Antonia over at Whoopee has asked us to post our real-life ghost stories. So here are my two, not-quite-ghost stories.

Theobald’s; Early ’60s
I was brought halfway between Cheshunt and Waltham Cross, about 13 miles north of London and just in Hertfordshire. And I actually lived about 5-10 minutes walk from the site of the long vanished Tudor Theobald’s Palace – built by Lord Burghley and later exchanged by Robert Cecil for James I’s Hatfield House.

Part of the grounds of the old palace were a local park which I visited regularly so we got to know the park keeper. Behind the park was the early-Victorian Old Palace House, built on the actual site of the old palace.

This is of the back of Old Palace House in the 1930s; it wasn’t a lot different when I knew it. Notice the two Tudor windows salvaged from Theobald’s Palace.
By the time I got to know the house it was uninhabited and had passed into the ownership of the local council, so on a Sunday it was under the stewardship of the aforementioned park keeper. Thus it was that we got to help ourselves to apples (gorgeous old varieties) from the wonderful old orchard and also on one occasion to go round the inside of the house.

The house was interesting, but of course slowly becoming derelict having been unoccupied for some years. So it was cold and dank, even on a hot summer’s day. Walking round the house (I guess I would have been 12, maybe 14) we had our small Cairn Terrier sized dog with us. We went up the main staircase to the first floor. But the dog would not, absolutely would not, go up to those stairs. I had to carry her up; she was shaking like a leaf. What it was I don’t know but there was something up there that terrified her. And it did strike me as especially chill.

We never did find out any more, although I have found this on the Paranormal Database:

Location: Cheshunt – Old Palace House, Theobald’s Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: It was claimed that this building was haunted by a number of ghosts, though details are sketchy

A few years later the old house burnt down; as far as I know it was never concluded whether this was “suspicious” or an accident. Except for a large specimen walnut tree the orchard was grubbed out and became an extension of the park.

Follow the links to find lot’s more about the interesting history of the Cheshunt and Waltham Cross area at British History Online.

Norwich; Summer 1973
My only other experience of ghostly presence was when I was a post-graduate student in Norwich. I was friends with a couple (let’s call them B and J) who, at the time, were devout Catholics and lived in a flat (part of a Victorian house) halfway between the city centre and the university.

One hot summer Saturday afternoon I was working in my lab and B was also working 3 labs along from me. We had agreed that I would eat with them that evening and then we’d go out for a few beers. I finished my experiments in mid-afternoon and B said to go on to theirs and he would follow. I duly did so.

When I arrived J open the door and said “Thank God you’ve arrived I been struggling with this presence all day and can’t banish it”. On a baking hot summer’s day I walked in the door and was hit by this wall of freezing cold – real freezing cold, not just a cool house. It tuned out that J had been beset by this “demon” all day and could not banish it from the house – we were great believers in the power of the mind to control these things. She and I set about working on it together and eventually managed to banish it as far as the bathroom.

B arrived an hour or two later and before anyone said anything his comment was along the lines of “What on earth is wrong; what’s happening?” J explained. As I recall we spent the rest of the evening finally removing the presence from the house. We didn’t resort to bell, book and candle, but we were pretty close to doing so. Luckily the presence never returned.

I would have to say, in all honesty, that I’m fairly agnostic about ghosts and presences although these two events were real enough (horribly real in the case of the latter). As Hamlet observes (Act I, scene i):

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.