The fifth 'Real or surreal?' by Mike Kazybrid

Most of us have a story that we simply can't explain. Perhaps it was that strange noise in the dead of night, or the sudden movement at the foot of the stairs that appeared to be a person rushing by. No matter how hard we try to seek an answer, we can never completely find one.

Here’s another one of my stories. It's the summer of '76. I'm a student living in Edgbaston, Birmingham, and I, along with three other mature students, have been asked by the college if we will clean out a number of large houses that they’d recently purchased. Once cleaned and re-decorated, they were to become homes for the new students.

So there we were: three Yorkshiremen and a Scotsman. No, I'm not about to embark on a series of jokes! I can honestly say that they were three of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet.

The spooky bit begins when Tom, the guy I was working with, had to go and obtain certain materials for the house (Mac and Alan were working on another property). So there I was in this beautiful three-storey Victorian house, feeling somewhat useful with every bit of dirt and plaster I was able to clean up.

I was content with the world, until I happened to hear the faint cry of a woman. As it continued, I remained both still and silent, unsure as to its origin. All I was sure of was that the cry came not from the neighbouring houses, but from the attic itself. I was frozen to the spot, unable to ignore the clear human cry that carried down the stairs and filled the hall where I stood.

Now, I'm uncertain if my actions came from a sense of deep-rooted bravery or perhaps, looking back, plain stupidity, but I decided to slowly walk up the old staircase towards the beckoning cry.

I tried to avoid each and every creak that the old wooden stairs offered but was totally unsuccessful. By now, standing before the attic door, I was mindful that the person on the other side would be aware of my presence, perhaps in the same way I was now aware of hers!

The cry, or sobbing, was clearly coming from a woman. One didn't have to be intelligent to realise that she was in a state of deep emotional pain. Something really bad had clearly happened to her to move her to this point. But what I couldn't understand was: if I was on one side of the door and she was on the other side, why was I informed that the house was empty?

But the house was empty. ‘It is empty,’ I kept on telling myself. Yet here we were, the frightened young man on the one side, and the sobbing woman on the other, only a large piece of Victorian wood standing between us.

I decided to announce myself to her. I told her not to be afraid, that I was only there to clean up the place (thought not in a Charles Bronson or Dirty Harry manner, of course). Still, the sobbing continued. I moved slowly towards the old door, ever mindful that by now there was no mistake that this was very real. Believe me, it was real enough for me not to want to open the door.

Finding myself rushing down the stairs faster than I'd climbed them, I contacted the local chaplain who was linked to the college. Explaining the situation, the chaplain, a serious but good-hearted man, shared with me a possible reason for what had taken place. As we walked back to the house, he shared a little of its recent history.

The property was last owned by an elderly lady who, in her latter days, had lived with a number of cats. These were her only real source of company. For reasons unknown, she lost her feline companions and turned to her belief in spiritualism as a means of comfort. Perhaps the realisation that she was finally to say farewell to her home was the factor that created the end. The old lady died of a broken heart ... in the attic!

Having now returned to the stairs leading up to the attic, we stopped for a moment. And another moment.

Okay, five minutes later, I finally asked the question: ‘Aren't we going to go inside the attic?’

Following a short period of silence between us, the chaplain advised me not to worry. If he stayed where he was, on this side of the door, she would be able to hear him pray.

I questioned that comment. I'd seen all the Hammer Horror movies, and according to them we were now meant to rush into the room, him holding a large cross and shouting something loud in Latin, whilst I splashed ten gallons of holy water everywhere! (Okay, I admit, it was a bad movie.)

Nope, he was sticking to his guns. He was going to yell out a prayer and that would do the trick!

Truth be told, I didn't hear the sobbing any more after the chaplain had gone. Perhaps the power of faith had sorted out the issue. Or maybe the old lady had been somewhat peed off, thinking that some idiots were about to rush into her little attic bedroom, carrying a large cross and yelling something loudly in Latin, whilst the other fool wanted to pour ten gallons of holy water on her head! (Yep, she'd seen that movie too!)

On a serious note, the sound of the crying woman seemed real enough and could be pinpointed to that very room. Could it have been the total sense of grief that had allowed the poor lady, beyond her death, to remain in the house?

I'd like to think that in some way she had moved on to a place of peace. I'll never know. However, I can truthfully confirm that there was one outcome from this experience: I never did finish doing the dusting!

In the true spirit of that which is real or surreal, this has been another tale from those you've come to know as Two Men and a Ghost.

Sleep well.

Silence of the birds (our icy adventure in Bunting Nook) (by Andrew Wooding)

Since starting this blog, Mike and I have noticed a truly strange phenomenon: everyone we’ve spoken to about our quest has a ghostly story or two to tell, usually followed by a recommendation of a haunted location for us to visit. No one’s laughed at us (which makes a change) – everyone’s been most eager to help with a tip-off or a story of their own. Maybe you could do the same by leaving a comment at the end of this blog?

For what it’s worth, here’s my own personal ghost story: the mysterious hovering lampshade of Bordesley Green. This really happened, and I’ll never forget it! Back in the nineties – I believe it was winter - I was staying at my aunt and uncle’s in Birmingham. There I was, reading a comic in bed in the spare room, when I glanced up at the ceiling … then froze in my bed!

This wasn’t just because it was a cold house (they didn’t have central heating); it was because I was witnessing a truly ghostly phenomenon. The lampshade hanging from the ceiling was moving quite dramatically of its own accord … from left to right, from right to left, from north to south, and all directions in between … as if some invisible figure was pushing it about for devious reasons of its own.

I couldn’t move for ages. Would this nightmare ever end? To add to the mystery, the air directly below the hanging lampshade seemed to be shimmering. Evidence of a ghost perhaps … or was it some sort of heat haze?

‘Heat haze?!’ It was then that I realised what was happening. One of those portable three bar heaters – switched on in the spare room - was giving off heat directly below the lampshade. The heat (as it does) was rising, and it was this that was causing the lampshade to swing randomly about. No ghost, then … unless Morphy Richards heaters give off paranormal entities, but there’s nothing about this in their warranty.

The reason I mention this is that on our travels, Mike and I fully expect to see lots of strange things. But how do we know when something is ghostly, and when it’s something that’s perfectly explainable by science or psychology?

On our first trip to Stocksbridge, our mileometer packed in for the entirety of the trip, only working again when we headed for home. How do you explain that? On our second trip, nothing happened, other than indigestion from guzzling a fun pack of Gold Bars too quickly. Ghostly noises emanated from our stomachs, but it was nothing to do with the spirit world and everything to do with trapped wind.

This being our third excursion, we wanted to ‘up’ the probability that we’d stumble across something worth writing about. So Mike chose Bunting Nook, a leafy road near Graves Park in Sheffield, noted by a number of paranormalists for the following phenomena:

1. There’s a ghostly dog, known as a boggart;
2. An eloping couple who died after falling off a horse (what were they doing on the horse?) supposedly haunt the lane;
3. A man with the surname Glover was brutally murdered in the nineteenth century, and visits his grave in Bunting Nook once a year;
4. Birds can never (I repeat, never) be heard in the lane;
5. There’s a ghostly figure that walks through walls.

There you go: five possible paranormal encounters. How could we go wrong?

We spent the best part of two hours wandering up and down the lane, and unless the boggart’s changed its form into that of a squirrel with halitosis, we didn’t come across it. There was no eloping couple, no grave in the graveyard with the surname of Glover, and those birds that don’t sing … they were screaming their lungs out at us, and we were treading in evidence of them all over the pavement.

This left the ghost that walks through walls. On our third walk up the lane, I examined one of the walls more closely, cleverly made of sharp flat rocks piled on top of each other. Protruding between two of the rocks was an ice lolly stick. Hoping I’d find a joke on it, I plucked it out, but there was no such joke … not even a Lyons Maid logo burnt into the wood.

A hundred yards or so down the lane there was another lolly stick on the floor, lying between all the bird poo. Then another lolly stick near the bottom of the lane … or, to be more accurate, only half a lolly stick.

Mike and I tried to imagine the events that led to this thought-provoking display of litter. Did the lolly sticks originate from just one person, greedily sucking his or her way through three of the lollies in succession while traversing the length of the lane? Or maybe the lollies were consumed by three people walking together, who happened to suck at different speeds and finished at different points on their journey. And why was one lolly stick half the size of the other? Maybe the three friends in question were two giants and Ronnie Corbett?

These are mysteries we are still pondering days after our experience of the legendary Bunting Nook. And can you blame us? There was nothing else for us to ponder … other than how we were going to get all that bird crap off our shoes.

Ah well. Better luck next time?

PS. Maybe the significance of the ice lolly stick is that our ghost likes to walk through Walls?

PPS. No, I didn’t think it was funny either…