The house we lived in was a shop on the bottom floor. A bakery in the main part but with freezers in a back room too. I was left alone mostly due to my brothers being 6 and 7 years older and my parents had to run the shop. I was insecure as it was and the upstairs hallway was windowless apart from the doorways which projected some light into the corridor if a bedroom door was ajar and it was daytime. My bedroom was opposite the bathroom I remember. As I write this the memories which I normally bury come back. I feel a fear creeping up on me now. I can remember my short walk to the toilet being done with my hands over my ears and humming to myself so that I wouldn't hear anything if it was to make a noise. The corridor to my parents room seemed like an eternity and the middle section never had light because of my brothers' shared bedroom always having the door shut. There was one of those pictures on the wall which were popular in the early 80's where the boy had bluish skin. He would almost guard my parents bedroom and keep me away.
I had reccuring nightmares all the time I lived there and there was one night I'll never forget.
I remember having my eyes shut and having my mum kiss my head goodnight and then as she left, I took comfort from the slowly fading feeling of where she'd kissed my head.
I slept. Next, the feeling of my covers being lifted and replaced so fast that it caused a wave of cold air to pass from neck to ankles like my duvet had been wafted. Instinctively I thought it was a parent In the middle of the night and I struggled to open my sticky eyes.
It was dark obviously but I found myself staring at a a figure on the end of my bed. Before I pick my own story apart, I'll just tell it as it was through my 8 year old brain.
The figure was a silhouette of black darker than the room. It was the shape of the main snowman from The Snowman movie with 'I'm walking in the air' in. It's arms were open horizontally and it had its legs spread as if on either end of my bed end. I pulled my bed covers totally up to my chin and turned to the wall towards my parents room which had my brothers in the next room first. I screamed a hoarse air starved scream and nothing but a wisp came out...I was that scared. I screamed again and nothing.
Next I dove under he covers and held the top down firmly so they hopefully couldn't be lifted up again.
I fell asleep eventually.
The next morning I told at least my mum and one brother at breakfast who said they hadn't heard me scream and it was probably just a dream. I had no way to convince other than saying that It REALLY happened.
32 years on I now pick on the details of the memory such as the shape, a tv character with such fat limbs. Would a ghost be shared like that or is it more likely that it's a dream? Gotta be a dream I'd say. Why would it stand legs apart and arms out? If my son saw a 'ghost' which was the shape of a film character, I'd KNOW for sure it was a dream.
But, this is where the plot thickens. Maybe. My reccuring nightmare also featured a tv character, Evil Edna from Willo The Wisp who was like a witch in a TV set. I would have to race this TV set down the stairs and if I lost I was dead. I generally used to jump the last few steps and then play dead at the bottom until the dream stopped as Edna started at me making sure I was dead. I would lay still just like I had under the covers since The snowman experience.
There was another thing I did as I fell asleep on a night. If I turned over to get comfy and my elbow banged the wall of my brothers room it would, make a hollow bang. In my mind two faceless humans would float down the corridor from my parents end of the hall and stare at me but again I would play dead until I felt they had floated back satisfied.
So asleep or awake, I was haunted, even if it was in my head. To this day, even as I sleep tonight, my sleeping position involves having one hand hold the covers up to my chin tightly. That night has influenced my every night since.
Years later after moving to another home in the same village and I was fifteen maybe, my mum and I were talking about the paranormal because of my obsession with it. She told me that there had ben a night at the shop,when my father and her had been awoken with a start by a loud crash in the attic above their room. She described it as the sound of a grave stone falling over. My dad climbed up to see what had fallen and there was no sign of anything.
Further to this, when I was about 18, a rep at work happened to mention that he had lived in a place in Cullingworth which used to be a bakery. This was our old house, he had bought it off us. I was shocked, small world I thought. I commented that I used to have nightmares because I was 'just a kid'. This guy who was in his mid fifties now looked spooked and told me that he thought the house had been a scary place even as an adult. He said something didn't feel right. I was not expecting him to say anything I've that. Had I been imagining it?
Lastly, when I was 19, a girl mate a coupe of houses up got her first job cleaning at a nursery in the village which was what our old house currently was used as. My friend said that she hated walking the long corridor to where the cleaning things were on the top floor. She said she felt like she was being watched. She described where this room was and it was my parents old bedroom.
Make of that what you will but it's troubled em ever since.
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