the evenings and after we children were in bed my mother would hear footsteps on the stairs as did the dog which would start growling and getting agitated. Thinking it was one of us sneaking downstairs she'd check but nobody there and we'd be sleeping. My father also mentions hearing footsteps during the day and on his nights off.

I remember waking several times during the night and although dark there was enough ambient light from the streetlights outside to see a figure standing at the bottom of my bed, I could see it was a man thinner and taller than my father but couldn't make out any features. Needless to say I was terrified and I don't mind admitting that until I became an adult I kept my head under the duvet when in bed in case I saw something. I didn't mention this to my parents until much later.

Also around this time one or more of us would get sick during the night, headaches and nausea but this was put down to some bug or other that was going around something children often succumb to.

I didn't find out till years later that the house became vacant because the previous occupant had apparently commited suicide by gassing himself in the kitchen, no suicide note was left nor any indication that he was unhappy for any reason.

Being Catholic my parents had a priest come around to bless the house but the incidents still continued. About this time they bought a new gas cooker to replace the very old model currently installed. When the gas fitter arrived to install it he was horrified to discover that the pipe leading to the old cooker had a large hole and was leaking gas constantly. Had it not been a warm summer and all the windows being left open we could have died and the small amount of gas building up during the night was probably responsible for us getting sick.

That discovery also solved the mystery of the suicide which of course wasn't, it appears the guy had come home from the pub and decided to make something to eat in the kitchen but fell asleep. The buildup of gas had killed him and it was of course accidental.

My parents tracked down his mother to tell her what had been discovered and after that the strange events stopped and nothing more disturbed us for the many years we lived in that house.

That was the first of several experiences I've had over the years, more to come if you're interested.

Always interested, LG. Share if you will!