Granny and the ghost

I’m in a sleeping bag on the floor of a derelict house, a few hours on the wrong side of midnight, torch at the ready, trying to stay awake, in the faint hope that I’ll see a ghost. I probably need to explain.

My mother told me about granny and the ghost when I was young. It happened sometime between the wars. Grandfather’s family was fairly well off in those days, having slowly eeked away a gentry’s fortune over a few generations there was still enough for them to live in something of a mansion, an eight bedroom house on the outskirts of town.

I think my grandparents planned to have a family of suitable size to fill the whole house, but they stopped after the third child. In fact, they stopped after the attempted fourth child, who was stillborn a few weeks early, and the damage left by the gynaecological disaster meant that gran could never have another baby.

It was about a year after the tragedy, maybe exactly a year, that gran first saw the image of a woman at the foot of her bed. It was a woman in a nightdress, not dissimilar in looks and garb to herself, and for a while she wondered if it were her own image somehow reflected. But as she was puzzling where the mirror or glass might be located, she saw the figure turn and move along the bed, floating up until it was near her head.

The figure spoke, sort of, in that she heard wailed words, though they didn’t come from the figure’s mouth, they were just there in the air around her. “Go away,” it said, “you must go away.”

By now gran was scared. In her family, ghosts had always been seen at the time of a family member’s death, and she shivered in genuine fear, both for herself, or for the prophecy of doom for another family member. She had already lost one child.

“Why, where?” gran asked, adding “Who are you?”, and though the ghost seemed to hear, she failed to respond. She stood at gran’s side for a few minutes longer, before turning, floating back to the foot of the bed, where she suddenly disappeared.

Gran called for her husband, who now slept in the next room, but the ghost had disappeared and he could see nothing, so he told her “Not to imagine things.”

The ghost appeared again the next night, in the same place, the same shimmering light of a figure at the foot of her bed. She called out to her husband to come and see, and he appeared, candle in his right hand, sleep in his eyes, but though she could clearly make out the figure he claimed to see nothing. He walked right through the figure, without feeling, hearing or seeing a thing and went back to bed muttering something about “Women.”

The figure remained at the foot of the bed after he had gone, then, as it had the previous night, floated up to the top of the bed, by my gran’s head, and bewailed again: “You must go away.”

The haunting continued for many nights, indeed weeks and months passed, but only my gran could see the ghost. My mother and her sisters spend many nights in the room, desperately trying to see the ghost, but it was invisible to them as well.

After consulting with various local doctors and priests, it was decided that the ghost was purely a figure of my gran’s imagination, brought on by the stress and trauma of losing her baby. As was common in those days, it was decided that the best course of action would be to place her in an institution for the mentally disturbed.

She was sent to Hacklers Sanatorium, a private medical facility on the other side of town. Though she no longer claimed to see any ghost, she remained in the facility for the next five years, for the rest of her life in fact. She died at the age of 39, the cause in the death certificate was listed as ‘fever’. My mother saw her just six times in all those years.

My mother broke down into tears at this stage of telling the story, I remember hugging and consoling her, making the promise that one day I would find out what really happened.

After gran’s death, my mum, grandad and aunts moved to a smaller place. The next family in their old house also reported seeing a ghost, in fact it made the local press and was even listed in a book: “The 50 most haunted houses in Essex.” In my research I bought a copy of the book, and the ghost described is exactly that seen by my gran, the shimmering figure of a woman.

As I say, I made a promise to my mum. I tried to find evidence of some dastardly conspiracy, but in fact this sort of behaviour was common, the rational medical reaction to the paranormal. I could find no evidence of my grandfather’s view of proceedings, though it was clearly he who initiated the effective imprisonment of his wife, though he may simply have trusted the opinion of his medic.

The house itself has been abandoned for well over a decade, a run down ruin, with stories of a series of short term inhabitants, a house that never really became a home. It is finally due to be demolished this week, to make way for some new flats, for the town has grown and the house is no longer on the outskirts. It is, according to the literature advertising the flats that haven’t been built yet, “In a prime location.”

So here I am, in what was once the main bedroom of the house, sitting up in darkness fully dressed but in my sleeping bag, with a thermos of coffee, listening to the creaks and groans of an old house. I am here for the sake of family history, for the sake of my mother, now passed away, hoping to make some connection with my gran and to confirm once and for all whether or not my granny was a mad woman.

A light appears at the foot of my sleeping bag. As I stare it becomes more distinct, it is, just as my gran described, the figure of a woman. I switch on the torch, but it makes no difference, for the figure illuminates itself. I shiver, though do not feel fear. As it had many decades ago, the figure starts to float, though up along my sleeping bag as there is no bed in the room.

The figure reaches the head of my sleeping bag, is just inches from my face, and I can make out the ghost clearly and distinctly. It is the ghost of my gran, I recognise her from the photos my mother left me. I try to speak, mutter something like “Hello gran,” but though she seems to hear she doesn't respond, she just turns and floats back to the foot of the sleeping bag, before fading away into nothing.

I try to make sense of what I saw, but can’t. Maybe gran came back to haunt the house after she died. But maybe it was always gran, maybe she was haunting herself, deliberately, just to get out of the house. Remember the words she told herself: “You must go.” Maybe she wanted to escape the prison of her family, a strict unloving husband, three demanding children, the memory of a lost child and the ghosts of those that she could now never have.

I do not try to make sense of it. I finish my coffee and try to go to sleep.