Ghostly Apparitions by Susan Mellsopp
The presence was quiet, unassuming, yet it filled the room with a sense of belonging. Often found hiding in the double wardrobe in my room if we were being particularly noisy, or late at night, it moved around in the wee hours. It went up and down the long farmhouse passage, the ghostly being filled every nook and cranny of my childhood home.
Talking to this man became an unusual feature of my childhood. Knowing he was there was comforting in a home without a man, my father having died when I was just five. Seldom scared or nervous around him, the company provided was wonderful for a lonely, quiet young girl. Although he never revealed his identity to me, always watching and caring seemed to be his role in my life. Fear of ghosts was therefore never in my nature as he wrapped his warmth around me with loving arms.
Many decades later I rather tentatively queried my ninety- year-old mother if she had ever seen the ghost. The look on her face was absolutely priceless. “You saw him too, why didn’t you tell me, I had no idea he had made himself known to you.” Now rather nervous, I asked if my mother knew who the ghost was. “Oh yes” she said, “he was a relative. His name was Jim. He had purchased the farm during the Great War. I first encountered him when I was gardening outside the main bedroom window in midsummer, just after we moved onto the farm. The house was all open and no one else was around. I heard footsteps and thought it was your father returning unexpectedly. They started at the back door and came through the house, down the passage, and then stopped by the bedrooms. I went inside and checked the whole house, no other person had arrived to visit us, nothing. I swear it was that old man’s ghost. He died in the main bedroom. I believe his spirit came back occasionally to see what was going on. I never heard it the same way again.” Now I knew why he had singled me out, I was sleeping in his bedroom, the room where he had died.
Jim had a family reputation as an autocrat, but was apparently very popular in the country district I now lived in. He was viewed by most as a jolly, friendly, perhaps eccentric old fellow, possibly why his return to haunt his home meant he did not scare anyone, including a little girl sleeping in his private space.
The rundown farm had been put on the market after the second world war, and was entered by the government in the rehabilitation scheme for returning soldiers who wished to go farming. As my mother had visited the property as a child and knew it well, and some of Jim’s family still lived there, she and my father put their name down to purchase it. They also entered several other farms in the ballot in case their name did not come out in the draw for the one they preferred. They were very surprised when moving onto their farm to discover how decrepit it had become, including the house and cowshed which had been condemned. After a long weekend cleaning and scrubbing, the milking shed passed the inspector’s strict regulations on Monday. They were cleared to take cans of milk and cream to the local dairy factory.
Stories of this ghost’s visits then filled our conversation. “Had I ever smelt cigarette smoke, heard him opening and shutting doors to check on the inhabitants, or just felt he was in some way interfering in our lives.” My experiences came spilling out, many similar to those of my mother’s. Why he had decided to stay in the house and haunt distant family now bringing up two daughters remains a mystery, but the ghost resides in the now rundown house to this day.
Visiting my old home with my granddaughter, I met the son of the present owner who was flatting in the old green wooden farmhouse. Tentatively he asked about the ghost, a presence he had experienced many times. Offering to write a story about my supernatural experiences, and the history of the house, it was several years before I managed to share my knowledge with him. In the meantime, he had become a member of the New Zealand military forces in some type of undercover role.
Undertaking the research had unearthed extremely interesting facts. I discovered that every male except one who had lived in the present house, the original burnt down in 1912, had died unexpectedly or after a long illness. One previous owner had died of tuberculosis. Not only did this include my father, but the family we sold the farm to had to deal with the wife becoming very mentally unwell and being admitted to a hospital. I wonder if the ghost took a dislike to her or she was not conducive to its presence.
When this family eventually sold the farm, it was bought by a racehorse breeder and trainer, the father of the young man I met living in the house. Taking his horses to swim in a local, but very deep and fast flowing river, he fell off his steed and drowned. It was many days before his body was found. Another death. Eventually his wife was forced to sell their breeding stock, and on the sale of his best stallion commented if she had done the wrong thing lightning would strike the house. To her horror it did!
Many people today don’t believe in ghosts and haunted places. The idea that the dead remain with us in spirit is an ancient one. It is based on the notion that a person’s spirit exists separate from one’s body allowing it to survive following physical death. Unsure if they have experienced the paranormal, as literature has pictured ghosts as something in white moving silently around, through walls, and causing fear and havoc, spectral experiences are seldom mentioned or acknowledged.
People who do believe in ghosts do so because of personal experience, usually growing up in a home where the existence of friendly spirits was taken for granted. While science has no evidence that ghosts exist, even Einstein suggested there was a scientific reality for the presence of these ethereal beings. Many theories have been proposed to explain away hauntings, the paranormal inhabiting struggling brain activity being at the forefront. Attempts to disprove the experiences many of us have has been impossible.
Few researchers mention the sixth sense, or second sight, something the Scots and their descendants apparently inherit. It is regarded as a form of extrasensory perception. Paramount is the ability to discern things that are not present to the other senses. A person perceives information about future events, premonitions, or just ‘knows things’. It can be viewed as an ‘inner seeing’ into the spirit world and can be accepted as either a blessing or a curse. In some instances it can be incredibly frightening.
This extra awareness began to make its presence known in my life when I was very young, although in all likelihood it had been at the forefront of my senses since I was born. It became very apparent when I was five in a most frightening way when my father had to go to a distant city for rare surgery. He had become ill after World War Two, and had never been well during my short lifetime. There are several theories as to the cause, one of which I have been able to discount after extensive research. Left to stay with an aunt and uncle on their farm while my father went into hospital was a huge upheaval. Homesickness overwhelmed me. Soon I sensed something was not right. When my mother arrived to explain to me that Dad had died following the surgery, apparently this tiny five-year-old screamed that she knew, she knew. I am sure I did, that inborn extra sense had invaded my very agonised being. A connection to a man I loved dearly was forever cracked that day, his name was seldom mentioned again. There was never a photograph, a discussion, he was not part of my life growing up. Thankfully I always felt his presence in my existence, a hand on my shoulder, someone was watching over me willing success for my life.
As I grew so did the strength of my Scottish inheritance. I always knew who was on the other end of the telephone when it rang, often telling my bemused mother as she picked up the heavy black handpiece. Usually keeping insights to myself for fear of being seen as ‘odd’, my life was interspersed with many secrets I could not divulge the origin of, and at times, unusual premonitions. One of these still haunts me as I cannot reconcile it with any actual event in my life. Realistic dreams exploring future and sometimes past events hold both my senses and my imagination to ransom.
Continuing to surprise my mother with my intriguing intuition, arriving home from school one day I was greeted in the kitchen by my very excited parent. “I have some wonderful news for you.” “Uncle Charlie is getting married again” I blurted out quite firmly. My mother’s jaw dropped and she was speechless. “How did you know, he has not told anyone until he came to visit me today.” “I just knew” I spluttered with I imagine a sense of undeniable self-satisfaction. Travelling to Auckland from the Bay of Plenty my uncle had called in to visit my mother who he was very close to, despite them having been born into different generations. His new beau had moved from his nearest town and was now working as a secretary in Auckland. This English aunt became very fond of me, often giving me small gifts to commemorate special occasions such as passing exams and birthdays.
As I reached adulthood I seemed to attract an increasing number of ghostly apparitions. Usually my sixth sense had to be attuned to unusual feelings and experiences in a variety of situations. Developing relationships with those of a similar awareness became essential to ward off the skeptical. Disbelief continued to haunt me.
Travelling around New Zealand more frequently, I discovered shops in various cities and towns soon became a focus of my intense discomfort. A local retailer who sold imported Asian cane and wooden furniture which made me so uncomfortable I had to cross the road when walking past the shop, was avoided. Only able to enter the premises once under duress, I started to shake and felt intense psychological stress and internal pain, so much so I had to rush out and walk down the road. This left both shop staff and family bewildered at my unusual reaction. Similar experiences occurred in buildings in areas which had a history of war between Maori tribes or the Maori and British soldiers. Sometimes it was about violence and murder having occurred on the premises. Entering some shops or cafes proved impossible as the feeling emanating from them was so strong it made my whole body shake and sent waves of shivers up my spine.
My extra sense soon became intensely personal. I met Murray. Learning to love and care for a teenager with cystic fibrosis, I taught him to ride a pony, exercise which shook up his lungs and released the phlegm which blocks them. I soon became the only person his parents trusted to care for him at horse events or when they simply needed a few hours off. As he moved towards the end of his teenage years, something which was unusual for serious CF patients in those days, he spent increasing amounts of time in hospital. Eventually everyone realised the end was near. Travelling up to visit my young friend who was now on oxygen and morphine, I touched his hand and said I would be back the next day. I think we both knew I would not need to come. His parents arrived and knocked on our bedroom window in the early hours of the next morning to tell us their son had died a couple of hours earlier.
Extremely agitated, I felt unable to tell them what I had experienced at apparently the almost exact time Murray had died. I had woken to my young friend standing at the end of the bed. He said “Mrs Mellsopp I am fine.” He appeared well, fresh faced and free of his breathing difficulties. Then he was gone, fading into the night. I visited his parents the next afternoon and rather tentatively told them of my experience. “Who else would he have gone to” was their response, “you were his only friend and he trusted you.” His father asked to be excused and went to the back of their large farm to meditate on what I had shared. Murray had intended this friendship to be an unbreakable bond which was sadly shattered when his parent’s marriage disintegrated and his father developed a new relationship.
I have learnt to keep my close encounters with the supernatural reasonably private. Friends express a firm disbelief that ghosts exist despite my insistence that I could always sense their presence. Work colleagues were also skeptical. I was employed as an archivist working alone upstairs in a school with several historic buildings. A ghost soon made himself known to me. Subtle questioning of several past staff, who had actually lived in the building when boarding space was at a premium, brought forth awkward descriptions of their experiences with the supernatural. After some research it appeared to be one of the founders of the school who eventually became the bursar. His office was in my archive building and looked over the quadrangle. I had turned it into a memory room, and found the man in question quietened when I hung several photos of him on the wall.
One afternoon a staff member arranged for a student to bring me a large armful of files to be catalogued, boxed and stored. She arrived in my office upstairs at the far end of the building white faced and extremely agitated. The young girl said as she started to put the files down to open the door someone opened it for her. Casually saying “oh that’s the ghost” she turned tail and ran along the passage and back down the stairs. The building is empty now, a casualty of the requirement for earthquake strengthening, which is very expensive. Having retired several years ago I have wondered if the bursar’s presence still haunts the empty rooms. Perhaps I should pay him a courtesy visit.
Several past students and older staff also informed me that the original farmhouse situated opposite the archive building had been the site of ghostly appearances. Most of the rooms had also been used for boarding at some stage. The visitations may have been the original owner of the land the school now resided on. Reluctant to describe the details of their encounters, the house does have an aura of disappointment invading its space, having been turned into administration offices. Perhaps this ghost and the one in the archives are having late night discussions about ‘where to next’.
My affiliation with those no longer here in the worldly flesh was occasionally accepted. Several years before my encounter with the long-deceased school bursar I had gone to stay with a good friend after having major eye surgery. Also, very alert to ghostly happenings, she explained I was to be sleeping in her deceased father’s bedroom, and not to be afraid if he visited me. Apparently he liked to ‘check people out’. A couple of nights later I woke to a strong smell of liniment and became instantly aware that someone was leaning over me. Lying still I soon felt the presence leave, obviously satisfied that I was an appropriate person to be sleeping in his bed. Mentioning the liniment smell the next morning, my friend said she had not told me as it would be irrefutable evidence her father had visited. Anything I reported involving the smell would therefore be genuine.
A newer friend who explained to me she had experienced insights into tragic events including plane crashes before they occurred, learnt of my affinity with the spectral world. She asked me to visit her home and see if I could ascertain her belief that a poltergeist was haunting their daughter’s bedroom. This invitation made me aware I needed to avoid being seen as a medium and how some people might action my confession of seeing ghosts. Ascending the stairs and moving into the large bedroom situated over a garage, I was unable to stay in the beautifully decorated room. The presence was so strong it made me anxious, my heart race, and I felt a fear I seldom had previously. Whatever it was definitely did not want me there. I was acutely aware that interfering in a presence in someone else’s home was something I should not do. Explaining to the home owners I believed they definitely had one of the ghosts who attach themselves to teenagers, but they usually disappear when the child becomes an adult or leaves home. For several years I queried my friend and she assured me that eventually their ghost left when their daughter moved overseas. I still find that residence difficult to visit and I believe, given the age and history of the house and surrounding area, that there are other spirits inhabiting their space.
Finally achieving my dream of travelling extensively overseas, in Scotland I had an enhanced awareness of ancient hauntings. Feeling completely at home in this enchanting country where my great-grandparents had come from, I soon discovered my affiliation went much deeper, carving out a special place in that Scottish sixth sense. A perception of totally belonging to the land took over my being, my ancestry rose up in ways I had not experienced before. I now consider this beautiful country my second home. Ancient ghosts constantly presented themselves, and ethereal experiences became normal. Visiting the site of the Battle of Culloden I drew away from a large sword in a glass case. It swirled with anger, death, affiliated to its owner and attached to its ghostly derivation. Driven away by its power I left quickly, yet a photo taken of the sword still makes me shiver. Walking around the battlefield I felt surrounded by those who had died in this place of horror and clan fighting. I sensed them everywhere, lost souls unable to leave, a lifetime of living every moment of their rage and hate. Life unfinished.
Similar experiences in museums and historical sites all over Britain and Europe brought me both relief and sadness. Old castles in Ireland were full of haunted spirits, as were those in parts of Europe. Visting concentration camps and museums dedicated to the Holocaust was exhausting, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. There were just too many anguished souls. Huge fear and anger overwhelmed me in one museum which had a small Christmas tree decorated with swastikas. The atmosphere of discomfort and unwanted insights sent me fleeing from the room which was pervaded by an unusual smell.
It is difficult to explain how this sixth sense works. I just have a sense of knowing, a feeling of both acceptance and extreme discomfort. Often I experience being two separate people, one present, one distant, echoing. I occasionally encounter unexplained insights and extreme distress. My ears ring, my head aches, a pressure to listen to a voice I don’t want to be affiliated with surfaces. It is frightening. Occasional insights into a death, a body buried on our land, maybe in the past, or a future event, have been a shadowy presence for years. It strangles and terrifies me as my mind runs away and hides. Perhaps one day a body will be exhumed and all my understanding will come to a sad conclusion.
‘Just knowing things’ has continued into my golden years. Recently feeling compelled to ring the home of my cousin who I knew was dying, life intervened. Early in the evening I received a call telling me he had died that morning, at the approximate time I had felt the need to ring. Not listening to my uncanny inner voice had a sad consequence I bitterly regret.
Instead of often fearing the outcome of ‘knowing’, the necessity of listening, drawing in to the senses something others are yet to experience is a gift which has too often been cast aside, ignored or feared by many. Attempting to explain to a doctor one day what the feeling was like I eventually stopped when I realised he might have considered I was a candidate for psychiatric assessment. I accommodate most of my ghostly visitations and uncanny thoughts with gratitude that they understand my acceptance of their presence. I hold them in high esteem and am aware there may be a reason these spirits are more bountiful than most realise. Combined with my extra perception, it has made for an interesting life. I feel honoured these souls trust me, align to who I am, stitch together both our pasts and future. Intuition and special insights are a true gift.
Strangely I am led to wonder, why those close to me who have died, one under violent circumstances, never felt the need to stay or contact me. Perhaps they have no reason to torment their souls, or just know me too well and are at peace. The question is now; will I return as a shadowy spirit intent on haunting those Iiving in my home in the future. Perhaps I will annoy those who have hurt me in my lifetime. Moving in and out of their lives at various unexpected moments could be fun and the ultimate retribution. My shadowy supernatural being could touch them at poignant times, or just follow their lives from an invisible spectral realm. The thought is incredibly tantalising.
