The man who wasn't there.

I was pretty apprehensive, to say the least, about mentioning my spooky encounter last night to the family. There was a good opportunity when the two younger ones were out of the way, watching Sponge Bob or some such, so I just came out with it. I told Emma and the older boys about the encounter with the man who wasn’t there; reminds me of a nursery rhyme that scared me witless when I was a young child:

As I was going up the stair,

I met a man, who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today;

I wish that man would go away!

I was a bit taken aback at the stoic manned with which they received this story, the boys looked mildly surprised but that was about it. I asked them about it and Emma, a bit crossly, asked me if I have been listening to them these past couple of years. It transpires; I must have blocked this all out with my impressive male way of filtering information, that the whole family have been experiencing small, unexplainable phenomena for quite a while. All have heard phantom footsteps in the night up and down the stairwell, the boys swear that they have seen the outline of a man in the hallway and Emma insists that she hears voices in the kitchen. For some reason none of this had registered. With the advent of Simon and his spooky allegations I am now open to this subject, apparently.

I also remembered an encounter in the house we rented when we first moved to Gosport fifteen years ago. Emma and the boys, this was well before Jess and Jason came along, were staying with the in-laws and I was alone in the house in between day shifts. I got up for a night time visit to the lavatory and there in the hallway was a young boy. I can remember not feeling that I saw him but was aware of his presence and more felt rather than saw his appearance. I rubbed my eyes and he slowly faded and was gone. I was spooked and stayed up for the rest of the night with the lights on. We later found out that during the second World War that area of Gosport was bombed and a young family was killed.

It would appear that our house has an otherworldly visitor. I will look into this later.

I am due to meet up with Simon early this evening over in Portsmouth so I need to think of some questions to ask him.

More later.