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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To allow someone who lived in our house 60+ years ago to come back here to film a documentary?

162 replies

mumofsnotbags · 22/08/2015 20:38

Story is around a month ago we received a letter addressed to the current owners, it was from a lady who was making a film about her grandad's life and to cut a long story short he had opened up about a terrible time in his life than none of her family knew about.

This terrible time apparently happened in our house so she feels it would be fitting and cathartic for him to come back to the place to put any issues to bed.

Dp's has mixed feelings, what if they are coming to case the joint (believe me if they did they'd leave a donation!) and also they live at least 200 miles away so would seem a bit extreme.

I said yes and have spoken to the lady and vetted her through google/ facebook, all seems genuine, and they are coming week after next, but now i'm wondering what the hell happened in this house and would you want to know, and how it will affect me knowing what has actually happened here, and then on the other hand i'm so bloody nosey I cant not know! what would you do?

OP posts:
iwantgin · 23/08/2015 16:45

Interesting.

I am also keen to know what was In the loft.

I would let someone look around my House if they asked. It's almost 200 years old so has probably seen a lot of family life

DragonsCanHop · 23/08/2015 16:50

I need to know what was in the loft!

mumofsnotbags · 23/08/2015 17:00

Haha well err ok, sorry its long though,

we first had builders in to do all the structural stuff etc and after a while the money ran out so the rest was left for us to do evenings and weekends. So this one evening after the electrician had come the upstairs walls had literally crumbled down, I could stand in the front bedroom and see through to the back. We had no windows, no central heating, no walls at all upstairs it was a complete wreck and I cannot even tell you how freezing it was during this time! It was during the winter we did this, snowing and ice outside, we had to put off plastering for 6 weeks as it was so cold, it wouldn't have set, and we had 1 builders light in the whole house we would move around room to room, dp had a head torch too. We were both upstairs stood by the bathroom knocking off the rest of the artex plaster and dp asked would I like a drink, so off he went downstairs to the kitchen to make one. Our bathroom is right at the top of the stairs, there is only the wall that separates the 2. Our old loft hatch was in the bathroom, It wasn't covered on this day, so looking up Ii could see the roof through the loft.

So I carry knocking off the artex plaster and hear something that sounds like a glass breaking, I moved the light thing to see and a little glass bottle glints under the light. Just then I hear dp coming back up the stairs, but he never got to the top stair, he was stood outside the bathroom wall whilst I was on the other side, so I shouted come and see this, its just fell out the wall, but he didn't come in, so I shouted again, I poked my head out the bathroom door and shouted him and this time I heard him answer from downstairs as he was still making a cuppa. Now I know some of you will be sitting there saying oh do shut up, but I swear on my life I heard footsteps, Id lived here for over 20 years at this point and know every creak of the floorboards, I could tell you who was walking up the stairs between my mum/ dad or brother. I know I heard footsteps.

So I'm hiding in the bathroom and dp finally comes up and asks me why hadn't I stayed downstairs, I told him I hadn't been anywhere but he swore he heard me coming down the stairs.

We stand there having our cuppa debating whether to call it a night and I decide to carry on a bit as I didn't have that much left, I hack away again and out falls another little bottle, Like an old victorian bottle used for medicine or something. This time dp heard ir drop and turned around. we both stood there terrified thinking what the hell was buried in the loft, so he took over while I hid in the corner, he jumps up a ladder and to cut a long story short finds at least 20 hand drawn pictures of an old man, all various sizes, a hand drawn booklet of a peter rabbit story by someone aged 8 and finally was a bit of hair in a ribbon.

He was fine with all this while I was nearly setting fire to the house to rid it of anything weird, then what he pulled out next I can't even describe, we still don't know what it was, but it was a skeleton, the size of maybe a kitten, with a very long tail almost rat like but it also had fold out bits that look like they could have been wings. It was at this point dp screamed and jumped down 8 steps of the ladder and decided to call it a day and the next time we went we took his dad who got rid of it for us.

we kept everything apart from the hair, We put the bottles back in the loft in a box and the drawings I've got in the spare room in a folder. They may have nothing at all to do with this man, after all someone or possibly more than 1 person has lived here before us and after this man in the film.

Picture was taken the night it all happened, I was working just to the right.

To allow someone who lived in our house 60+ years ago to come back here to film a documentary?
OP posts:
Callmegeoff · 23/08/2015 17:01

This happened to us a couple of weeks ago, an elderly lady and her husband looked round our house. I loved hearing that some of the dark green paint still visible in places was because her Df bought it cheaply and is the same colour as the local buses. They were never aloud the heating on, the pear tree never fruited, she was surprised to see pears on it! Her sister lives round the corner so I am almost expecting her to knock on the door next!

Looking forward to hearing how it goes and errr what was in your loft? Grin

mumofsnotbags · 23/08/2015 17:03

Ill try and find the drawings later too and take a pic, just off to do the tea but will be back bit later.

OP posts:
wafflyversatile · 23/08/2015 17:04

oooh. spooky.

Callmegeoff · 23/08/2015 17:05

Xpost Shock

Pipbin · 23/08/2015 17:12

Well this thread just got a zillion times more interesting and it was already very interesting.

Aramynta · 23/08/2015 17:13

You cannot OP tell us you found things in the house and creepier things in the loft and not tell us what they were!! I love secret things hidden away and finding old stuff.

Pipbin · 23/08/2015 17:14

She just told us, Ara.

SuperFlyHigh · 23/08/2015 17:22

spooky. i'd get that priest on speed-dial if I were you. Grin

Aramynta · 23/08/2015 17:28

ooooooh OP that's freaky! I wish you had kept the skeleton, it sounds bizarre and intriguing (but I love strange anatomy etc)

AcrossthePond55 · 23/08/2015 17:34

not place marking for Tuesday, no, not me.

I'd let them film. But I'd want an agreement that it was not to be shown commercially, and I think I'd want to know ahead of time 'what happened to Granddad years ago'.

Pipbin · 23/08/2015 17:41

Do you have a picture of the skeleton?
I bet an MNer could identify it.

CointreauVersial · 23/08/2015 17:41

Wooooo about the loft discovery. Amazing that in all the years you/your family lived in the house you never found it. When I think of the utter c**p I found in my loft when I moved in..... Hmm

thenightsky · 23/08/2015 17:44

I would have had to have kept the rat/kitten with wings skeleton and taken it to an expert to get it identified!

VulcanWoman · 23/08/2015 17:46

I wouldn't want to know what happened! What's the big secret, she needs to tell you what happened before being allowed in.

FlibbertigibbetArmadillo · 23/08/2015 17:49

Shameless place marking. Keep us updated op Smile

sisterofmercy · 23/08/2015 17:56

I suspect it was probably a rat which got trapped but it wouldn't be the first time someone had put a cat in the fabric of a house to protect it against witches. A witch bottle was my first thought when you mentioned the glass bottle but the other things make it sound a bit like a time capsule left by former residents which is usually quite nice.

Theydontknowweknowtheyknow · 23/08/2015 18:10

Well if this man left at age 9/10 the Peter Rabbit drawing could be his.

CalmYoBadSelf · 23/08/2015 18:23

Some years ago a pair of older ladies were lurking outside our house, DH began chatting with them and invited them in as one of them had grown up in our house. It was lovely to hear her memories and how the house had changed.

I hope your experience is as positive

mumofsnotbags · 23/08/2015 19:11

I hope so too calm.

I dont know if the drawings were his at all, I showed my boss at the time the bottles (the type you put the corks in, but the corks were missing), she told me they were victorian so Im only going on what she said.

My parents hardly went in the loft, the lady who lived here directly before us in the early 80's worked at a department store in town, She used to store the shops christmas decorations in the loft, 6 foot santa's, shop mannequins, window type display stuff, stepdad went up once and vowed never to go again as in his words "Its full of crap up there" needless to say my brother and I were really intrigued and wanted to play up there.

When it came time to clearing the loft Myself and dp had to do it, Ii realised then why my mum hadn't been so keen to let us play up there amongst the dust and damp Grin.

Im loving these stores of people who have been allowed back in there childhood houses, Im also hoping he can tell me some tales of the neighbourhood too.

OP posts:
LazyLohan · 23/08/2015 19:27

You HAVE to do it now to report back if there is a link. Grin

SuperFlyHigh · 23/08/2015 19:54

in my childhood NDN's home in the attic apparently there were signs (like satanic worship signs) sort of on a chimney breast…

in the garage was an old car and part of it's numberplate was 666 - I think personalised. There was a family who lived there, parents, mother of the father, brother of the father and children. My brother got freaked out aged 16 or so when the house was sold and the new NDNs found this and showed us….

WaggleBee · 23/08/2015 20:51

Goth teenager's room perhaps Super Car might've been his.

but it wouldn't be the first time someone had put a cat in the fabric of a house to protect it against witches. A witch bottle was my first thought

Now googling witch bottles. This is fascinating. I want to know the whole history of your house now mumof.

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