I grew up through my teens only five minutes walk from the bakery which had scared me as a child. I could actually see it from my next bedroom window more or less through a break in the village mill's wall. Some of my fears moved with me. For example the idea that If I knocked on the wall next to my bed for example, this would make the faceless characters float in from my mothers bedroom to kill me if it turned out I was alive. My parents had divorce by now and I was adrift alone in myself. Too much time to think and no way to understand what was being discussed around me. I was 'too young' to understand, or that was the go to excuse for not telling me things. This house did not have a bad feeling at all and my bedroom became more than a room for my bed like it is to an 8year old. This was my fortress. A stinky dirty one, but a fortress nonetheless.
My diaries will have any odd happenings documented but I'm not about to scan for them, instead I'll write about any which spring to mind as my more recent exploration unearths them.
One incident does come to mind straight away though.
At this point my eldest brother was away at uni and only my other older brother lived at home with mum and I. I was in alone at my bedroom writing desk scribbling away at something or another ...maybe a cassette tape insert to a mix tape I was creating for my latest infatuation of the week or similar. My bedroom door was wide open when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Ah my brother was home again only ten minutes after he'd left. I saw his shadow pass by the slit of the door where the hinges hung the cheap hollow wood from. I was maybe three steps behind him into his bedroom because the landing to our semi was so small. I entered his room talking out loud as I crossed the threshold. "Did you forget your keys or summat?"
No one there. I went silent quickly and my stomach felt fear. Never has an empty room been so menacing.
All I could do was walk calmly back to my room and practice telling my brother and mum about this in my head for when they came home. I could hear how it sounded and I knew there reaction. "It was just your imagination" they would say. Once again my words would hold no weight.
I knew the power of witnessing something alone by this age and I had worked out that it meant nothing to anyone but that one person. It took two or more witnesses to have even a chance of being listened to.
Everyone has at least one story of the 'odd' but tell it as well as they might....the listeners can ultimately overrule you with their disbelief.
A second incident I had was when I say at that very same desk one daytime when I had the sudden feeling that someone had been stood behind me. But not just anyone, my auntie Winnie. My auntie Winnie was actually my fathers aunt, but in the 80's it was the done thing to give the wrong family names to people around you just to mess with your head as you tried to piece together who was who. There was also something else about Winnie, she was dead.
Winnie was different from other relatives because she was what in these days I guess you'd call a midget. I'm sure there's a more confusing pc word for it now but I'm not up to date I'm afraid.
Now I didn't turn to see Winnie but I could sense her, smell her and picture her stood there.
Where did this notion come from? Why her?
When I turned and saw no one there, why was I still convinced that I had still had an experience?
I still can't say what happened. I have no evidence to give. This feeling was entirely a product of my body. Had she been there? I had no reason to think of her. I ignored the moment as soon as I had logged it in my diary. I didn't even mention it to anyone.
I kept having these types of fleeting moments occur over the years of being at home alone.
All these years later, I ask myself, were they all down to my imagination or were spirits coming close to me, somehow sensing that I was interested.
I knew I had a fascination with the mysteries of the world but it wasn't until I found three books in a cupboard at home that I made my first physical moves. The first book was about the study of handwriting. It spoke very specifically about how each flick of the writers writing told so much about their characteristics. It had plenty of pictures of handwriting samples to compare. Large writing was bold, adventurous, out going people and small writing was shy, quiet people.
It struck me after one scan of the book, that I had disregarded this book as nonsense.
The next book was about Astrology. I read each breakdown of every star sign and longed to know them off by early. But I just couldn't commit to learning them if deep down I thought this was probably all invented by the human mind.
The third book came with a deck of Tarot cards. This caught my attention. Here was something practical which I could learn and use. I'd say it took me a couple of weeks to write out in some sort of short hand, what each card meant in basic form. I drew card layout diagrams and then started to practice readings on myself. Two a night for nearly a month. My next step was to take the pack around to my fiends house and give a reading for my almost teen friends and their mothers. I can't truthfully tell you how accurate the readings were because I always got pleasantries from my subjects rather than shocked admiration. "Hmm intriguing" was an example.
This in turn led to a turning point at about 14 years old. I had my own cards read by a fortune teller who my mother was seeing with her friendship group on a semi regular basis. This was to propel me further into the magical.
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