My First Ghost

The first time I ever saw a ghost, I had no idea it had happened because they were so "real". When I was 18 years old, my husband (then my boyfriend) used to deliver milk for a living. Before he got his own round, he used to cover other staff while they were on holiday. On a Saturday, I sometimes used to go out and help him.

One Saturday at 8.a.m. in August 1990, we were out on a normal milk round on a council estate. The road was mostly full of houses, but there were a few blocks of flats which were around three stories high. He sent me into one block with a few pints of milk to deliver the top floor while he went into the one next-door. I walked through the front door (which was heavy metal/glass and spring loaded to close by itself) and climbed the stairs. As I reached the third step, a little girl of around 6 or 7 years old with red hair, wearing a jade green sun-dress and bright green plastic shoes walked down and round the corner towards me. She looked at me and I went to say "Hello!" but for some reason I didn't do it.

Another strange thing that occurred to me afterwards is that there seemed to be quite a large space between us, even though the stair well was pretty narrow. As I got near to the top of the stairs, she looked up at me. As I put the milk bottles outside the flat, it suddenly occurred to me that 8 a.m. was a bit early for a small child to be wandering around on her own and also that I hadn't heard the front door of the building shut or any of the doors to the flats downstairs opened or closed. I hadn't heard any voices and no one came down to look for the child, which most parents would certainly have done.

I literally ran down those stairs looking for her. The little girl was not inside the building and she was not outside either because I looked up and down the road for her. I ran over to my husband, who had just got back to the milk float (delivery vehicle), in a bit of a panic and asked if he'd seen a little girl. He looked a bit surprised and then asked whether she had red hair and a green dress. Obviously, I agreed. What really freaked me out was when he asked if she'd come down the stairs when I got to the third step, if she'd looked at me, then looked up at me again when I got to the top and then disappeared round the corner. There was no way he could have known that, because he was inside the building next door at the time.

At the time, if several milk-men were on holiday, their rounds would be covered by rotor-men who would go out late at night to drop off the milk quickly. My husband then informed me that the girl had been seen at 1 am, 3 am and 6 am in the morning by different rotor men and had also been seen in the early hours by the regular milk man. Someone had got concerned about the child being allowed out so early and mentioned it to one of the residents, who replied that the child no longer lived there.

The story was that the little girl had been playing outside with her brother and had been accidentally killed by a milk-float (delivery vehicle). Since then, the little girl had regularly been seen or heard by milk men. It turned out that my husband sent me into the building knowing this, but had thought it might not affect me. Thank you very much! Apparently, he mentioned what had happened to the regular milk-man when he arrived back from holiday and the man turned a little pale.

I have never researched whether the story of the child's accident is true. However, I can honestly say that I know children do not disappear into thin air just like that! Needless to say, I stopped helping my husband deliver milk on a Saturday shortly afterwards!