IT HAPPENED TO ME...

First-hand accounts of strange experiences from FT readers

Family ghosts

Helen Lauer’s account of events surrounding the death of her father [FT393:72 ] was very moving and interesting. It reminded me of my mother’s last days in the summer of 1982. She was 68, had had about a decade of ill health and for the previous two years had been having treatment for cancer with all the usual ups and downs it brings. My father had died after a very short fight with the same disease the previous autumn and she had deteriorated since, also finally showing signs of dementia.

My brother and I looked after her at home, and during the period she was able to hold something like a conversation with us she would often claim there was a woman in the house she didn’t recognise and kept asking us who she was. We were both a bit creeped out by this as she said it with such conviction, and I’m afraid we were not very gentle in dismissing her belief as imagination. As she slowly went downhill, she would talk non-stop, about family and friends, past and present, only stopping when sheer exhaustion made her fall asleep. As soon as she woke up, she would launch into another roll call of people and events.

Gradually she would talk not about these individuals but to them, and finally only to those who were deceased. At this point, I began to feel there was a definite sense of presence in the house, and perhaps it was my longstanding love of ghost stories that made me keep thinking “The family ghosts are assembling” – not that anyone had ever mentioned them doing this before, as far as I knew.

It was a bright, pleasant summer for the most part, and the house seemed especially full of light while the ‘presences’ were upstairs, downstairs and on the stairs. My mother passed away at exactly 4.30pm one Wednesday afternoon, and there was a great sense of relief that her suffering was over. The feeling of the ‘others’ in the house evaporated immediately.

Len Jackson

Willenhall, West Midlands

Monks in Wandsworth

It was interesting reading Michelle’s letter about the ghost she experienced when living near Wandsworth Common, and the “monk’s feet” walking down invisible steps seen by her mother-in-law in the same house when she was a child [FT395:73]. From 1971 to around 1982 we lived in a large Victorian house on the west side of Wandsworth Common, and my mum told me of a similar experience she had, which I got her to write down. My dad, brother and I must have been away together as she was on her own.

“I was sleeping in the top floor front bedroom,” she wrote. “Suddenly I woke up with a start. There at the bottom of the bed facing me was a figure of a monk. He was dressed in a dark habit, his head bent forward. I couldn’t see his face and he had his arms folded in front of him. He was just standing there. I was very frightened and switched on the light and there was nothing there. I spent the rest of the night with the light on. I moved out of that bedroom as soon as possible and didn’t go in there again unless I really had to, and even then I made sure I left the door open.”

Geoff Reader

Brighton, East Sussex

New Zealand earthlight

The first big earthquake to strike Christchurch, New Zealand (my home town) was about 4.30am on 4 September 2010. It could be felt hundreds of miles away. I was in my tiny cottage in South Canterbury, on the edge of a small town called Waimate, just inland from the eastern coast of the South Island. It was as if a crane were lifting my cottage up, then dumping it down – a horrendous experience, especially as I was alone at the time.

The second major quake struck Christchurch around 1.00pm on 22 February 2011 [registering 6.3 on the Richter scale]. I was in the kitchen of my large city house writing out a recipe for truffles. Luckily, my front door was wide open. I had seconds to flee as everything came crashing down and a large grand piano moved forward two metres. Sadly, 185 people lost their lives. [Wikipedia tells us this was followed by 361 aftershocks the following week, and then a 5.3R quake on 16 April and a 5.3R quake on 10 May.]

Sometime that year I was awakened in my Waimate cottage by a dull booming sound. Sitting up in bed, I witnessed (though thick curtains) what I took to be an earthlight. It was perhaps a metre off the ground – brilliant, whitish and sparkly – and travelling north at enormous speed.

Barbara Stevens Christchurch, New Zealand

Mystical Heat

In my twenties I was part of a road protest camp at Tara Hill in Ireland (above left). Many had strange experiences there, including seeing floating orbs and meeting ghosts dressed in Celtic clothes, or being chased by a great fierce brindled hound. My own experience was quite different. It was a cold damp November and I’d curled up in a ball in my tent to go to sleep. I woke in the middle of the night to find I was lying on my back, warm, with gentle heat seeming to radiate out of my chest. I had the feeling the heat was limitless, and with it was a feeling of utter love and bliss that I have never had since. The feeling grew stronger and as it did I felt my body rise up off the ground. It felt to only be a few inches. After a time I felt myself come back to the ground, and I fell asleep. The whole time I felt completely calm. The next day I was unable to hold a conversation and felt like an electric current had gone through me. All I could do was rest on some grass. On my return to London I looked at people differently; I noticed their inner beauty through their eyes rather than their external beauty, especially elderly people.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

Kathryn Clover

Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire