“We’re locked down with a ghostly gent!”
Despite strict rules against letting guests stay over, Beckie Melvin tells Closer how she and her family have been sharing their home with an uninvited housemate
For Beckie Melvin and her family, the pandemic has been less isolating than she’d bargained for. But while she’s happy to rub shoulders with her spectral housemate, her resident ghost appears to be struggling with lockdown.
Beckie, 40 – who shares her cottage with husband
Paul, son Cameron, ten, and a 100-year-old ghoul she affectionately refers to as “Top Hat” – says, “I don’t think Top Hat enjoys that we’re home so often. He’s been banging on the doors and flinging picture frames off the walls. He’s usually much quieter. We think he’s frustrated that we’ve been cooped up together for so long. He wants his own space.”
Beckie and her family have been living happily with the paranormal presence
– a dapper, well-dressed gentleman – for eight years. They first became aware of his existence shortly after moving into their Victorian cottage in Bedfordshire, when their toddler Cameron appeared to form a close bond with an imaginary friend.
Beckie, a wedding planner, says, “Cameron would sit in the kitchen staring into space and jabbering away. I assumed he’d made up a friend.
“Eventually, I asked him who he was talking to, and he replied there was a tall man in a big hat standing in the hallway. I laughed, but he insisted Top Hat was real.”
SCEPTICAL
Beckie says she’s always been open-minded about the spiritual world, but even she was sceptical about what her young son was describing.
She says, “I still had my reservations, but a few weeks later, Cameron was still talking about the man he could see.
“I told friends about Cameron’s visions, and one suggested it could be a spirit. I could see where she was coming from – our cottage was over 100 years old, but I thought it was more likely that Cameron was being imaginative.
“Then, one evening, Paul and I were sitting in the living
room when we both saw a man standing at the edge of the
corridor – he was tall, slender and wore the top hat that Cameron had described.
“It was at that moment that we knew we were sharing our home with a ghost. We didn’t feel scared – we just turned to each other in amazement. It was a lot to take in; we didn’t know what to make of it. That’s when we nicknamed him Top Hat.”
COMFORTING
While many people would be terrified, Beckie became accustomed to seeing Top Hat in her home and started to feel more relaxed in his presence.
She says, “In the evenings, we’d hear him walk between the bedrooms, with his heavy shoes clomping on the floorboards.
“He even showed himself to our guests. When my friend brought her three-year-old son over for tea, he pointed to Top Hat and gave exactly the same description as the ghostly figure I’d seen.
“I soon started to find his presence quite comforting. When Cameron was at school and Paul was at his IT job, I enjoyed having someone else in the house.
“I’d tune out if he was being particularly noisy – sometimes he would open and close doors – but otherwise he was fairly peaceful. Some nights, he’d bang on the bathroom ceiling, which was startling, but we’d fall back asleep afterwards.
“I think our dog, Cooper, was able to see him too. He’d wag his tail and jump up, as if he was greeting someone. It made me realise that Top Hat had to be a friendly spirit, otherwise Cooper would have been more wary.”
As Beckie became curious about the ghost sharing her home, she researched the building’s history and discovered her house was built on farmland over a century ago. Beckie says, “Based on historical records, we think that Top Hat was a wealthy landowner who rented cottages to shepherds – it would certainly explain his smart hat!
“Friends have said they’d never share their home with a ghost, but we’ve never considered an exorcism – he’s friendly, and besides, he was here long before us. Hiring a medium has never crossed our minds, either – we like his presence and we hope he knows that.”
But since restrictions came into force amid the pandemic, Beckie has noticed lockdown has got her genial ghost rattled.
PART OF THE FAMILY
Beckie says, “Now the house is full, and we’re busy on work calls or making meals, we’ve disrupted his harmony. When I was cooking dinner last week, a small picture flew 10ft off the wall and hit Paul, 44, across the head.
“Luckily, he hasn’t done anything else like it, but we were concerned as it was the most malicious thing he’s done so far – we think he was just venting his frustration.”
Despite his unruly behaviour, Beckie still enjoys having Top Hat around. She says, “On the whole, we’ve learned to laugh off any peculiar activity. Top Hat is more like family now. We’re happy to share our home with him.”
❛ WE THINK HE’S FRUSTRATED THAT WE’VE BEEN COOPED UP TOGETHER FOR SO LONG ❜