norfolk

Spirit Animals

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I was recently on an on-line forum where a member was questioning the existence of animal ghosts. This got me to thinking about the subject of animal spirits.

I agree with the possibility that the spirits of animals may linger on. We humans are also animals after all, so why should there not be the possibility of animal ghosts too?

My childhood pet was a cat called Sooty. She lived a until a very good age, dying when I was around 15 years old. When she was alive she had a preference for sitting on the back of the sofa near my head. Kind of like a fluffy feline head-warmer. After she passed away I often got a sense that she was sitting in her regular position on the back of the chair, keeping me company. And then I remembered that she was in fact dead! I had this feeling on numerous occasions. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling though. It was quite a peaceful and comforting feeling to have her there.

Dingle and IMy other childhood pet was a cat called Dingle. He was half Persian and half regular moggy. He had a dish face and extra long claws, which used to pick along the carpet noisely as he walked. When Dingle was alive he could be heard picking his way up the stairs and he would often yowl outside my parent’s room or sometimes my room when he wanted a midnight snack or to go outside.  Dingle also lived to a grand old age and died when I was around 18 years old. After Dingle passed away, he could often be heard doing this same routine at night. I certainly heard him picking his way up the stairs with his long claws many times in the dead of night, and both my mother and father heard the same, plus on one occasion his yowl. Even my father who is a total sceptic remarked that it often seemed like Dingle and Sooty were still with us.

Our family have moved away from there now, but I still wonder if Dingle and Sooty are keeping a new family company in the house they loved so much while alive.

The Care Home Ghost, Wroxham, Norfolk, UK

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I have been interested in the paranormal since I was a young teenager, but have not had any experiences myself until recently. However, I began to become more open to the possibility of ghosts after seeing my mother the morning after she had an experience. She came back from work the day after a sleepover and looked a wreck. She also wouldn’t talk about her experience for several weeks. Here is her story:

It was just an ordinary day at work, I worked as an assistant manager in a small care home for the elderly. I used to start work at 2 pm, sleep in the building in a small flat at night and resume work the next day at 7.30 am.There were 22 elderly residents in the care home and at night two night staff who stayed awake.

One night several years ago I went to bed as usual, in the small flat which had been converted from the old stable block. The building was over 100 years old. It had been a private  house, and then a hotel, but had been a care home for at least 50 years.

The bedroom had two single beds, a dressing table and a wardrobe. The window on the right looked over the driveway to the building which was surrounded by trees.

I lay in bed reading a magazine. It was about 1 am. All was quiet. There was no wind and the door to the bedroom was locked, I became aware of a movement in the room and looking over the top of my magazine I saw a grey misty sort of thing in the middle of the room. Well my heart stopped, I am sure! I lowered my mag and watched as the misty grey stuff took on a shape. I was actually paralysed with fear. I am sure my mouth was hanging open, and I felt as if i could not move.

My brain was trying to rationalise the shape. I never smoked in tht room so it was not smoke. ‘Maybe it was car headlights in the drive way, or a reflection from the wardrobe mirror’, I told myself, continually watching as the grey mist took on the shape of a person. I was still staring at it trying to make out what it was when it seemed to take a step forward, or move forward anyway.

Well suddenly nature took over and it as flight or fright and I was out of that bed and fumbling for the key in the lock. As soon as the door opened I was down the stairs two at a time, without looking back and I ran through the downstairs door,  ran along the corridor and into ther kitchen where I found a very surprised nightstaff !

The rest of the night Islept in another room and only went back with the nightstaff to get my clothes in the morning.  There was no sign of anything unusual in the room.

Wroxham

Later discussing the incident with my collegues, the other assistant said that she had often heard banging and felt odd in that room, and one of the staff said there was presumed to be the ghost of a young Italian stablehand in the flat, as he had hung himself in the stable sometime doing the war. Apparently he was a prisoner of war and did not want to go home, but whether this was true or not I do not know.

Many strange things had been seen and felt in the old building. I had other experiences there: the sound of children crying and things being rearranged while I slept. One of the staff had often felt someone brush past her in the hall and one of the staff would never go up to the flat for any money; she said it was creepy. I took the advice of the local vicar and left a bible by the bed and a glass of water and I was never bothered again, just the occasional odd noise thereafter.