When I was just five years old....

I had a very scary experience which I regard as my first time seeing ghosts. I use the term loosely, you may prefer the word "spirit" or even "inter-dimensional being" but I think they all add up to the same thing.

At the time I was living with my family at the edge of a small rural hamlet ( a hamlet is smaller than a village consisting of just a handful of houses) in the scenic depths of middle England.

My mother was the cook at the vicarage there and we lived in a house on the small estate of the vicarage itself. We had only been there about a month when "stuff" started happening. I have learned later in life that there are definitely places that are prone to extraordinary spiritual activity. Looking back I would say this hamlet was for sure a place that fell under that heading.

My mother was the first of our family to experience the phenomena first hand. She would start work in the vicarage kitchen early very day to prepare breakfast for the vicar and his wife. So it started to happen that on arrival in the kitchen she would find all sorts of mess. Pots and pans scattered around, cupboard doors left open and even broken plates. She was obviously rather disturbed by this after having left everything spotlessly clean the night before, but for a few days thought it must be either done by the vicar or his wife late at night - even though that seemed unlikely there was no other conclusion she could draw at that point.

When it continued to happen she began to feel very unhappy that these people were causing her so much extra work to tidy up on arrival at work that a few weeks into these happenings she brought it to the attention of the vicar and his wife asking if they could please be a little more respectful and leave the kitchen tidy if they must use it late at night. Their response was absolutely jaw dropping! They had been nowhere near the kitchen on any of these evenings after my mother had left for the night.

So the next time it happened my mother called them into the kitchen to observe the mess. They were visibly shocked to say the least. They then concurred that a couple of times they had heard noises coming from the kitchen before they retired to bed but had always assumed it was my mum working later for some reason.

A special priest was called who was said to have had success in ridding places of such problems and he arrived a few days later to "exorcise the Poltergeist ". In layman's terms that means - get rid of the noisy spirit.

The definition of a Poltergeist in Wikipedia is , and I quote

"In ghostlore, a poltergeist (/ ˈ p oʊ l t ər ˌ ɡ aɪ s t / or / ˈ p ɒ l t ər ˌ ɡ aɪ s t /; German for "noisy ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed."

My mother did not witness the exorcism but spoke with the priest on his arrival to give him an account of what she had witnessed. She saw that he had brought with him some tools for the ritual, namely a Bible, a bell and a candle.

Incredibly, whatever he did, seemed to work as after that exorcism my mother never found any disturbance in the kitchen again.

So that was my mum's experience while we lived in this small English hamlet and also interestingly my siblings and I was told nothing of this for years as my parents did not want to scare their children with such things.

Nonetheless, then came my own experience.........

Every Sunday my mother and my siblings would take a walk after Sunday lunch in the woods and fields surrounding the hamlet. Like I said we were living on the vicarage estate and outside the courtyard leading to the back of the vicarage and our living place was a narrow country road with a high wall along one side with woods beyond it. At one end of the road was an old abandoned Blacksmiths forge outside of which was a big metal water trough always full of rainwater.

As I ran back from our walk in the fields on one such Sunday, I was far ahead of my mother and younger sister and trying to catch up with my brothers who were already disappeared and playing in the woods beyond the high wall. I could hear their voices in the distance. As I turned the corner of this narrow country road at the opposite end to the Blacksmiths I saw two middle aged men sat against the water trough talking with one another. They were dressed in what I would now describe as mens farm labourers clothing, but from back in history, maybe a hundred years before. Baggy sleeved off white shirts with the sleeves rolled partially up and coarse cloth trousers with suspenders of a brown colour tucked into calf length working boots.

They looked up at me as I ran into view of them and I stopped and stared at them feeling instantly nervous. I was only five years old and had had prior scary episodes with middle aged men ( another story yet to be told ) so was instantly on my guard.

To my left was the gateway leading into the vicarage yard and my house but the door of my house was locked and there was no one around there. To my right was the high stone wall beyond which I could hear the distant sounds of my brothers playing.

One of the two men got up and started to slowly walk in my my direction. Let me add at this point this road was at an estimate about 60 metres long.

The safest yet not the easiest option to get away from this approaching man seemed to me to climb the wall and jump down into the woods where I could catch up with my brothers. I scrambled on the stones, scraping my bare knees in my desperation to climb up and over. Every few moments I looked over my shoulder seeing the man getting closer and closer. He seemed to have increased his walking speed a little too.

By this point I was virtually petrified on the verge of complete panic, I managed to get my hand up on the top of the wall and summoning all my strength pulled my body up flat to lay on top of the wall. I knew by this time the man must have been virtually below me.

I turned my head to the side expecting to see him right there... but he had totally disappeared from sight! As had the other man who had been sat with him on the water trough! I can say without any doubt whatsoever that in the time between my last view of him to the moment I turned to see him gone there was nowhere obvious that he could have disappeared to, nowhere! He disappeared into thin air, along with the other seated man at the trough.

I tumbled down the far side of the wall into the woods, now flooding in tears..... funny how sometimes tears will wait until after the traumatic happening to let go, once your body somewhat relaxes again.

It felt like for those few minutes, a parallel dimension had opened up to me and then closed again.

Experts say that children under the age of six are much more likely to have such supernatural experiences as this as their pineal gland (third eye) is still open and functional.

We only lived in that hamlet for a little over six months but is seemed like half a lifetime! I was happy to leave as was my mother!

So if ever asked "Do I believe in ghosts ?" My answer is always " I don't believe... I KNOW of ghosts.

Thanks to you ALL for making it this far. I appreciate every one of you!

NatureGirl23