3 Richards Road

As an army child, my sisters and I lived in many different houses. I estimate I've lived in around 37 or 38 houses during my lifetime. Most of those houses haven't been in the least bit spooky or scary, but one house really stands out in my memory as down-right evil:

3 Richards Road.

From the outside it was an unassuming army barrack style house but on the inside it was cold, unwelcoming and down-right malevolent. I saw things and heard things in that house that still send shivers up my spine. Suffice it to say they were more demonic than ghostly.

When things got a little too scary I would climb into bed with my mum and dad. One night I woke up in my mum and dad's room floating face up, around an inch from the ceiling. I was terrified but completely unable to close my eyes. Then an elderly man with a long white beard walked into the room. He gently placed his arms under my body and carried me back into my own bed.

Another night, I was sitting halfway down the stairs (when I should have been in bed) listening to my parents talking in the living room. Suddenly I had an overwhelming feeling that someone or something was standing behind me. The next thing I recall is being shoved from behind and landing at the bottom of the stairs with quite a thump. I remember struggling to breathe where I was winded from the force.

3 Richards Road was one of those houses where something bad was always happening (including an accident which crippled my father for life). We lived there for around a year (possibly less) before we moved into a house where absolutely nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened. In fact I don't think we lived in a 'haunted' house again until we moved to Yorkshire which is where I spent the best part of my teens.

Friendly 'Hello' Ghosts

When we first bought our house which was once part of an old Victorian Prison, it needed a lot of 'cosmetic' work doing to it. I decided to take two weeks off work and commuted the 30-odd miles every day to make a start on some of the more labour intensive stuff.

On the first or second day I was up a ladder in the spare bedroom scraping artex off the ceiling when I distinctly heard a man say 'hello'. It was so clear and loud that my first thought was 'crikey, the postman has let himself in'. I scrambled down the ladder and raced downstairs but the house was empty. In retrospect the 'hello' definitely seemed to come from the doorway of the spare room and was the kind of hello that would preceed an introduction of sorts.

In any case I put the incident to the back of my mind and carried on with my work.

About a week later my dad came down from Yorkshire to help out with some of the joinery that needed doing. Whereas I was still commuting between the house and our flat in London, my dad decided to camp out at the house.

One morning when I arrived my dad had something interesting to tell me.

"I was in the kitchen washing my breakfast dishes this morning," he said, "when I heard a woman's voice say hello. It was so clear she could have been standing in the kitchen with me."

Needless to say I was a little freaked out. Having said that, everyone that comes to visit tells us how friendly and welcoming the house is. And for that we have our hello ghosts to thank, I believe.