By (small) demand after my annoyingly cryptic reference to it last night, here follows the account of a frightening incident that happened to my family in 1998. I’ll do this in instalments over the next few days. Please mute me (or unfollow if you must!) if it’s not your thing.

I haven’t told this story in about 20 years so forgive me if I take my time. The last re-telling was in sixth form when a friend prompted me; he had to interrupt at one point as I was so nervous that I chewed through my lip and bled everywhere. (Hopefully none of that this time.)

I fully appreciate that a lot of what follows will sound HIGHLY made up to some people, and I get that. If someone told this to me, I’d be dubious too. I’m not someone who believes there is anything after we die, and that is hard for me to reconcile with what happened back then.

In the mid-90s my Grandma got massively into tracing our family tree and she discovered that we had long-lost relatives in Newfoundland, Canada. In 1997, some of them came over to visit. In July 1998, we went out there – me, my brother Callum, my parents and my aunt and cousin.

We were going over for three whole weeks – I was 14, it was my first time abroad. For all but one night, it was the trip of a lifetime and I remember it very fondly.

Unfortunately, that one night in question just so happened to be the worst of my life. Swings and roundabouts.

We were staying with some of our relatives but Callum and I could sense there were some tensions brewing a few weeks in. Mum and Dad decided to give them a break and let them have their house back for a bit, and we’d go off and find a nice B&B somewhere and visit some new places.

We found a picturesque little town (I won’t say which) and, by a tucked-away cove, a lovely-looking B&B. The sign with the owners’ names outside sealed the deal: they had the same surname as the relatives we were staying with, even though, as it turned out, there was no relation.

The husband of the couple was a cheerful man; his wife much less so. She scowled and tutted in the background as we arrived (Mum has since said she thinks the wife felt we were just lying about the name thing and were angling for a discount.) Sadly, there was no room at the inn.

The husband was genuinely sad about letting us down and ultimately the coincidence of the name helped us. (A peculiar additional detail – it transpired his wife had given birth to their son years ago in the next hospital bed along, on the same night as our namesake relative had.)

He told us (to his wife’s visible annoyance) that they also owned an old house down the way by the cove. They didn’t usually rent it out to visitors but he said he hated to turn us away and that we could stay there for the night. Delighted, we all followed him down the path.

It was a beautiful wooden house, must have been at least a century old, built right up against the rock of the high cliff wall. It was narrow but tall, three floors. (We never went up to the top floor.) As he led us up the long flight of steps to the front door, he hurried ahead.

‘Our sons are visiting and have been staying here, let me make sure they’re gone,’ he said, opening the door for two seconds, shouting ‘Boys?!’ then slamming it shut again. He said they were up in bed (it was 3pm) but if we gave him a few hours, he’d have the place ready for us.

We got into our two cars (my aunt and cousin had a separate one; both vehicles were borrowed from our relatives) and pootled around in the beautiful seaside town until 6pm, then we headed back. Even though we hadn’t specified a time, the owner was standing there waiting for us.

He led my Dad up to the door to sort the keys. As Callum and I, plus our cousin Karl, got out of the car, we all three of us stared at this enormous old boatshed, dilapidated and knackered, opposite the house by the shore. It had been empty earlier. Now, there was someone there.

It was an old man, wearing waders and looking like the most cliched old sea dog. He was sitting in the boatshed entrance on a fold-out metal chair, hands on knees, staring intently at us. He was too far away to read an expression. Mum quietly told us to come away and not stare.

The owner gave Mum, Dad and my aunt a quick tour while we kids flopped on the sofas in the living room. We were gutted to find there was no TV. Still, we'd be leaving the next day. The owner said have a good night, see you in the morning, and left.

We did not have a good night.

Around an hour after the B&B owner left, we were sitting in the living room of the house, except for Dad who was out on the wood-decking porch doing a crossword in the fading light. We were quiet; without saying as much, none of us wanted to go anywhere in the house by ourselves.

The house was very old-fashioned – doilies and little tubs of pot-pourri dotted around, unremarkable art, a few ornaments with a seaside theme. There were few carpets, mostly painted floorboards. The downstairs was essentially just the large living room beside a cramped kitchen.

Eventually my aunt suggested that, in lieu of a TV, we could turn on the enormous, ancient radio on the sideboard by the front window and listen to music. Mum turned it on and got nothing but static for a while, then stopped when the dial seemed to pick up a DJ’s voice. If only.

We all sat still as this horrible, guttural voice came blaring out of the radio, speaking nonsensical gibberish in a deep drawl. It was AWFUL. Mum hastily turned the dial away, but it made no difference - the voice continued. Hurriedly, she turned the radio off and it stopped.

At that exact moment, while Mum and my aunt were saying ‘What was that?!’ and trying to laugh it off, there was a loud, dull thud right behind where I was sitting, near the front door. I thought it was Dad coming in, but saw him through the window engrossed in his crossword.

I exchanged glances with Karl, my cousin. He was eleven. He was the only other one who’d heard the sound – it was like someone dropping a big bag of flour. My brother, who was nine, hadn’t registered it. He was playing with some toys on the sofa near Mum. Then, Dad swore outside.

He’d dropped his pen and it had fallen through the cracks in the porch floorboards. The front door of the house was elevated, it was the level of a second-floor on a regular house. The vast space beneath the porch was knotted with weeds and other detritus with no obvious way in.

Without warning, only ninety or so minutes after he’d said goodnight, the B&B owner suddenly reappeared and said, ‘I just wanted to check how you were all getting on over here.’ That should have been alarm bells straight away. Dad told him all was fine, except for the lost pen.

‘Oh, no problem,’ the owner said breezily, ‘I’ll get that for you.’ Dad told him not to worry, it was almost completely dark now and it could be anywhere. The owner trotted down the steps anyway, got under the porch somehow and returned within seconds with the pen in hand.

‘Here you go,’ he said, handing it to my Dad, who was amazed. There was an awkward pause after that, no-one sure what to say or why he had suddenly come back. Then the owner peered into the living room at us, smiled affably and said, ‘Have you seen the ghost yet?’
We all froze.

The owner must have realised from our faces that this was a stupid thing to say, as he immediately said, ‘Don’t worry, only kidding, sorry,’ and then he (again) wished us a good night and left. We all felt very unsettled by the whole encounter. Dad came inside and joined us.

‘All okay?’ he asked – Dad has always been an unflappable, hardy sort of bloke. He could see we all looked a bit on edge. ‘I might have an early night,’ he went on – it can’t have been 9pm. Mum said she would too, then my aunt said she didn’t want to stay downstairs on her own.