OUR GHOST RETURNS

During the summer months our resident ghost has taken a holiday from his haunting and we began to think that perhaps he had left his old home, well folks, we were wrong; he's back, with bells on:

Last night the house was once again fragrant with the smell of his pipe tobacco, and once again we are finding doors which we know were locked last thing at night, unlocked, and in some cases open when we go downstairs in the morning.

Last winter after a series of incidents including switching on the television in the middle of the night, I became curious and did some tentative research in to who our spooky guest might be, the results were most interesting.

To begin with I unearthed a village legend which concerns the existence of a “Bogie” which, it is said, terrorised a local family may years ago. In fact they became so afraid that they left the house and moved to another at the other end of the village.

So far I have been unable to ascertain which house was haunted by the Bogie, but it was a promising start.

Next I trawled through village archives and discovered that the house was once owned by a local land owner, I even have a photograph of him taken in around 1890. Conspicuous in this photo is a hefty tobacco pipe, another clue?

I discovered last Halloween that such is our homes reputation for being haunted that a number of village children were afraid to call at the house to “Trick or Treat” and this also explains why our apple, pear and plum trees, considered by many some of the best in the village are never raided by scrumpers!

I was told by an elderly neighbour that a previous owner of the house was obliged to collect his daily newspaper from the shop as the paper boy refused point blank to deliver it!

Fortunately none of us are of a nervous disposition, our last home was haunted by an elderly lady, a previous owner and within a few feet of our house a plague pit dating back to the great plague of 1665 gave rise to some very odd tales, although we saw nothing untoward in the twelve years in which we lived there

In the case of our present spectre I am convinced that he returns to make sure that the present occupants are taking proper care of one of his former properties, and I flatter myself that he will find nothing of which to complain.

Of one thing I am certain, he is fond of cats, ours have been know to purr like little engines and respond with pleasure to an unseen hand stroking their fur, it's an odd thing to watch.

With the approach of Halloween we are preparing for the usual young visitors and only yesterday a lady asked if we would mind if she accompanied her two children when they called on us. Apparently they had heard of our hospitality last year but were afraid to call at the house for fear of meeting the ghost.

I said that of course we should be happy to see both herself and her boys.

It is all very odd, one thing is certain, when children are too afraid to collect free sweets and cookies something is very definitely amiss!