Ghost or Guardian?

At the end of a long hot exhausting day, what better way to wind down than to sit outside with a glass of wine and exchange ghost stories with an audience of young children? One year ago, almost to the day, we took our first ever family vacation in Bude, Cornwall, but not everything was listed in the tour guides, and to this day, we don’t know what the children saw that night.

Its a ten hour drive from Heysham to Bude, though much of that travel time involves very little movement. Birmingham is particularly gnarly. We arrived at the holiday park after 6pm, checked in to our chalet, unloaded the car, and then went to the restaurant for something eat. I had steak, with chips, it was very nice, and a few beers. After a long drive, its good to just chill out with a cold beer, but that can be quite boring for young children, especially when the only thing we can give them to drink contains sugar. We wanted them to sleep at some point, so we went back to the chalet to enjoy the first night of our holiday.

Cornwall is the nearest thing we’ve got on the UK mainland to a warm temperate climate, and our stay was no exception. The weather was glorious, and while mum ensured that the clean underpants found their way in to the correct drawers and stuff like that, I sat outside with the boys and a bottle of beer, and as we watched the sun sink toward the sea, I asked them. ‘Boy’s, what know you of the green flash at sunset?’

‘The what?’ They said.

The story I planned to tell would have been far more interesting to them if they’d paid more attention while they watched Pirates. But I explained the legend anyway, of how the setting sun sometimes emits a green flash in to the sky as it dips below the horizon. Its a real thing, not just Disney, and if you believe such things, it signifies the return of a soul from the afterlife.

That got their attention, and we all watched the sun sink lower and lower.

There was no flash, maybe the hill got in the way, maybe no souls got lucky that day. Either way, their imaginations were piqued and they wanted to know more. Is it real? Have you seen a ghost? Do you know any ghost stories?

The answer to all three questions of course is yes. The green flash is real, its an atmospheric optical effect and I found pictures online to prove it. Yes I have seen a ghost, I have a couple of tales to tell from my own experience, but in my favourite story I like to recall I can’t remember seeing the ghost, but everyone else did and I was at the center of it all.

Many years ago, on the night before I was born, my mother caught a bus to the hospital for a check up. When she walked toward the reception desk to check in, she was intercepted by a passing midwife who grabbed her firmly by the shoulders and said ‘Come with me love, your baby’s in distress’. My mother was then ushered in to one of the delivery rooms, and a few hours later I was born, blue, and the with the umbilical cord wrapped twice tightly round my neck. My mother never got the chance to thank the midwife, without whose intervention, I might have not survived, or to ask how she knew I was in trouble. Whoever she was, she didn’t stay for the birth and none of the staff recognised her from the description my mother gave.

I was always intrigued as to how that midwife knew that I was in difficulty so when my own children came along, I took the opportunity to tell this story to the midwives, and to ask them how that midwife could have known, from a distance, that I was in distress. They couldn’t explain it, and they hadn’t heard of it happening elsewhere. It remains a mystery.

My dad is a down to earth pragmatic realist. ‘No such thing as ghosts’ he’d say, but even for my dad, sometimes seeing is believing.

When I was taken home, I was given the smallest room and slept in a crib. The larger two rooms were taken by my sisters and my parents, and my arrival changed things in unexpected ways. My sisters, aged 7 and 5 at the time became unsettled, reluctant to go to bed, and when they did, they were anxious and sleepless, and were bothered by the old woman that stood out on the landing at night. There was no woman on the landing, my mam was the only woman in the house, but they had both seen it, and they both described the visitor with earnest sincerity.

My Dad laughed it off of course when he heard. ‘Children, tsk’, and he remained opposed to the existence of the nightly visitor even when my mother saw it herself, standing in the doorway to my room. This figure didn’t talk, didn’t wear a sheet, she wasn’t transparent; she stood there is silence, occasionally parting an assuring smile The visitor would appear most nights, but only when she wasn’t expected, and my dad laughed off every new silly sighting.

One night however, the visitor stopped being silly, a hysterical figment of the imagination, and instead became very real. That was the night that my dad needed to take a midnight trip to the bathroom. I don’t know if he’d made there or not, but the clatter of the bedroom door, and the thud of objects in the dark being clumsily displaced by a hasty return to bed woke up my mother, who slept lightly anyway. My Dad jumped back in to the bed and pulled the covers over his head.

‘You’ve seen her, haven’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes, stood in Michael’s door, she looked at me’

‘Did she do anything?’

‘No, just looked at me. She was old looking’

‘I think its my Grandma’ my mother said, ‘that’s how I remember seeing her when I was little’

‘What do you think she wants?’

‘Nothing bad’ my mother reasoned, I think she’s watching over Michael’

After that, the sighting got less and less, until no one saw my guardian angel at all. After my traumatic birth, I had started to thrive as a big bouncing baby boy, but I have no recollection of that time, how could I? But I do have some strange memories from my early days, and very weird and symbolic dreams, and I can’t help but wonder about the other things in life that go on beneath our noses, before our eyes, but forever unnoticed, except in times of need. Did I really have a guardian angel to watch over me? Is she still watching over me? Perhaps I’ll never know, but its a nice thought.

My story though, unfortunately, had the opposite effect on the kids to what I’d intended. The plan was that they would listen to some spooky stories, and then go quietly to sleep, and I would drink wine on the veranda with my wife. Now, however, they were more energised than ever, and they bounced around the chalet front like zombies on a sugar rush, and there was no silencing them. They were overstimulated and I had only myself to blame.

But all of a sudden, the oldest stopped the hyperactive silliness and came over to stand next to me. He tugged on my arm and pointed over to horizon where the sun had set. ‘What’s that?’ He said.

I couldn’t see anything, except the dying light of the dusk. ‘Whats what?’ I said, there was nothing out of the usual.

‘Its there!’ He said again, pointing, and this time more urgent, he took a step backwards to stand behind me. ‘Its getting closer…’

And then he ran in doors, and the yongest followed him quickly inside, he shut the door behind him, leaving me outside on my own.

I scanned the horizon again, looking for anything alarming, but there was nothing, and no motion to be seen, just the beautiful evening sky.

I went inside to join the children and ask them what they saw. ‘Doesn’t matter’ the oldest said.

‘Do you want to go outside again?’ I asked them both.

‘No!’ They replied in unison.

‘Why not?’ I asked again, but the reply was always the same, It doesn’t matter.

It wasn’t mentioned again, but for the whole of the stay, they wouldn’t stay out to watch the sun or play outside after dark, and at night time, the curtains were to be firmly closed.