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 i my name is John. I have a ghost story to tell. When I was 10 or 11 two friends and I lived in a village called Lingfield in Surrey England. One late Saturday afternoon on gloriously sunny late summer’s day my friends and I looking for a bit of excitement to relieve the boredom of a long school holiday decided to explore the old church yard . The medieval parish church was typical of the period: Old, dank, gloomy and atmospherically creepy. The church yard was just across the road from the church, like the church it too was old, old gravestones cluttered the unkempt cemetery, moss and ivy grew over the much neglected memorials the lettering worn with age, naming people long forgotten. Weeds and tall uncut grass provided a gloomy retreat in the cool of the late afternoon shade. We had not been particularly looking for a ghost as you might be thinking but the setting did bring such thoughts to mind. Looking around tense at every sound we saw the crypt door ajar, a chink of dark penetrating gloom. With some trepidation we ventured down the steep steps into the damp and musty vault. Pushing open the door we nervously stepped inside. A coffin lay upturned on the floor, as our eyes become accustomed to the gloom we saw the remains of a skeleton laying partly on the floor, long since disturbed from its resting place. Two passages led of in different directions, we peered into the dark seeing nothing down the pitch black passages which led to who knows where. Before we could think about further exploration we felt chill, penetrating, icy cold. We heard a strange moaning noise emanating from one of the passages. A white figure emerged the apparition of an elderly lady with a long flowing gown and trailing thin white hair. Unlike stereotypical ghosts of popular fiction and myth the apparition seemed substantial yet floated a few inches above the ground. She glided towards my friends and I her arms outstretched as though to embrace us. I am not a timid person and felt no fear. My friends however were more apprehensive, indeed panic stricken. We all fled out in more haste than we entered racing breathlessly up the stairs and out of the door without looking back relieved to once again be outside in the sunlight. Many people do not really believe me thinking perhaps that this was a childhood fantasy or was a false memory obscured and embellished by the passing of time. But be assured this account is true, the experience was no figment of my imagination and the incident remains fresh in my mind as clear as the day it happened nearly fifty years ago. My mother who has had many experiences herself said that the lady was just being friendly. My mother like me seemed to take this incident all in her stride as though it was an everyday occurrence - who knows perhaps it was for many other people have seen the ghost of this lady. Who she was sadly I do not know. |