If someone recognises me from this then so be it. I've just realised how long this is now!
Eighteen years ago me and the OH moved into my Great Grans house. She had recently gone into a care home and with all the optimism of the very elderly, said we could live there "until I come back home".
I knew the house had had odd things happen there - the house was either directly hit or was in the same area to a bomb during WWI. About four houses were destroyed and re-built, my GG's being one. Numerous odd bigs happened over the years which are far too long to go in to but every single member of my family had at some point felt, heard or seen something which wasn't quite right.
Anyway, me and OH move in. Moving from a furnished rental we had no furniture so we slept on the sofa in the front room. Around midnight I was woken by someone heavy footed pacing around in the locked bedroom directly above us - I knew he layout of the room and could detect that it was someone walking around the bed, I heard boots in-done and dropped to the floor and then the noise of the bed when the person got in.
Mysterious things continued to happen but oddly I was never scared or frightened. I think because it had been my family house since it was re-built offered me security.
One Monday I got up for work, and this will sound odd and 'woo', but the bright hallway was dark, gloomy and felt oppresive. I practically ran to the bathroom. Halfway to work I got the call that GG had had a stroke and was in hospital.
Each morning and evening when I had to use the hallway (the bedroom was at the almost far end of a long hall) I had a closed in, watched feeling. It was awful and I hated it. This continued all week.
On the Sunday my OH went out in the morning to visit his family. I spent the day doing house work. The bathroom was an odd shape and off at an angle to the top of the stairs. I was cleaning the bathroom and was half in half out the room (it was that small!) when I felt someone standing behind me. I was scrubbing the bath so still bent at the waist, I half turned to my left. There was a man, about 30, black trousers, white pressed shirt, one of those neck scarves round his neck and tucked into his buttoned up collar, dark greased back hair. He was smiling and had his left hand stretched out towards me. I fully turned and the man whipped his hand back with a look of shock and disappeared. I freaked, I instantly checked the front and back doors (as you do!) but no, all locked and just me and the two cats in the house.
It was about 3pm so I had the house to myself until about 10pm when OH would be returning.
At about 7pm I started to hear footsteps at the top of the stairs. It was a solid boxed in bannister so I couldn't see (and didn't want to either) what was happening. The steps would pace around by the bathroom, then take one step down to the back bedroom door, then walk halfway down the full flight of stairs before pacing back up. One of my cats bolted out the cat flap. The other did that flattened skulking thing and went up the stairs. I heard her at the top (again I didn't want to look as I was bloody scared). I could hear my cat hissing and yowling and the thumps of her paws as she was hitting the closed back bedroom door. After a few minutes she did a yowl, hurtled down the stairs and squeezed herself under the bottom shelf of a bookcase. She looked utterly terrified.
God alone knows how I managed to sleep that night but I did.
Woke up Monday dreading the walk to the bathroom but the hallway was bright and felt cheerful. I got to work and had a few misused calls from my Mum. I called her back and was told that my GG had died at 6am. This was about 10minutes before I got up.
We went to the hospital to say our goodbyes and collect her things before she went to the funeral home. The nurse told us she'd passed peacefully. When she'd gone, an old lady in the bed opposite asked us "Who's Earnie?". We said he was her late husband. She went on to tell us that at around 3pm the previous day, my GG had been sleeping but then had started calling out for Earnie. The most goose-pimply bit for me, was when the old lady said that after a few minutes, my GG had called out "No Earnie, don't go, don't leave me, I'm coming". This was said apparently perfectly clearly, with no hint of any difficulties - bearing in mind she'd had a severe stroke and could only blink and point with one hand and her spoken voice was a gurgle-grunt.
Some may say this wasn't a ghostly occurrence, however, I have no other way of explaining the above.