It Happened to Me...

A helpful poltergeist

Most of the stories I have heard about poltergeists are negative, so here is one that I believe tried to help my flatmates and me. It started low-level annoyance. Howev a year after I moved to the fl it seemed to me that the polt tried to warn me of impending danger, implying it had som sort of premonition. This of course is my subjective inter pretation.

I am a professional artist, but my greatest love in life i the natural world – animals, insects, botany and astronomy I was never afraid of the dar I often went wild camping b myself and had lived happil alone in a derelict attic in a three-storey empty building prior to moving to the place where these events took pla e. I wasn’t interested in the supernatural.

At the end of my first year at art school in Farnham, Surrey, in 1985, I was lucky enough to be offered a room in a very dilapidated flat. Finding anywhere affordable in ultra-posh Farnham was absolute gold dust. The flat had a fantastic pedigree as a student home. It was the upper storey of a detached building on a main road, abo a tiny transport cafe and car showroom. Though it was quite an ugly building, resembling a rendered concrete block, it very old and I believe had once been a coaching inn.

I had two fantastic years there with my friends, but I was plagued by something t for the first year frightened me. It started when I agreed to swop rooms with a very down-to-earth flatmate, who

said she felt depressed in her room. From that time I was disturbed by vague noises, rus-tling, bumping, scratching and mechanical ticking that came from every corner of my room

The disturbing thing about the noises was the sense of deliberation – for instance a digital clock that would start

to ‘tick’, which was impossible. The noises seemed choreographed to attract my attention. To begin with, they would typically start up when I finished work for the evening and prepared for bed, but always wide awake and alert. I would go through the usual “it’s just my imagination” thoughts. I would climb into bed, keeping the light on. There would be a pause and then the clock

would start to tick again. If I got out of bed and looked at it, it would stop. Back into bed, a pause, and it would start again. I did endless experiments, such as inviting friends to listen to it. I replaced it with another clock – and it happened again. The noises were not caused by mice, rats or deathwatch beetles, pipes or relayed sounds fro other rooms, all of which Iha experienced in other places. The sounds could come out coat, an empty corner of the r or my paint box. When I walked towards the sou ressed my ear to the wall the sound would start up som where else. This repeated nig fter night. The noises nev oke me up at this time –th trouble was getting to slee at all!

I never got a sense of evil, but felt the timing of the ounds indicated that wha ever was causing them was somehow aware of me, and the implication was quite scar contacted the previous ten nts, who had lived there for r 10 years, and they said there was a ghost, but it was a friendly one, and they hadn’t mentioned it as we were quite young art students and they didn't want to frighten us. I wasn't very reassured. During one memorable night when two of my flatmates were away, and the third, a teetotaller had got blind drunk and passed out in her room, the power went off - no lights and we didn't have a phone. (We used the call box across the road.) I was working in my room - about 10pm, when from all around the flat a series of huge crashings and thumps started echoing along walls and passageways. I ran into my friend's rooma01 triad to wake her, to no avail. sat by her bed for an hour listening to the sounds and by now terrified, but in the end I felt 1 had to know what was going on. grabbed the candle and tried to follow the sounds as they-bashed along the wall. Hound nothing and spent the rest of, the night guarding my friend and trying to read a PG W house book by candlelight cheer myself up and block the sounds.

From then on, over the ., course of a few months, the 9 loud bashings and bangings started to ramp up and became weekly. My flatmates were often out or away, so didn't hear it or dismissed it as old house noises. The sounds came, from the walls, the ceiling, and in passageways that didn't con-nect. I traced all the pipes in the flat - and investigated boil-ers, etc -but nothing mechanical seemed to be going on. The flat was sparsely furnished with wall-mounted pipes no central heating (just a tiny water heater in the kitchen and bathroom), and no cavity-walls. The noises just seemed` to come from everywhere.

I would peer through the windows of the café and showroom below, but they were empty and quiet. During the holidays my flatmates returned home and one left college. The rooms were sublet to new tenants. I moved to a room at the end of a passageway that felt safer, but the sounds followed me and now it was night after night, getting louder and wilder.

One night, at about three in the morning, I finally cracked, jumped out of bed and rushed." out of my room in a complete and utter rage, ready to con-front whatever was tormenting

“The loud bashings and bangings started to ramp up an became weekly”