Page 149 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

constantly felt that I was been watched. For all the fourteen years we lived there, I had
these feelings about certain parts of the property. But it was the property that was no
longer there that caused the nightmares.
A large chunk of the front of the house had begun to fall away from the main structure and
had eventually been demolished. One room remained and that connected to the cellar!

I had the under stairs door to that cellar from the main hall of the house blocked off and for
those fourteen years that door was never opened!!

Helen had told me stories in the years after we ceased to live there that even turned my
hair on end all those years afterwards. She had been plagued by “nasties” that made her
life a misery as they paraded along the upstairs landing and looked down on her from
above. I must admit that whenever I used that landing to visit the toilet during the night, I
did not waste any unnecessary time and I would never sleep in what we called the visitors
bedroom, that was located halfway along that landing.

At the actual time we had bought the house, that bedroom was the location of a self
portrait of Sir Peter Lely, the court painter to King Charles the Second. The house had
been owned for many years by his direct ancestors after being originally built by the son of
the Estate Manger to Sir Joseph Banks who had lived just a few miles further North.

YORK AND THE SOLDIER
Now we return to York and Crockey Hill Farm. My wife Ruth does not believe in ghosts or
anything supernatural; a more sceptical person you will never find. But on that night at
Crockey Hill Farm......she will freely admit to seeing a Roman Soldier stood at the side of
our bed.
I had woken first and looked across to see this image at the side of the bed on Ruth’s side.
Just a bit hazy, but easy to define and with no face. He was wearing normal full soldiers
uniform and carrying a spear but no shield.

He also looked to be short of leg, his waist was just above the level of the bed, as if cut off
just below the knees! I stared for a few moments and because Ruth was on his side of the
bed I woke her and pointed! I must admit she made little of it, but did acknowledge the
fact that he was there....and then he went...just fizzled away.

Next morning when our lady host enquired about our night, I began to tell the story but she
stopped me and said, “oh, you have seen him then.”
She went on to explain that he is frequently there but does no harm and in fact the reason
that he is standing low down is that in his day the floor levels were different and his floor
was lower!

So even Ruth has to admit now that something is there from another time.