Nashville Street 3

As my life was turning into one fuelled by alcohol and self hate I still functioned and had 'good times' with friends. But when home alone, there was a feeling of some other entity there which was trying to make itself known. I took this to mostly be my imagination at play, making the ghostly and fanciful out of the natural. 

As I sat watching a film whilst in my cellar cinema, the door which stuck into the frame but never closed fully, opened. My eyes shot to it as I wondered which mate had been knocking to the point of just letting themselves in, presuming I had heard nothing. But no, I was greeted with a picture of emptiness framed by the doorframe. The only thing to enter was a cold draft. I uttered a "what the-?" and got up to close it slightly apprehensively. This became a regular occurrence. It was the forth or fifth occasion when this happened that I was sat in the cellar with a friend and the door once again swung open from the too tight framework. Both our eyes looked straight over. "Pay no attention, it's just the ghost" I joked, hoping to put my mate at ease. Neither of us were at ease though. I had a collection of these odd occurrences now and people were uncomfortable visiting. 

The next step up in the weirdness was the animal appearances. 

Firstly, I have to paint the scene. In my front room, dead centre, was my pride and joy, a 37" TV, not the nice flat screen type, but a huge tube TV which was like having a fridge in your front room atop a heavy stand with glass doors on the front. It was a Sunday and I was the usual amount hungover all day. It was mid afternoon and I crossed the room to swap video tapes of what I was watching as I sat crossed legged in front of my behemoth TV set. I was one meter or less away from the glass doors on the bottom and I was overcome with a tiredness which forced my eyes to screw tightly shut for maybe ten seconds. I remember thinking I could probably sleep if I went to bed now, but I sleep at night and that's it. I hate wasting my day too. My tape had rewound and I opened my eyes to press play when I saw a mouse in front of me. It was perfectly central to where the glass doors close in the middle and its nose was pressed right up to the plastic as if it was running away from me and heading for underneath the unit. But there was only maybe five millimetres of clearance from carpet to base so there was barely enough room for a worm to wriggle under. The mouse was perfectly straight pointing away from me too with its tail ruler straight. It was perfectly dead too. I had my eyes shut for barely ten damn seconds and as if by magic, this mouse was an arm reach in front of me as if from nowhere. It made no sense. It just felt so wrong. I picked it up and threw it outside. It felt like It was a message. 

Now you maybe aren't fully onboard yet but then maybe a three weeks later I came downstairs to find a bird in my front room. The doors and windows weren't open so it hadn't flown in. I had entered the room to see a fast moving blob circling my room. Naturally I jumped out of my skin. I flung open the window and doors and it was off after two more circuits. Again, I had an awful feeling of something trying to scare me. But in the cold light of day you just shrug it off. You HAVE to tell yourself that there's just no threat to it. It's just an occurrence which is very strange. 

A week later I heard a noise in the front room and told my girlfriend to wait upstairs while I went and checked it out. I didn't want her witnessing anything weird. This time, it was a hot summers day and I did have my front room door and outside door open. It was about 11:30am and already baking. Again my front room had a flying blob diving around it. This time though, I was even more startled to see that it was a bat!! 

A bat in the day, when it was hot. I got rid of it but was shaken. 

What was I supposed to make of all this. The thing was, there wasn't any obvious message so that always made me think less of it. Did this happen to everyone? 

Then, in the last year of living there, the sightings started. 

A life long education

While I still lived with my mother in Cullingworth, I became curious about the ouija board. I'd watched and read much about them. I didn't have a board but apparently all I needed were cards with the letters on which I could spread in a circle around the dining room table. My mum would go out on some evenings and I laid out the letters as planned. I took a glass and sat with my finger on it but the words wouldn't come out. I wondered if my thinking would be enough. The only rules I 'knew' was that if something came through which I needed an emergency escape from, I was to smash the glass. I'm not sure I believed this but I had nothing else to cling on to. 

Eventually, under my breath I said "is anyone there?" 

The glass sat. 

A little louder now. "Is anybody there?" 

I stayed silent for longer this time. 

I would say that I didn't try for more than three minutes. 

That was just another step for me though. 

Maybe a week later I tried again, this time being a bit braver. Asking out louder and waiting for longer. 

Still nothing. 

I tried about four or five times at the very most. 

When I moved to Nashville Street I managed to buy one. Of sorts. 

Back then the world was full of intriguing stories such as the Loch Ness Monster and spontaneous human combustion. Make, in 2015, where are all such new tales? I've not heard of updates in decades. I suppose I'd been lucky to grow up near The Cottingley Fairies case but that had turned out to be fake. The thing with that is that, even just by looking at those photos, I thought it was fake. Let's call it a lucky guess, but I feel I had a steady mindset which could look and judge with a level of knowledge about the validity of a case I'd read or seen. 

This led to the BBC showing of GHOST WATCH one Halloween. This was billed as a real 'live' investigation in a North London home which caused 'waves of panic' after it aired in 1992. 

I was 18 years old at this stage and watched intently as Sarah Greene, Michael Parkinson, Craig Charles and Mike Smith broadcast from the scared families home. The thing is, from very early on, I smelled a rat. The children seemed to be acting. My opinion was going against the professionals hosting the show and the BBC itself! This couldn't be fake could it? 

The story was very involved about a spirit called 'pipes'. Once PIPES had been fully fleshed out on details for the viewer to get a real sense of dread, their was a fleeting image of pipes stood against bedroom curtains or something where the camera idly panned around the room past the figure and then shot back 'live' immediately to then have no figure there. 

Man, that image was effective but it only made it seem mor staged to me. When the programme started to work towards its climax and things were seemingly out of control and Michael Parkinson was in a blustery studio trying to keep broadcasting, a lone, unmanned camera was seen blowing around the studio like a random Dalek from Doctor Who.  I didn't believe this for a second now and went to tell my mum that it must be a ruse and I'd called it. 

"Yes dear" was probably her response but I felt vilified when it hit the news the next day. 

Years later  I stumbled across it on DVD and even though I knew it was fake, I bought it as it had a place in my memories and my journey. The next resurgence of haunted tv was Most Haunted and then this began a slew of paranormal shows which I lapped up and amassed a huge pile of recording filled VHS tapes. 

I would enjoy programmes like QED and Horizon too which would investigate Sleep Paralysis, near death experience or other brain based oddities. It was all soaked into my brain to give me a rounded view of the paranormal and the just plain weird normal. 

It was all a life long education. 

Nashville Street 2

Nashville Street part 2

I spent many hours at home feeling my cloud above me darken. But the last two homes between here and the bakery where I had my nightmares had been undisturbing so why had the oppressive feelings returned? 

As I sat writing in my attic room where I had a large writing desk sat up that I wrote my life story at, I heard a bang in my front room. I didn't know what had happened and certainly didn't think anything other than the wind was to blame. 

I entered my front room and scanned the area but the only thing out of place was my tv control which was in the very centre of the floor. Firstly I didn't think that would have made a bang like I'd heard but secondly there was no way I'd have put it in the middle of the floor. Like me, I imagine you have your controls in a fairly slim selection of areas, say, on a table, on the arm rest or forever at your side where they try and hide under your legs as you fidget on the sofa......not on the floor, centralised. I picked it up and threw it into the sofa. 

I think many things like this happens to a lot of people and because it goes through your mind that it's ODD, it simply doesn't ever become anything more. It gets forgotten even though it doesn't add up. It's always you who are wrong. YOU MUST have caused it, even though you don't remember. When you live on your own, it's the only explanation. 

These mysterious bumps would occur monthly at least. I'd tell girlfriends of the time that my hijab was haunted AS A JOKE. But this joke began to become a concern. Girlfriends didn't like the stairs, any of the three sets of stairs, and complained about going to the loo. 

Things took a turn for the more dangerous when I went in the kitchen to find the gas hob turned on and unlit. I switched it off and shivered. I hadn't cooked as it was early morning. The next day the job was hissing again. 

Something was causing this to happen and whatever it was, could kill me and my neighbours. 

Maybe a week went by and I was in the fridge for milk I think when the door to the fridge banged on the cooker front and the gas hob hissed again. AH the door was hitting the dial on the front, depressing it and knocking a turn on it too. 

Debunked. I sighed a relief and altered items to stop this possibility. 

Once again I could recalibrate my mind back to nothing paranormal after all. But my life was weighing on me more and more and I was making bad choices brought on by alcohol, which in turn led to dark days including self harm. 

I had converted my cellar into a room for my projector where I used a www to watch movies on a 100" screen. I loved it down there with my cinema sound and my drum kit. The door from the cellar steps wouldn't close though and you could only pull it into the door frame firmly rather than close it correctly. It was damp still on the walls of the steps and I just ignored those little bugs. 

As I sat waiting for my friend to return I heard footsteps in my front room overhead and waited for him to come down. When he didn't I wondered if he'd just took a seat and thought I was in the loo or something. I went up to find it empty. 

Again a part of me found the idea of it being a spirit exciting but the reality of it being so was something which I out down to wishful thinking. I think a part of me was frightened too. I never felt like that house was ever mine. There were bumps and knocks from inside the home and this was a time that I was watching MOST HAUNTED alone whenever I got the chance. I had a new girlfriend who was one day to become my wife and she was barely a believer at all, but she was just one of the people who actually saw a ghost in my house. 

Things were going to take a chilling turn as I altered the home to sell up. 

Nashville Street part 1

Nashville Street. 1994. 

I looked around a handful of houses within the bracket that my mortgage would allow. None of them are what you would in any way call my dream home. They were all terrace houses squished in some out of the way dark side of town. Out of all the ones I viewed, the best was a recently repossessed one which had been in no way looked after. My efforts were in vain as this slipped through my fingers. A few streets away was a house described as a gable end terrace. It was on the corner of a terrace row and had one neighbour running at 90 degrees to that row which put this house on the corner of an 'L' shape. The roof was slanted down where the bathroom was and so to my eyes it looked either partially collapsed from the outside or just simply shoved in where it was never meant to be. But my grandma half knew the old lady selling. There was a chance that my gran could ask how little the owner would take since she had moved into a home for the elderly. 

Even from the outside, I didn't like it. But it was all about the price at the end of the day. 

The decor inside was 'old lady' throughout and the mishmash of kitchen cabinets looked like a showroom for the scrap man. Nothing matched unless the theme was 'awful'. The fireplace was surrounded by grey tiles and the slanted roof prohibited the installation of a shower over the bath. I was told it was a fixer-upper. To my mind it was a knock-a-downer. 

Yes...I bought it. £7000 cheaper than asking price. 

My life lay ahead of me. The possibilities were open to destiny and I sat alone in not just one room anymore, but several. The front room and kitchen led one way to a cellar which split in to a main room and a coal cellar. Up from the front room was a thin dark staircase to a misshapen bathroom and a large bedroom. More stairs took you up to an attic bedroom which had a crawl space door into the other third of the roof space which was just storage at best. 

I was still eager to leave my family nest and spread my wings alone. I slept on a single mattress for a week before a bed was sorted properly. I could hear the neighbouring family bidding each other goodnight as I lay my head on my pillow and heard the daughter climbing the stairs up to her attic room clearly. 

It was maybe the third night that as I struggled to drop off in my new surroundings, I heard footsteps coming down my attic stairs. I sat up and stared at the door waiting for it to open. Nothing. 

Of course not, I thought, this was just me not knowing the normal acoustics properly. After all, I had been used to living in a detached house. This would pass I decided. 

I was always a deep thinker and had a cloud above me like a weight around my neck that I had no reason to carry. But living in this house, the feeling grew. As an easy touchstone I could liken it to how the father is affected in The Amityville Horror.  This is with hindsight of course. At the time I just wanted to live my life. But I had to watch my money. This meant I would write and draw and watch films constantly. I had a relationship quickly begin with a girl a few streets away and that certainly made for a happy two and a half years. Then I ambled for a while with other partial successes relationship wise. As I said in my other posts, I was studying religion in some form for years and even trying praying. I felt like I was being punished for something I had no memory of committing.

I started to draw more and more pictures of me at my writing desk surrounded by floating spirits which I couldn't see. 

But hey, I was into this sort of thing. Kinda not really that surprising. I started to buy less food and more alcohol and that led to debt. I was surrounded by demons of my own making. I started to feel something I'd never witnessed before- despair. 

In search of a deity Part 2

My first house is a whole story in itself and I'll get there soon. For now though I'm just continuing my religious journey quest. From age 20 I lived in my first house and soon enough I had a knock at the door which had me in a new circumstance. I could now tell Jehovah's Witnesses to come in and chat. They looked over the moon at the offer and in five minutes had arranged an evening appointment to return and have a good involved chat. Or as they saw it- indoctrination.  

Our chats turned to me actually studying their beliefs on a weekly basis. I studied for two whole years every week and questioned as much as I could while trying to stay respectful of their religion. The married couple who taught me were an absolutely lovely couple who lived five minutes away. Firstly I'd go around their house and they'd give me free books to read and we'd read and then discuss whatever the books put forward. It really was like being at school. Even on the nights I couldn't be bothered, I went and came away with a glowing feeling of wanting to make my life better. 

My first sticking point was that there were explanations given as facts of why believing in this religion was indisputably correct. One illustration was shown to me. The man of the couple explained if you took a jar which represented your life and put a tennis ball in to represent work. Then put a tennis ball in to represent socialising with friends and family followed by another to be this and another to be that ....quite soon it was full. 

"You see how your life is full of all these things?" 

Yes. 

Then he said if you put a container of sand in now, which represents RELIGIOUS BELIEF then the sand would fit snugly around every element of your life and still not over flow your life jar. 

My friend sat back smugly as if there was no weak spot in this illustration. 

My next statement was " but you've just decided yourself what the sand represents and what the tennis balls represent. I could just as easily say that the tennis balls represent EATING FOOD, WATCHING TV and GETTING DRUNK and that the sand represents being a serial rapist...and LOOK how the sand fits snugly around all the elements in your life" 

There was a silence in the room which was brought on by the two blank faces in front of me. 

This was merely one occasion in which I stumped them. 

I remember forever getting onto Heaven and how it was arranged to work with family members who I loved but hated each other. I didn't want them having their minds wiped or them being in a place where I would never see them again.  

The Heaven chats were also unanswered by my friends and it resulted in me saying that all the answers I actually wanted from religion were not something that could be answered AT ALL by Jehovah's Witnesses. All I got was that they believed Heaven was a great place. "But can I watch horror films in the afterlife or play video games? Because I sure don't want to be singing hymns with Thora Hird for all eternity" 

My two years were up and I threw in the towel explaining that I'd done all that had been asked of me and still GOD hadn't made his presence known in me. 

Once I'd left the teaching evenings I still would go around for a coffee with this couple because we were friends. The man because quite poorly within a year and it came out to me that he had been having wavering belief in the whole thing himself and when I put my cynical questions to them, it had made his disbelief stronger if anything. 

As his illness grew the other witnesses started to turn away from them and be nasty about them behind their backs. They actually stopped being Jehovah's Witnesses and sighted chatting with me to be the final piece of the puzzle. They no longer believed. They were out. 

I felt slightly guilty about this, I say slightly because for the last part I was overjoyed. 

Then not six months later, Mormons came a knocking. Two Americans lads who I liked straight away. On their first visit i said "I'm in, when can we start discussing stuff?" 

Two more years of study and I'd exhausted that too. 

This just wasn't giving me the answers i craved. And then during this time there was the weird stuff happening at Nashville Street. My home. My dark, haunted home. 

 

In search of a deity Part 1.

By the time I chose my GCSE subjects age 13/14, I had decided to take Religious Education with a real interest in finding answers on whatever deity reined over us. I gave my teacher hell for three years as I interrupted with unanswerable questions which when she failed to answer left her open to me questioning her skills as a religious studies teacher. The three years concentrated solely on Christianity and I complained that I had taken it because it was called 'religious' education and I had taken that to mean multiple beliefs. If my exam had been about discussing views and theories on religion, I think I would have done much better. Instead it was remembering what you called the stand that held the bible at the front of the church etc. I had no interest in that. 

My religious education came outside of the school day on the Sunday's that Jehovah's Witnesses stopped the streets, spreading the word of the Lord. I knew the sighs which came whenever they set foot on anyone's driveways but I listened to their discussions with interest. In fact, as soon as my mum saw me willingly go to the door to greet them warmly, she would say, "close the door after you". 

"Good morning, can I ask, have you ever wondered if there is a God?" They would say. 

An hour later the Jehovah's Witnesses all caved and started to make their excuses and left. I couldn't get enough of the discussion. 

It wasn't until I lived in my first house that I could surprise them further and invite them in. 

Tarot and destiny.

First fortune revealed? 

I was very excited to be going with my mother to have my Tarot cards read. I was merely 14 and my mother warned me that it would no doubt be a very short reading since I didn't as such have what qualified as a life. 

I recall my mothers took about fifteen minutes or so when it was given and the lady reader, Jenny, was as I'd imagined her. Jenny was an affable, talkative lady who smoked and had just a glimmer of the crazy about her. We sat in her home as her husband watched tv in the other room completely uninterested. 

Finally, as we were getting to the end of our visit and I worried that I wouldn't 'get a go', Jenny sat me in front of her and asked me to shuffle the cards. I shuffled them adequately so that she wouldn't be able to rig the ones I'd chosen. You see, I was very much on guard even then. I loved the paranormal but was just as easily ready to discover it was all tosh. The fact that money was changing hands made me a step more unbelieving. My view was that if I had the gift of fortune telling, then I wouldn't charge since my gift came free. 

Jenny gave me a reading and became ever more involved in what she saw. I can't remember the specifics of the details and in the passing years I've lost the notes she made sadly. I wasn't convinced by any of it though. There was talk of family members watching over me and nothing tied to upcoming events in my life, which I thought was convenient. It was all about my character. Jenny told me that in fifteen years, I would be dong what she did. I took that to mean Tarot reading. In a way she was right, but it was more that moment that made me push down this avenue. 

Jenny said I had healing hands too. She said I had a gift of sorts already and she could sense it. Jenny held out her hand palm up and said "put out your hand over mine, Palm down but leave a gap of about an inch". As my hand went over hers I blushed a little, from the stupidity of it. "Can you feel that" she said. I said "Well, it feels a bit warm but then the heat is rising from your hand to mine". Jesus, I was a smart arse spoilsport even then. 

"But feel my hand" she said, smiling. I did and it was very cold. Weird. 

My session lasted nearly an hour to my mothers surprise and I went home feeling more than inspired. I didn't feel convinced in Jenny herself but I think my toe in the water of what I'd read about had a significant power to it. 

I read up on the tarot cards more fervently and gave readings to as many people as I could. 

It was five years later that I even sat in the corner of a local pub giving readings for free one evening. It struck me that people just enjoyed the possibility of hearing their future. I could see the get out clause clearly for the reader. 

"The thing with the cards is that they are merely a warning. If you don't change things then this is where things are heading. But the cards let you know what to change". 

This covered anything from coming back to the reader. If none of it came true then it was the subject who had altered the future. Plus the time scale was open ended. These predictions were not pinned down to a particular timeframe. 

I continued to read for girlfriends and their friends for many years until I met my wife and settled down whereupon I even them them out when I sold up my house to move on with her. I simply had too much junk (in her eyes). 

But the paranormal had more in store for me in my twenties. More than I could understand.