More Haunted Stories Of England
By Margaret Broughton

A HARWICH GHOST STORY

Harwich, in the county of Essex, is a cinque port. Also, it is the port where The Mayflower sailed from for the New World in the early days of the 17th century. The Master of The Mayflower was one Christopher Jones whose house still stands today. Visitors to Harwich cannot help but marvel at the winding streets and ancient houses. When one sails in from the continent, you can see the way visitors stand on the deck of the ferries and, if the sun is shining, Harwich makes a wonderful picture with the church and houses visible from the boats.

Another thing this ancient port is famous for in days of old was smuggling. In short, history abounds. The story I wish to recall concerns my brother, Peter Thomas, and his wife, Sheila. I was born at Dovercourt, next door to Harwich. Although I moved away many years ago, Peter stayed.

Years ago, my brother married and he and Sheila lived in an old house in Harwich itself. I remember the house well. Not a house for the faint hearted. It was built on three stories and had seen much history. When entering from the front door, there was a long dark passage which led to the back of the house and a large kitchen which is where my brother and his wife spent most of the time. I hated walking down the dark passage, especially at night, and most times I would run fast to reach the 'safety' of the kitchen. This room seemed to be the only room in the whole house that felt comfortable.

After moving in, they took me on a tour of the house. The kitchen, as I explained, was at the back and a sitting room at the front of the property. Their bedroom was on the first floor. A narrow flight of stairs led to a small room on the top floor. This room was obviously meant as another bedroom, but it was very clear it had not been used as one for some years. As soon as I stepped into this room, I could not wait to leave it. Peter and Sheila admitted that they had also felt something in this room and admitted it would only be used for storage.

The house also had cellars running underneath and although theirs was blocked off between the neighboring houses, my brother found out that they used to run down to the harbor and, in the old days, were used by the smugglers to store contraband.

One day, Sheila was in their bedroom making the bed. She had the cat and dog with her this day. Suddenly, without warning, the hairs on the back of Sheila's neck stood up on end and the cat shot round and round the room in a frenzy. Making a quick exit, the cat shot down the stairs at a great rate. Sheila looked at her dog and noticed her fur was raised. Running out of the bedroom, the dog shot after the cat with Sheila following in hot pursuit. She would not enter the bedroom until Peter got back from work. The cat and dog, after that day, were never at ease when in that room.

As my brother often worked night shifts, Sheila would be very uneasy. Sitting in the kitchen on her own, she would hear time and again, footsteps coming along the passage and pausing outside the kitchen door. At first she thought it was her mother as she had the house next door and would call out, "Come in." Nobody ever did.

Intrigued by now of the strange happenings, my brother tried to find out any history he could gleam about their house. He eventually found out that a smuggler had hanged himself in the top room of their home which was the room they would only use for storage.

The time that made him so uneasy was the time he woke up suddenly and saw, to his horror, what looked like a huge gorilla with fiery red eyes watching him from the bottom of the bed. Waking Sheila, he told her to look, but she saw nothing. He often wonders if he actually was dreaming, but with waking Sheila and pointing at the apparition, how could he have been sleeping?

Needless to say, they did not stay long in the property and moved out.

THE PROPERTY NEXT DOOR

Next door to my brother's house in the previous story lived Sheila's mother and brother, Tony. It was a very similar house, but it had a much warmer feeling. However, Sheila's brother had a strange story to tell.

Some nights he was awakened by the clock on the bedside table making a funny noise. When he looked, it was spinning round and round, but it never fell off the table. This strange phenomena happened on a few occasions until one night when the clock woke him with its usual spinning motion, he saw the outline of a figure standing at the foot of his bed. He was very, for use of a better word, 'freaked out', to say the least.

Thinking people would laugh at him, he did not mention it to anyone, putting it down to his imagination. However, that was the start of many nights of this apparition appearing to him and as time went by, he got used to seeing the spirit, especially when he realized it was a young woman he was seeing.

Tony tried talking to her, but never got a reply. He then heard about the ghostly footsteps, the frightened animals, and the room at the top of the house belonging to his sister and her husband and this encouraged him to tell about the clock and the apparition of a young lady.

My brother quipped that, if ever Tony got fed up with her, to send her next door!!