Is there anyone there

I recently moved from a house that was reputedly haunted. It is at least one hundred and fifty years old and was admittedly spooky at times. An old lady once knocked on my door (She lived in the house many years ago) and told me that as a child she saw a female apparition several times. We often had problems with weak water pressure. The joke was that it was due to the old farmer who lived there many moons ago running his bath. (The house, now one of two cottages was originally one large farmhouse.)

My youngest daughter, Alison lived in the house for a time before we took over and was often apprehensive concerning the place, not without reason. On one occasion a plate hanging on the wall leading to the third floor became detached and was found on the stairs below leading to the ground floor, having cleared several stairs and the landing below. (It is possible it could have fallen onto the stairs due to vehicle vibrations and rolled, edgewise down the stairs, across the small landing and partway down the next stairs. Possible though unlikely and very strange.)

On another occasion a mirror propped on a shelf was found, again unharmed on the floor, in this case a more sinister mystery. In order for the mirror to fall on the floor it had to clear the ornaments in front of it. Yet the ornaments were still in place when the mirror was discovered, an unnerving phenomenon not easily explained. Nevertheless eventually my daughter moved out, my wife and I moved in and we had eleven happy years in the place. We had two bull terriers in succession, Buster and Sam and we even moved in an elderly aunt, Ida. Ida lived with us for eight happy years until she died peacefully in her bed, aged ninety four.

Time moved on and I have become more and more rickety so when my oldest daughter Sarah and her family moved to run a business in the north west my wife and I decided to buy their bungalow; it seemed a logical thing to do, creaking bones are better suited to bungalows than three story houses.

A very pleasant bungalow, our new home, extended but originally built in the nineteen thirties was owned at one stage by an elderly widow. I did wonder if the old lady died at home but it's probably of no concern. Nineteen thirties houses don't have ghosts, or do they. We've lived here since the last week in August. And on a couple of occasions I swear I felt something large jump on the bed. I even felt the mattress momentarily dip. Surely imagination except that my daughter rang rather agitated. She used to also have a bull terrier by the name of Spike. Spike is buried in the garden and she has woken in a panic on more than one occasion, having dreamt I have have dug up poor old Spike. Not true, at least not yet. Anyway, you shouldn't let dogs sleep on beds though we all do it!

I was tidying, the garden in the week. Very secluded, no one can see in and you can't see out. It was a sombre, gloomy dark day, not exactly one to enlighten the spirits. Suddenly I became aware of a voice. "Is anyone there." A typical case of heard and not seen rather than the reverse. Startled and not a little apprehensive I surveyed the scene; nothing. "Is anyone there" again broke the silence; nothing. Then came the clincher, so to speak. "Is anyone there, it's Ida." The final proof of the afterlife, for how could anyone now doubt that the spirit lives on. For I heard it with my own ears. "Its me, Ken" I replied with bated breath. And the apparition's head appeared over the eight foot fence, for apparently apparitions can climb on whatevers handy when they so desire. "Its me, Ida, your neighbour. Can you cut back your brambles. They're coming through the fence."