In the early hours of one summer's night, just before dawn, my wife awoke and needed
to use the bathroom. At that particular time, there were just the two of us living in the
three-bedroomed house and we'd been married around eight years.
What happened next went unseen by myself and it was only when she raced back into
the bedroom and leaped onto the bed, I became aware that something had occurred.
However, we never spoke of it until a couple of days later.
We had jobs to go to, a mortgage to pay and all the other stuff that young married
couples enjoy. The average life in the western world is packed with mundane tasks
that you're required to do and thoughts of ghosts and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night
are usually left to nights-in with girls or cynical talks at the bar by men.
I'm an average Joe and the woman who's ten-times smarter than me is the serious one.
I trust my wife. I trusted her then and trust her now. She has no reason to lie to me and
this incident could and would never have had any benefit to me or herself.
We've now been married thirty-three years and as I type this, I'm asking questions of
the incident to one of only three people in the whole world that I trust.
I'm one of that three and she and my son are the others.
But... for you dear reader, I'm just a stranger on the internet. I may be male or female.
I may be someone who is telling the truth -or my version of a truth, or just yanking your
chain because you want to believe in an 'after-life' Maybe I feel obligated to write an
account of a ghostly encounter just so I feel part of a group... maybe I'm just an out-right
liar and get my rocks-off on mocking others beliefs.
It's not very nice, is it? This is who we are on this medium and there's not a thing we
can do about it! "Pics or didn't happen" -as Gordi often quips, is the usual order of the
day, but my hobby is working in Photoshop and I know from experience that this trusty
demand does not always 'cut the mustard' anymore.
Just take a look at YouTube!
Onwards... here's my account and you can take it or leave it.
I'm not being cruel when I say that, it's just a reality.
My Missus needed to pee. It was still dark and it would be another hour before the
sun broke over the houses to the east of us. That meant that the light would enter from
the rear of our home and the toilet is on the south-west.
So sitting there, making water with the bathroom door open, my wife noticed the old
woman standing on the landing at the top of the stairs. The dark-clothed figure was
around five-feet way from her and was resting a wicker-basket on the bannister that
levels out onto the landing for approximately eighteen inches on either side where
the stairs end.
My better-half stared at what she believed was a ghost and hurried her ablutions
in the gloomy silence. Then having the courage to close the space between herself
and this unmoving humanoid shape that looked like it was on it's way to a market,
my wife turned right and dived into our bedroom.
There were no house lights on and the only illumination comes from a street lamp that
is located around fifty yards away and shines in through frosted glass of the bathroom
window. To anyone sitting on the toilet, this fragmented light would pass over the seated
person's shoulder at hit the wall at the top of the stairs at an acute angle. In fact, that light
has hardly any effect in making shadows.
The stair landing is rectangular, it's widest parts go left and right to anyone ascending the
stairs. When doing so, one would arrive at a plain wall and have access... (at that time
because it's changed due to an extension on the house)... access to a bathrrom door one
your left and the main bedroom door on the your rear-left -if you looked over your left
shoulder.
So... if you came out of the toilet, the access to our bedroom would be on your right.
as said above!
Any symmetry kept is done by looking to one's right. There's the entrance to what became
known as 'the spare bedroom' on your immediate right and a room that became our son's
bedroom (not even conceived at that time!)... on your rear-right.
I can write this description above because after my wife told me of what she'd witnessed,
I spent three nights afterwards sitting on the same toilet and observing the same situation.
Alas, no old woman appeared and forced me to actually utilise that lavatory!
The walls are plainly painted and light-coloured, there's no shadows or furniture that a
half-asleep imagination can conjure into a human shape and there was nobody else
in the house to accidently or deliberately create the scene.
Now, the stranger on the stairs.
Later, my wife identified her as her Great-Grandmother from the only two photographs
taken of the old lady. It's accepted that my wife may have met her, but this encounter could
have only taken place when my wife was a newly-born baby.
This Great-Grandmother always wore an ankle-length black coat and a black hat that
was common for older working-class just after the Second World War. Life was a lot
different then and being that this spectral lady was from a background of a north-eastern
mining community of England and in a time when money was sparse.
Britain was still reeling from the war and regardless of Churchill's patriotic words and
finger gestures, not all of the country enjoyed the brandy and pheasant that he did.
So this dark figure at the top of our stairs was from a time that the majority of us could
never appreciate. A time of word-of-mouth and a closely-knit community.
That's it... that's the account. My wife sat on the loo and watched an unmoving shape
that -if the conditions of light were concerned, should've been the same when I sat in
the identical position. Yet, I saw nothing that could be deemed any shape or any light
-absence form.
Nothing.
But the basket... the wicker-basket. If it was the ghostly Great-Grandmother of my
loved-one coming back to this reality to check-in on her status and this spirit had the
composition of form to be untouchable, intangible to the tactile analysis...
then why rest the damned basket on the 'real' bannister ?!!
to use the bathroom. At that particular time, there were just the two of us living in the
three-bedroomed house and we'd been married around eight years.
What happened next went unseen by myself and it was only when she raced back into
the bedroom and leaped onto the bed, I became aware that something had occurred.
However, we never spoke of it until a couple of days later.
We had jobs to go to, a mortgage to pay and all the other stuff that young married
couples enjoy. The average life in the western world is packed with mundane tasks
that you're required to do and thoughts of ghosts and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night
are usually left to nights-in with girls or cynical talks at the bar by men.
I'm an average Joe and the woman who's ten-times smarter than me is the serious one.
I trust my wife. I trusted her then and trust her now. She has no reason to lie to me and
this incident could and would never have had any benefit to me or herself.
We've now been married thirty-three years and as I type this, I'm asking questions of
the incident to one of only three people in the whole world that I trust.
I'm one of that three and she and my son are the others.
But... for you dear reader, I'm just a stranger on the internet. I may be male or female.
I may be someone who is telling the truth -or my version of a truth, or just yanking your
chain because you want to believe in an 'after-life' Maybe I feel obligated to write an
account of a ghostly encounter just so I feel part of a group... maybe I'm just an out-right
liar and get my rocks-off on mocking others beliefs.
It's not very nice, is it? This is who we are on this medium and there's not a thing we
can do about it! "Pics or didn't happen" -as Gordi often quips, is the usual order of the
day, but my hobby is working in Photoshop and I know from experience that this trusty
demand does not always 'cut the mustard' anymore.
Just take a look at YouTube!
Onwards... here's my account and you can take it or leave it.
I'm not being cruel when I say that, it's just a reality.
My Missus needed to pee. It was still dark and it would be another hour before the
sun broke over the houses to the east of us. That meant that the light would enter from
the rear of our home and the toilet is on the south-west.
So sitting there, making water with the bathroom door open, my wife noticed the old
woman standing on the landing at the top of the stairs. The dark-clothed figure was
around five-feet way from her and was resting a wicker-basket on the bannister that
levels out onto the landing for approximately eighteen inches on either side where
the stairs end.
My better-half stared at what she believed was a ghost and hurried her ablutions
in the gloomy silence. Then having the courage to close the space between herself
and this unmoving humanoid shape that looked like it was on it's way to a market,
my wife turned right and dived into our bedroom.
There were no house lights on and the only illumination comes from a street lamp that
is located around fifty yards away and shines in through frosted glass of the bathroom
window. To anyone sitting on the toilet, this fragmented light would pass over the seated
person's shoulder at hit the wall at the top of the stairs at an acute angle. In fact, that light
has hardly any effect in making shadows.
The stair landing is rectangular, it's widest parts go left and right to anyone ascending the
stairs. When doing so, one would arrive at a plain wall and have access... (at that time
because it's changed due to an extension on the house)... access to a bathrrom door one
your left and the main bedroom door on the your rear-left -if you looked over your left
shoulder.
So... if you came out of the toilet, the access to our bedroom would be on your right.
as said above!
Any symmetry kept is done by looking to one's right. There's the entrance to what became
known as 'the spare bedroom' on your immediate right and a room that became our son's
bedroom (not even conceived at that time!)... on your rear-right.
I can write this description above because after my wife told me of what she'd witnessed,
I spent three nights afterwards sitting on the same toilet and observing the same situation.
Alas, no old woman appeared and forced me to actually utilise that lavatory!
The walls are plainly painted and light-coloured, there's no shadows or furniture that a
half-asleep imagination can conjure into a human shape and there was nobody else
in the house to accidently or deliberately create the scene.
Now, the stranger on the stairs.
Later, my wife identified her as her Great-Grandmother from the only two photographs
taken of the old lady. It's accepted that my wife may have met her, but this encounter could
have only taken place when my wife was a newly-born baby.
This Great-Grandmother always wore an ankle-length black coat and a black hat that
was common for older working-class just after the Second World War. Life was a lot
different then and being that this spectral lady was from a background of a north-eastern
mining community of England and in a time when money was sparse.
Britain was still reeling from the war and regardless of Churchill's patriotic words and
finger gestures, not all of the country enjoyed the brandy and pheasant that he did.
So this dark figure at the top of our stairs was from a time that the majority of us could
never appreciate. A time of word-of-mouth and a closely-knit community.
That's it... that's the account. My wife sat on the loo and watched an unmoving shape
that -if the conditions of light were concerned, should've been the same when I sat in
the identical position. Yet, I saw nothing that could be deemed any shape or any light
-absence form.
Nothing.
But the basket... the wicker-basket. If it was the ghostly Great-Grandmother of my
loved-one coming back to this reality to check-in on her status and this spirit had the
composition of form to be untouchable, intangible to the tactile analysis...
then why rest the damned basket on the 'real' bannister ?!!
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.