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Brummie Ghosts

Lady Penelope said:
Well, here's my one and only, totally unexpected experience.

I was in the Vesey in Boldmere some years ago enjoying a meal with three other people. The Vesey is a Wetherspoon's pub, I believe it was a feed and grain store in an earlier life. I went to the loo. It's right down the bottom of a corridor and has a shiny brass plate on the door. As I pushed the door open, it was heavier than I thought and stuck a little, I felt someone almost cannon into me from behind (sort of like a rush of air) and caught a glimpse of a figure in the plate. I turned to apologise and there was nobody there. I was a bit shaken but told myself I'd imagined it and that the figure was me, not anyone behind me. Just me being daft. I went back to my seat and tried to forget it but on the way home realised that the figure had been dressed in black and white and I was in bright pink.

Some days later I mentioned it in passing to my daughter who immediately said 'Have you told K.....? He had a funny experience there.' I hadn't told anyone else till then but immediately rang him up. He has been sitting in the pub a while back and felt someone try to squeeze past the back of his chair. He mumbled 'Sorry' and tried to pull his chair closer to the table. His wife was sitting opposite and asked him what he was doing. He said that he was trying to let that person get through. His wife immediately replied 'Which person?' When K...... looked round there was obviously nobody there as his chair was firmly up against the wall.

As far as spectres are generally concerned I'm firmly on the fence. However, there are certain roads I hate driving
down (much to my family's amusement) not that I have ever had any experiences there - just don't like the atmosphere!
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Thank you very much for sharing your experience Lady Penelope!! I'm afraid I don't really know the place you refer to at all (despite having carried out some investigations in Boldmere, over the years), but would certainly like to try and 'check it out' with a view to finding if the site has a history of weird happenings, perhaps?
 
I know the heading is "Brummie ghosts"but would a Brummie in a mid-Wales mill house qualify?
Back in '95, we were renovating a cottage and managed to rent the mill house which was just a stones throw away, from the local farmer.
Myself and three builders were doing the work and while we were on the scaffolding my wife shouted that she was locked out of the mill.Two of us went down and true enough you couldn't open the door.Strangely enough you could just make out something against it through the frosted glass and after walking round to the kitchen window the setee was up against it.
The two of us managed to force the door,but when we came to put the setee back in the living room we had to remove the castors to get it through the door.
During our stay there we had electrical items switch themselves on at random,the favourite being the CD player.
My wife at the time was pregnant with our first son and one night went to bed early.I remember watching the TV and our cat was sitting in the middle of the room minding her own business when suddenly she started staring into the kitchen.
I was sitting two doorways away from the kitchen entrance and when she started hissing and spitting I must admit I was to say, concerned to put it politely.This turned to relief when she started to calm down.
We mentioned our experiences to our friends Pete and Jill who lived across the river and Pete had this idea of leaving a pack of cards on a shelf in the corridor behind the kitchen.
I didn't know why and didn't ask him either why he wanted to do this.
What happened next was incredible.The following morning cards were laid out onto the shelf spelling out "Pergyl" and "Babon" meaning baby and danger.
He took the cards away and I banned any more from being left.
One Sunday morning a man,woman and a lad around 12 years old were at the door and the man said that he had grown up in the village and this was his first visit back there in years.He said that he and our neighbour used to play in the house as children.I never thought it at the time but the neighbour was nearing eighty but this bloke looked in his forties????
Anyway,just to sum up,the CD player always used to play "Don't sit under the apple tree"(two in the garden).This disc never played again after leaving the mill just displayed two dashes on the player.
The letters torn from the card turned up in a cap off an aerosol can of all places and were promptly put on the fire.
Research of the village at a later date showed a number of children from the village school died from TB,was this the card warning.
I never mentioned May's childhood friend to her and I didn't tell the landlord farmer who I believe is living there now,but his sister asked us if we had experienced anything after she found out about us staying there,we said no.
Our son was born two months after we had moved out fit and well and one last thing which even my wife doesn't know because I never told her.
Why did my wife wake me up speaking fluent welsh whilst still asleep in the morning of our final day at the mill.
 
Hi Nicholas, since posting my experience I spoke to a friend and she told me that there have been other unexplained happenings at the Vesey. Cutlery used to be 'mixed up' even though it had been sorted the night before among other things. Nothing mega, just little things like that. This was some time ago so I doubt if any of the same staff are still there now.
 
davesd1 said:
I know the heading is "Brummie ghosts"but would a Brummie in a mid-Wales mill house qualify?
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"All (stories) are welcome davesd1....... All (stories) are welcome.......!!!" Laugh!!

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences Davesd1....!! I do think that, sometimes, these older, more historic, properties should probably come with some sort of warning, eh!?

I've only ever investigated one historic mill, over the years..... a water mill.... coincidentally only a stones throw from the area being mentioned here by Lady Penelope!! Interestingly, most of the experiences there would seem to have been on a 'negative' nature too...... being mainly put down to a thoroughly nasty, old bloke that used to be one of the (more recent) resident millers!? While visiting the site one night, we were standing on the top floor of the mill when an acquaintance of mine said: 'Don't turn around... but there's an old chap sitting on the grain bins, watching us......' My friend was literally viewing the silent figure over my left shoulder, as I was facing him. We all stood stock-still for a while, my not wanting to move and potentially 'dissolve the scenario'....... but when I did eventually, tentatively, turn..... the old man had vanished!! (Typically!!) My friend described him as looking exactly like 'Fred Dibnah'...... overalls, flat cap and slightly 'rotund' appearance!! Laugh!!
 
I think the shop I work in is haunted, I've often felt as if someone was putting their hand on my back but I turn around and nobody is there. It only happens when I'm at work
 
Hi Nicholas are you familiar with the couple whom run the spiritualist shop down on the high street Evesham
Or have you heard of Nicola Overton they do the ghost haunting they reckon they are good they reckon she is rated for her spiritulist as well
she as done Warwick castle as well and she produced photograhic pics of a little boy scurrying down on some steps going down below she sent them to Warick castle owners whom was impressed best wishes Astonian,,,
 
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patricia woolsey said:
I think the shop I work in is haunted, I've often felt as if someone was putting their hand on my back but I turn around and nobody is there. It only happens when I'm at work
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Hi Patricia - I do apologise for the delay in responding!! In my teens, I was told by the father of a friend that he had been suffering similar 'experiences' to those that you describe here...... only he kept feeling as if someone were 'tugging' at the back of his clothing!?! I believe this had been going on for some time - perhaps years - when he told me. He said that he'd had the same feelings at home and at work. There was never anything else (spooky / strange) associated with these sensations, it seems, but they were weird enough for him to mention them to me when he learned of my interest in the paranormal.......
 
Astonian said:
Hi Nicholas are you familiar with the couple whom run the spiritualist shop down on the high street Evesham
Or have you heard of Nicola Overton they do the ghost haunting they reckon they are good they reckon she is rated for her spiritulist as well
she as done Warwick castle as well and she produced photograhic pics of a little boy scurrying down on some steps going down below she sent them to Warick castle owners whom was impressed best wishes Astonian,,,
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Hi Astonian,

I'm sorry matey, but I don't know any of the people that you mention, I'm afraid..... I don't 'do' spiritualists / mediums at all, I must admit, and we've pretty much never used them on our investigations........
 
Rano1982 said:
Hi Nick

Thank you for your response and I am in complete agreement that until you have experienced something for yourself it is always best to stay “on the fence” as it were. But by all means I will share a few of the random things that have happened to myself and in the hope others may come forward and share in due course. Firstly I apologise if I go into too much detail in these experiences but as a budding writer and paranormal enthusiast I think it better to write more than less. When I was 15 my mother and future stepdad started dating, I at that time was playing football for Aston Villas Academy my stepdad who lived in Sheldon/Marston Green at that point, asked if I wanted to stay at his house with my mother and he would take me to football the following morning to save me catching the coach from South Birmingham (which was a bit of a ball ache). Anyhow on the Saturday evening the 3 of us went to a pub called Sheldon Hall (or it was at that time) on the way home from this pub my mother and stepdad were talking in the front of his car and he mentioned that it was a well known haunted location, I being a cocky 15 year old said something along the lines of “you don't believe in ghosts do you?” If I would've known what was coming later that evening I think I would've chosen my words a bit better. I was staying in my stepdads daughters old room. The room was basically empty, it had a single bed pushed up against the far right wall directly beneath the window (which didn't have curtains or blinds on it), at the foot of the bed there was a small wooden table with nothing on it, there was a couple of tupperware boxes on the floor in the middle of the room with bits and pieces in them and a Madonna poster on the wall at the foot of the bed. There were some glow in dark stars on the ceiling too, but that's basically everything. When I went up into the room I flung my kit bag down the left hand wall in the corner and hopped into bed. Some time past but couldn't have been any later than 3AM when I came around to my stepdads 2 cats scratching at the bedroom door and making weird shrieking noises but I was kind of in that in-between phase of awake and sleep so didn't take too much notice, I must add that I sleep with one leg out of the covers so the duvet is in between my legs, I have no idea why, just always have. I think due to the over load of coke and orangeade I needed the loo and I can remember lifting my head up and twisting my body slightly to get out of bed, then for some reason plonking myself back down again. Then I shot bolt upright. At the foot of the bed no more than an outstretched arms length from me was a Soldier! Stood staring out the window. It was carrying something in its right hand pressed against his body like a rifle. It was the strangest thing because although I could see detail and even bits of colour in him I could also see the Madonna poster through part of his body! Suddenly panic set in and I quickly jumped back under the covers and into what can only be described as a ball. I remember actually being able to hear my heart beating as I cowered under there. I was trying to scream for my mum or stepdad who were only in the next room but I couldn't even muster up a noise, just an inaudible whisper like someone whos lost their voice. I scratched my arm to death to prove to myself I wasn't dreaming. I remember sitting there terrified for hours and bear in mind I actually needed the toilet so it was double uncomfortable. I must've dropped back of too sleep after a while (which I find odd to this day as I don't think I would be able to sleep that terrified now) and when my mum opened the bedroom door at about 7 on that Sunday morning I literally sprinted out of that room, downstairs passed her, into my stepdads garden and urinated in a bush rather than go to the loo in that house. I made my mum go and fetch my bag from that bedroom and got changed downstairs. I never stayed in that house on the Radley's again lol. I did hear some year later that, that house backs onto Sheldon Country Park and a bomb had exploded directly behind it and is now known as Devils Hole or something to that effect? I hope I haven't nattered on too much and if you would like me to write another experience let me know. Thanks again. Steve
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I can't say I have ever had any paranormal experiences in 81 years either, John. The ruins of Avenbury church (near Bromyard) have also been reported as haunted for very many years, but having paternal great garndparents that come from there, I used to visit regularly the churchyard and the ruins when I lived in the UK. Always quiet as a grave! :-)

Maurice
 
I have not witnessed ghosts but there are very many reports of haunted houses, places etc. Those here who were in the RAF will no doubt of heard about a stations 'duty pilot'. I have not watched the recent tv programmes about hauntings: I suspect, like so much 'reality' and 'conspiracy' rubbish it also far fetched - baloney would be a simpler word!
 
Years ago I had to go into a disused stockroom which was once a workroom, I thought I saw a man in a brown coat overall (cowgown) but I knew there was no-one around. I described him and the staff said it was a man who worked there years ago!!
rosie.
 
one night.my 2 dogs were barking and going mad up stairs. just after i move here. i went up stairs to see what the row about. in the corner of the room stood a man, we looked at one another then he vanished. next day i told the postoffice woman across the road. when i explained she said it was the ghost of the man who lived there before. he hanged him self it never happend again.i moved 6 years later but others have seen him. brummie or welsh ghosts it dont matter thet still make the same mess in my pants
 
I can understand the views here. The problem for northern Europeans, usually, is that everything has to be black or white. Southern Europeans are, generally, less idealistic.
 
Alan,

Sorry in all my discussions with Greeks, I have never heard the subject of ghosts or paranormal things mentioned, so as yet I can neither support nor refute your statement for this part of the world. However, you've posed an interesting challenge there and when I am in an appropriate situation, I will endeavour to raise that subject.

Maurice
 
I was always interested in reading about the supernatural, but never believed in it. However, nearly 40 years ago I was on the way to my in-laws' house in West Bromwich, round about midnight. Driving through a nearby estate I suddenly slammed on the brakes as a woman holding a child was in the road. I was totally convinced I'd hit her, got out of the car, and saw nothing in the road. It shook me up very badly, and it was only later I realised there'd been no sound of a collision. I was sober, before anyone asks. The next morning I went back, and there were my skid-marks in the road. I might have dismissed this as just my imagination, but some time afterwards I met a lady who said she'd had the same experience in the same spot - and this was without any prompting from me, when I happened to mention in conversation the name of a pub which was close to where I had my own experience. That really shook me up. With the help of Nicholas, who posts here, we did some investigation but came up with nothing. I still don't actually believe in ghosts, and can't in any way account for what I saw.

G
 
I've never seen a ghost, as far as I know, but I've had a few funny experiences. The one that rattled me most wasn't in Brum, I'm afraid, but Germany.
I was walking back to camp, late one night, and as you often get, when walking a long distance, I was "miles away". Nearing the barracks the road crossed over the rail sidings where we used to load our light armoured vehicles. Suddenly my hair stood on end, giving me quite a fright.
Our barracks was named Hohne and stood next to a village called Belsen. It was a year or two after this incident before I learned that the sidings had been used to bring the prisoners to the Belsen concentration camp.
When it comes to believing in the supernatural, I'm sitting on the fence.
 
I have said here that I have not seen a ghost. but I believe I once saw a ghost ship.
One summer evening, towards dusk, in 1976 - a year of very many fires in woodlands, fields etc. - I was near the mouth of the River Dart. The gorse, bracken and grasslands to the immediate west had been on fire, decent acreage was involved. I went down to the small pump that was set into a small creek just to check on the person operating it to see if he needed help, petrol or whatever. He asked to go for a few minutes to answer a call of nature. In the minutes he was away I saw a galleon, with just one light on the stern, sail out of the river and into the English Channel. When asked he said he did not see it. I walked to the top of the hill, some 100ft. or so higher, to join those dealing with the fire which was now, more or less out. As this was a good vantage point, overlooking the western part of Lyme Bay, I thought others would have seen the galleon. Of twenty or so none actually saw it. I resigned myself to thinking I was the sole observer - maybe briefly the clock had been put back a few centuries. :worried:
Dartmouth, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, was no stranger to galleons.

1545406651083.pngEl Galleon (Spanish). This vessel was built this century in 2009. I have seen her in Brixham, this year, and in the Great Lakes.
1545406838051.png Mayflower II. Built in Brixham 1956, sailed to the United States, where she stayed, in 1957. I was present at the launch. Both my father and father-in-law were involved in its construction.
 
maypolebaz said:
I've never seen a ghost, as far as I know, but I've had a few funny experiences. The one that rattled me most wasn't in Brum, I'm afraid, but Germany.
I was walking back to camp, late one night, and as you often get, when walking a long distance, I was "miles away". Nearing the barracks the road crossed over the rail sidings where we used to load our light armoured vehicles. Suddenly my hair stood on end, giving me quite a fright.
Our barracks was named Hohne and stood next to a village called Belsen. It was a year or two after this incident before I learned that the sidings had been used to bring the prisoners to the Belsen concentration camp.
When it comes to believing in the supernatural, I'm sitting on the fence.
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I`ve been to Belsen, early 60`s i didn`t see any ghosts but i felt a great sense of melancholy. As for you maypolebaz,, as an ex squaddie myself i`ve walked back to barracks many a time having supped a few bevvies, & one time i thought i saw someone chasing me & i was trying to recollect in the morning about what i thought i saw. When i went for breakfast i saw a bike propped up against the wall, & suddenly it all came back to me. I had "borrowed" this bike from outside the guardroom & i guess it must have been the owner chasing after me!! That German beer has got a lot to answer for.;)
 
Smudger said:
I`ve been to Belsen, early 60`s i didn`t see any ghosts but i felt a great sense of melancholy. As for you maypolebaz,, as an ex squaddie myself i`ve walked back to barracks many a time having supped a few bevvies, & one time i thought i saw someone chasing me & i was trying to recollect in the morning about what i thought i saw. When i went for breakfast i saw a bike propped up against the wall, & suddenly it all came back to me. I had "borrowed" this bike from outside the guardroom & i guess it must have been the owner chasing after me!! That German beer has got a lot to answer for.;)
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Having "supped a few bevvies" you rode a bike ?
I stand in awe of you Sir !!
 
I well remember that Mayflower II, Alan, in Brixham, when we went on holiday fo Babbacombe with my late wife's sister & family. That must have been a few years ago, probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Maurice
 
Maurice, if you saw a ship, resembling a galleon in Brixham, after 1957 then it was the replica Golden Hind. It is built on the keel of a London Thames barge. It is still there in Brixham harbour - a big tourist attraction. There is another Golden Hind (Golden Hinde II, on The Thames) but that, I believe, is a seaworthy vessel.
 
mikejee said:
Somewhere I have a first day cover carried on the Mayflower II voyage
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Mayflower Mail, probably Mike. The mail was posted from the ship. We had letters from some of the crew. We gave them to the local museum along with other Mayflower II memorablia. 2020 is an Anniversary Year this way.
 
Ray T said:
Hi, Lyn,

I read your story (#143) and found it very interesting. I wonder who that figure was and why it kept appearing that way.

Regards, Ray T.
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hi ray since my post 143 was posted in 2008 in have since found out that yes indeed the roman road was only mins away from my street and also as said previously ive also found out that one of our members who also lived in my st but a bit further up saw the same thing after we moved from the street...i do go down the old end quite often and there are new houses there now..i can pinpoint to a couple of feet where my old house once stood but find it odd that the new house built on the ground where mine was has been up for sale at least 3 times during the past 7 years...i wonder why that is:scream:

lyn
 
Alan,

I bow to your superior local knowledge. I know it was a sailing boat, beyond that it was one of the rainiest holidays I have ever been on and the sun rarely came out. We were lumbered with two lots of young kids and I can't say I was sorry to get home! :-)

Maurice
 
sospiri said:
Alan,

I bow to your superior local knowledge. I know it was a sailing boat, beyond that it was one of the rainiest holidays I have ever been on and the sun rarely came out. We were lumbered with two lots of young kids and I can't say I was sorry to get home! :)

Maurice
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I am quite familiar with the vessel Maurice. I was at two fires on it some years ago. A monkey died in one and birds in the other.
 
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