This account is about my Aunt's house that was situated in the City of Bristol, England. A city with a great deal of history. The things that happened there span about seven years of my life. Most events I was witness to, but some were told to me by my Aunt.
From about the age of 11 through to my late teens, I loved to stay with my Aunt (my Mother's sister). She spoilt me rotten and life was always so much fun with her. Also in the home, were my Uncle and my cousin (I will refer to him as E), who was a toddler when I was 11. They later had a daughter, who was born when I was 13. I generally stayed throughout the summer holidays and any other school holiday if possible. There was so much fun and laughter in that house, sometimes I thought I would burst from it, but despite all this joy, there was so much more going on!
Their home was originally three old stone built cottages knocked into one. There was a central front door, with a large room to either side, which was fairly open plan. At the back of the right hand room was a doorway to a passage that lead to the kitchen on the left, the stairs on the right, with a bathroom behind the stairs. Upstairs an open landing spanned the right hand side of the house with one bedroom over the downstairs room. On the left were two bedrooms, directly over the front room and kitchen. These bedrooms were adjoining, so you had to enter the front bedroom via the back bedroom. The left and right side of the house were formed from two of the original cottages. Outside at the back of the house, was a large enclosed yard. This was formed from the original outer walls of the third cottage. The house had been in my Uncles family for many years having been his parent's home, so also a childhood home to his brother and himself.
I'm not entirely sure when activity started in the house, but do know that following the death of his father (he died in the house), my Uncle, Aunt and his brother chose to keep the house and live in it themselves and they had workmen in to modernise the place before they all moved in. My Uncle said that they did experience things happening in the house growing up, but it was nothing compared to how things became. The workmen were the first to be "freaked out" by the house.
One man had gone to the shop to get their lunch, the other remained upstairs painting. He clearly heard "his colleague" slam the front door as he came in, heard his foot falls on the stairs and heard his walk into the room behind him. So much so, that he put down his paintbrush and turned around to say to him "that was quick", but there was no one there. He ran out of the house and refused to come back.
Not much happened after that, until E was born. After that my Aunt would frequently see shadow figures leaning over his crib or his pram and Uncle's pet parrot would shout and go demented at nothing. As E got older, he would tell my Aunt that a lovely lady would sit with him at night and read him a story. He was about four years old at the time. His description of the lovely lady was my Nan to a tee. She had passed several years before E was born and he had not seen pictures. There was also an old man who would sit on the floor and play with his toys. On describing him, he was a ringer for Uncle's father.
Also, one day he wandered into the kitchen with a rather puzzled look on his face, and said "Mummy, where does the new stairs go?" My Aunt, obviously rather perplexed, asked him to show her and he lead her to the left hand front room, pointing to an area to the left of the inglenook fireplace and said, "that's where they were Mummy, but they gone". Again, at the age of 4-5, he had no idea that the original cottage that this room was part of did have a stairway where he indicated he had seen one. You could vaguely make out where the original stone steps would have been. The lady, who had occupied this cottage many years ago, had died after a fall down those very stairs. It was after that the cottages were purchased by Uncle's parents and knocked into one house.
When I used to stay, Uncle's brother still lived there, but was away quite a bit, so I used to sleep on a camp bed in his room. His suit used to swing about on the end of the wardrobe and I would see lights dashing around the room, sometimes one or two, other times up to a dozen. I told my Aunt and Uncle, who told me it was car headlights shining up from the main road. They later confessed they sat up in that room for a whole night and no car lights could shine up to the house, due to its position. I believe what I was seeing was orbs.
As I got older, I stayed less, but would babysit my cousins. Aunty and Uncle used to change the two front rooms around quite a bit, so one side would be the sitting room the other the dining room, and vice versa. When the sitting room was on the right (under Uncles brother's room), I would have an overwhelming feeling of being watched, but it was comforting. When it was on the left, however, the being watched feeling was very oppressive and unwelcoming. Things would often go missing and turn up in an obvious place and when it was getting close to Christmas, everyone in the house would become ill and have low energy and nasty colds. This went on for years until my Aunt passed, prematurely, at the age of 45 from a massive brain haemorrhage. At that time it had been several years since I had stayed with them. My Uncle sold the house after that, so I have no idea if the activity continued, but my Mother had a visit from Aunty and Nan on the day she passed. Nan told her she had been waiting for Aunty.
I always felt that the oppressive, unwelcome feeling was the old lady who had died on the stairs. Perhaps she didn't know she had passed and objected to the intrusion in her home. The comforting feeling I believe was Nan and Uncle's Dad and if I were a betting person, I would say that neither are in that house anymore. They were waiting for their loved one, so they could all move on together. But the old lady I feel should have had help moving on as I feel she may not have known she had passed. Looking back, I would have certainly had the house cleansed and gotten help for the additional occupants to move on to their next destination.
It was difficult to write this account, as it spanned many years and I didn't want to ramble on and on, so hopefully, it doesn't appear too disjointed. What I find interesting now, is that the younger cousin did not see anything like the older cousin did. He seemed to be an open vessel and saw and heard everything, until he got older, of course, and the intellect kicked in. We all have a tendency to become less intuitive once we allow the intellect to rule. My Uncle was a sceptic but he certainly suffered from illness at Christmas. He did not believe it was because the entities were taking their energy. Aunty believed it, but Uncle had the ultimate say as man of the house, which is why nothing was ever done. That house would have been perfect for a paranormal investigation.
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