One of the things I wanted to talk about was when I was looking after my wife when she was not feeling that great.
We were both born in Scotland and lived in a tiny village. It was very peaceful here and I loved the fresh air and long walks in the day time.
As the nights began to get dark, strange things would happen. The lights would flicker on and off for no reason. I checked all the electrics and they were fine and there were no storms either. It happened quite a lot, especially in our spare bedroom. We had always wanted children but could not have any of our own. This would be the room that would have been for the children. It’s filled with lovely things, a chair by the window, fresh cut flowers in vases and the whole room is very light.
One night my wife was in the spare bedroom and the light started to flicker. She checked the bulb and it was fine so put it back and when she turned the light back on it started to flicker again. So she turned it off again and then stood in the darkness, except for a tiny bit a light that was coming in from the window. A bright light appeared in the corner of the room and lit it all up. My wife was scared and was frozen to the spot. She could then hear people talking and then the light, became figures, there were three, a woman and two small children. The woman was on the floor with the children and they were playing a game. My wife could hear the woman talking and the laughter of the children. She then called out to me and I came upstairs to her. As I entered the room she told me to be very quiet. She whispered to me and asked if I could see a woman and two children in the corner of the room. I told her that I couldn’t see anything at all. I asked her if she was feeling okay as I had been worried about her these last few weeks and had been at home a bit earlier than usually to take care of her. She told me that she was fine and that she wasn’t imagining it. The light in the room was switched back on by my wife.
They have gone now, she said. They didn’t look like they were from around here, their clothes were very old looking, they looked like they came from a different time. Maybe this is why the lights keep flickering, it must be them that is doing it. I nodded and agreed with her. Although I hadn’t seen anything I did believe her and strange things had been happening in this house.
A few days later my wife was in town and met up with an old friend. She told her what had happened in the house and the friend had said to her that she had heard many people say that the previous owners had odd things happen as well.
She suggested she research the house, by contacting the church to see if there were any records of the people who had lived in the house before us. My wife also spoke to the lady in the post office as she knew lots of people and she put her in contact with a local historian who did lots of research into the area and it’s history. My wife contacted the historian and he told her that the land that our home was built on was a place that people from the 1600’s not only lived on, but where buried here. They were very happy people and worked the land, but illness came and it killed a lot the families.
At night the story goes that they come back here and sing, dance and play games. He also said that quite often people who had died would come back to a place that they were the most happiest. They may not even know they are dead and are still think that this place is their home.
Everything he said made sense. My wife and I discussed what we would do now, and we decided to do nothing. They were not doing us any harm, so we left it like that. A few years down the line and it had stopped altogether.
One day there was a knock at the door. It was my wife’s aunt standing there and unfortunately told her the sad news that her daughter, my wife’s cousin, had died and left behind two young children. Her daughter wanted her to look after her children, but she was very weak and frail now and came to see my wife to ask for her help. She asked her if she would look after the children and that as her daughter and her were very close and had spoken about taking care of each others children if ever something happened, that meant that they could not be cared for in their own home. The two children then appeared at the door. Alice was 4 and James 3, both were chatting away and then all three of them came in. My wife asked them if they wanted to play upstairs, so she took them to the spare bedroom and then came downstairs again. We discussed the children again and who would care for them, and then we could hear them jumping about and lots and lots of laughter. As soon as my wife heard that she looked at me and we both said yes. We had them at weekends to start with, so that they got used to us and then eventually they came to live with us full time.
At night now my wife sits with the children in the corner of the room that was the spare room playing games and there is lots of laughter.
