I’m going to be taking a little break from research and writing while I move house. I’m going to be moving into a beautiful 500 year old cottage that is just steeped in history and I absolutely can’t wait! If walls could talk I expect they’d have some amazing tales to tell. And I can’t wait to hear them.

In the meantime, here are some spooky tales from a care home manager in the North West, to see you through. Let me know what you think.

Talking To The Dead

In a previous care home, this manager had a member of staff who had gone upstairs to the dementia unit on a night shift, to sort out some medication. The staff member went into the community room to check the admin, and a resident was sitting in there at a table.

This resident, we’ll call her Margaret, said ‘hello nurse, what are you up to?’. The residents used to call the staff ‘nurse’ for ease, so they didn’t have to try and remember names. The nurse answered back ‘just checking on some paperwork, Margaret.’

‘Oh good.’ Margaret replied.

The nurse and Margaret had an in depth conversation whilst the paperwork was sorted. Talking about family and the weather, and the staff member even commented on Margaret’s hair, which looked pretty. Margaret told her she’d had a perm a few days ago.

Paperwork and medication checked, the staff member bid Margaret goodnight and went back downstairs to her other duties.

It wasn’t until she was half way through her shift that she realised that Margaret had passed away two days before, a day after having her hair done. She’d even been on duty when it had happened!

The staff member refused to go upstairs alone after this night, and left soon after.

A Ghostly Bedfellow

On another night, staff were upstairs doing bed checks and making sure all residents were resting peacefully, when they were startled by a blood curdling scream coming from downstairs.

They ran to the source of the scream, dreading what they may find.

What they did find was another member of staff who was on a ‘sleep in’, where they slept over on the unit to be on hand in case they were needed. (It’s not something that happens much any more, with cut backs and low staff levels.)

The sleep in staff had gone to bed in the staff bedroom and was almost asleep, when she felt a pressure of someone sitting on her bed. She put her hand out and felt a balding head, very close to her, and definitely much too close for comfort. Thinking it was one of the male residents who ‘had a thing for the ladies’ she’d screamed out to frighten him off before any harm could be done.

She jumped up and switched on the light, finding that she was alone in the room.

A Ghostly Rocking Chair

This care home manager themself was on a sleepover one night at the home they managed. Most staff wouldn’t sleep in this staff bedroom, afraid of the noises they heard when they were in there, but the manager wasn’t too worried.

Getting off to sleep pretty quickly, the manager was woken in the middle of the night by a creaking noise across the room. When they looked, a rocking chair in the corner was happily rocking away by itself, creaking as it went back and forth.

The manager told it to ‘pack it in’, watching the chair stop dead in its tracks, before quiet was restored.

Then the brave manager lay back down and went back to sleep.

There are many tales of people seeing things that aren’t there, that they come across without thinking. But are they really the spirits of those who have passed away? In the case of the head close to the staff member in bed, we often hear that ghosts have no substance and tend to be a feeling of cold, or see through mists appearing out of nowhere. So how do we explain the feeling of flesh and blood under a hand?

There is also the question of belief and expectation. If you believe ghosts exist then you will probably see one, or something that you think is a ghost. If you’re on a ghost hunt and you expect to feel a cold spot or hear a noise then you most definitely will.

Does this mean it’s a ghost or a spirit? Probably not. But that’s a story for another time.

Keep the readers encounters coming in. I do love reading them.

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