I HEAR FOOTSTEPS AND VOICES WHEN THERE’S NO ONE ELSE AROUND’

It’s evening in Beckie Melvin’s home, and after another hectic day of home-schooling, running her business and housework, she’s put her feet up, ready for some peace and quiet. Until the noise of footsteps above her head begins. From bedroom to bedroom, the upper floor of her early 20th-century cottage creaks with the sound of heavy-footed pacing. However, with both her husband and ten-year-old son fast asleep in bed, and visitors forbidden under lockdown rules, who on earth could be wandering through Beckie’s home night after night? Sceptics look away now, for 40-year-old Beckie firmly believes that she and her family are isolating with a ghost. Forget the stress of battling for a Tesco delivery slot or juggling Zoom quizzes, and consider instead the prospect of living in close proximity for weeks on end with a spirit. Even former One Direction singer Liam Payne is convinced he’s sharing his London flat with a ghost – and is determined to catch any paranormal activity on film after he experienced banging noises in his bedroom.

‘We call our ghost Top Hat Man and he’s shared our home since we moved in eight years ago,’ says Beckie, an events planner who runs Beckie Melvin Weddings. ‘He’s a tall man in a top hat but we have no idea who he is – or was. We know our house used to be a farm cottage, but his smartly dressed appearance isn’t that of a farm worker. Perhaps he was a land owner, but his identity is a mystery to us.’

It was Beckie’s ten-year-old son Cameron who first spotted Top Hat Man as a toddler. ‘Cam would sit and stare, sometimes pointing and jabbering, at a certain part of the house – a little hallway that leads off the kitchen to a downstairs loo,’ she remembers. ‘As his speech improved, he’d talk about a “tall man with a big hat”. Other children who came to play here would go home talking about him too. At first, I thought it was just Cam’s imagination running wild, but then I began to glimpse the man too. He was like a shadow at the periphery of my vision. In an instant he’d be gone, but I was sure of what I’d seen.’

Far from being rattled, Beckie says the family has always accepted their ghost as part of the household. ‘We’ve all seen him and heard him walking around over the years, but his presence has never been a threatening or mischievous one.’

But since lockdown began in March, Beckie says she’s noticed a perceptible change in Top Hat Man’s behaviour. ‘With all of us at home, the house is very noisy during the day: my husband Paul and I are working and taking calls, Cam is watching online videos for his schoolwork, and we have a dog running around.

‘Now I don’t see or hear Top Hat Man during the day, only in the evening when everything has quietened down, which makes me think we’re disturbing him by being here so much. He walks from the master bedroom at the front of the house to Cam’s at the back, over and over, every evening. I’m sure he’s wondering why we’re here all the time, but it has definitely influenced when he makes himself heard. Just the other night he was banging on the bathroom ceiling for several hours.’

Another homeowner who’s observed the impact of lockdown on her paranormal housemates is Christine Watson, the landlady of The Fleece Inn in Yorkshire, well known as a haunted pub. ‘My husband Alan and I live above the pub, and

Beckie Melvin

with her husband Paul and son Cameron: ‘Being home has definitely influenced when our ghost makes himself heard,’

she says apart from a brief period when we closed for a refurb, this is probably the first time in its 400-year history that this building has been so quiet,’ says Christine, 60, who’s been running the pub since 1993. ‘It’s always been a hive of paranormal activity, but since lockdown we’re noticing even more goings-on. In the past I spent most of my time in the bar, but now I’m in our apartment all day I hear footsteps and voices in our bedrooms and halls – even when I know there’s no one else around. Last week, our TV switched on by itself from standby. We’re used to things like this happening, but it feels more unnerving now that it’s just us and our dogs.’

Recently, she says, a CCTV camera picked up footage of an internal door swinging back and forth for over an hour – there were no draughts that could have explained it – as well as orbs (balls of energy) and shadows moving around.

Christine believes her ghosts – which ghost hunters and psychics have told her include a little girl called Eleanor who likes to play with the balloons after a party in the pub, a shepherd who lived there hundreds of years ago and once trashed a store room, and a young motorcyclist who died in an accident in the 1970s – are missing the bustle of pub life.

‘I think they’re wondering where everyone is. The function room is one of the most haunted areas – the spirit of a man called Harold lives down there. He’s a cantankerous sort who enjoys scaring guests by grabbing their necks and rushing them out of the room. Now when I go down there, there’s a very malevolent atmosphere. It’s as if he’s unhappy and lonely.’

Clairvoyant and spiritualist medium Carianne Robins says it’s not surprising that people may be more aware at this time of not being alone in lockdown. ‘Now many of us are at home all day we have more time for reflection,’ she says. ‘There are fewer distractions so we’re more responsive to energies around us. At a time when many of us are very frightened and anxious, it’s understandable that loved ones who have previously passed over into the light would return to offer comfort.’

Carianne has noticed a significant increase in spirits

Right Fleece Inn landlady Christine Watson has the measure of most of her

pub’s spirits

Far right Clairvoyant Carianne Robins has

seen an upsurge in troubled ‘energies’

As bad as the Covid-19 crisis is here in Ireland and across Europe, there are major worries about how many African nations – already under healthcare pressure – will cope with the spread of the disease. Charities who work in the area are trying to get ahead of the curve and prepare for the expected onslaught. One such charity is Concern

Worldwide, which is Ireland’s largest international aid charity. It has over 4,000 staff trying to prevent the spread of the virus in 23 countries with very limited health facilities.

This band of humanitarians are now preparing not only for the disease, but for what is feared could be a major hunger crisis in the countries where they work caused by Covid-19 restrictions to food supplies and a global recession.