The people who tell ghost stories most are elderly, aristocratic aunts and the women who write into Chat! Magazine, so for the most part, old age or spawning eleven kids has sent them mental. They’re not to be trusted.
The best ghost stories are when they come from someone who isn’t mental, has a normal life, yet still had some weird shit happen to them. We spoke to a few younger, totally normal people about their brushes with the other side. Here’s the first in the series…
INTERVIEW: ROBERT FOSTER
Nick, 23, is a journalist who spent his student years in a gateway to hell.
Where did all this go down?
Nottingham, more affectionately known as assassination city, where there was 6 girls to every bloke and enough bullets for all of them. I was studying at Trent University at the time and looking back probably found this ghostly experience the most educational part of my 4 years there.
What was your first experience of something weird happening there?
At first it was just voices and banging around the house when we were all in the same room – it wasn’t that freaky, and at the time because we could just put it down to it being an old creeky house. But in reality that was bollocks, it was definitely ghosts!
Was there something strange that happened regularly?
Something used to swing my bedroom door open and shut during the night, banging it shut and slamming it back open again and again. At first it was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me, you can’t imagine how vulnerable you feel sat in your knickers in bed while a ghost clatters the shit out of your bedroom door! I was scared rigid, but after a couple of weeks of it I found myself trying to bargain with this inconsiderate apparition to stop playing with the door. It didn’t exactly help with the ladies either, I mean, who the fuck wants to suck Derek Acorahs dick?
What did you rationalise it as at the time?
I think I just used to block it out because I just couldn’t put it into any sort of… context, if that makes sense? Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the women, maybe it was karma – I’ve done some fucked up things to people in the past (all in the name of good fun, you understand) so I thought maybe the baby Jesus was getting his own back.
Did it scare you to be alone in the house?
Yes, but not because of the ghost – the last time I was in the house by myself I dropped my last pork and pickle pie down the toilet, and then had to fend off a burglar trying to break into the house with a golf club and carving knife combo, all while trying to watch Clockwork Orange. It was a bit of a disaster night, so I’ve learned a life lesson there – I shouldn’t be left alone.
What was the worst thing that happened?
One night when I had retired to the living room for a peaceful nights sleep (Casper was well into my bedroom door that night), I was woken with what felt like someone rubbing their hands over my face. I didn’t open my eyes because I thought it was one of my housemates back from a night out who fancied a grope, but it carried on and got quite forceful, and then a woman’s voice said my name over and over again. I opened my eyes and no one was there. I immediately emptied my bowels onto the living room floor (I am not joking) and then went back upstairs to the more familiar chorus of my bedroom door being slammed.
What did everyone else who lived there see?
A girl I lived with woke up one morning and came downstairs to walk through the front room to the kitchen. She saw something in the corner of her eye, turned round and saw me and my mate Jon stood up against the wall. When she came back from the kitchen she looked again and we had nooses around our necks and were dead. She screamed, ran upstairs and woke us up, but out of principal I refused to go downstairs to see myself hanged! Jon used to have a big black bloke with an afro come and sit at the end of his bed and smile at him. Apparently sometimes he used to point at my room and the door would start banging again.
What do you think about it now, looking back on it?
That we should have moved out, or at least organised a mini tour around the house for tourists, it was pretty ridiculous thinking about it now, but fuck me it was scary at times!
Did you believe in ghosts before it all went down?
I didn’t really give them that much thought to be honest, until I moved into that house. I mean, I used to get scared with creepy stuff but it was all things that I could rationalise and put into a logical context. But in that house they just went apeshit – there was nothing I could make sense of. Even my ultra-orthodox Jewish landlord said he would send someone round to ‘fix’ the problem after I told him about the door banging. I was pretty much readying myself for an exorcist style showdown, and even went to the Oxfam to buy a bible and other ghostly accessories (if you’re going to get harangued by the undead you might as well look good while its happening). The silly bastard sent round a polish carpenter who left when I answered the door looking like ‘the drunk one’ at a vicar and tarts party.
Do you think it could all have been some elaborate prank?
I’d like to believe it was ghost but on the other hand I would like to think it was someone playing a joke, because the copious amount of effort/time/money they would have had to of put into it would have been idiotic.
Did you see what any of them looked like?
One night when we all slept in the front room together. We woke up at the same time and watched as an old black lady started to make some food in the kitchen dressed in a dressing gown with her hair in curlers, and then collectively had a prolapse as a little kid with big curly hair ran across us and through the wall (he looked a bit like that one out of Diversity, the one with the glasses!). In Jon’s room it was the big black bloke with a massive afro and was dressed smartly in a suit, and in my room its was the fucking door.
Have you ever seen anything else?
I haven’t seen a dickybird from my boys on the ‘other side’ since then, which I’m pretty pleased about to be honest.
