My name is Gerald J Tate, Gerry for short, and I have a twin brother named Billy, who by the way is NOT very happy about me writing this short episode of an event which happened to him. However, it happened so long ago now, that I don't think its a big deal anymore, and he'll live, so I'll start.
Billy was married when he was sixteen, maybe seventeen. I'll spare you the details, but as some expected, it only lasted a few years. However, Billy got custody of his two young children. Not because his wife was an unfit mother, I must stipulate this, but for another reason we don't really need to go into. After about a month though, he was struggling to cope with sitters etc, and it was decided that my mother would look after the children full time. Anyway, Belfast in those days, mid-70's, had many streets, with rows of small houses facing each other. Two up, two down, and an outside toilet, with tin bath hanging on the small yard wall. Unless of course you were a bit better off, then you had an extension with bathroom or shower. (we were lucky in that dept.) Now my mother and father, (and now Billy's two children) lived in such a street. A street where Billy and I where raised from babies, and its important that you remember the name-FROME Street. At the bottom of Frome Street another street cut off at ninety degrees, or an L shape if you like. This street was named--TERN Street, got that?
All the streets surrounding were all named after British rivers. River Frome, river Tern, river Dee, river Tamar, river Severn, river Wye, river Solway etc. All street names. The list goes on. Anyway, Billy decided to buy a house that came up for sale in Frome Street, almost directly facing our parents house. This would be much better for him, in that he could be with the children a lot more. Also, it would be close to the big aircraft factory, (Shorts, and now Bombardier) where we both worked as airframe fitters, although Billy changed to be a plant maintenance fitter soon after coming out of his time.
He had only been in the house about a week, when about two o'clock in the morning, he rapped our parents out of bed. I was on nightshift and knew nothing of this until the next day. But although my brother and I were also best friends, he made my mother promise not to tell me what had happened in his house that night.(although to this day, I'm still not sure why.) Next day I awoke about 11.30am. I always, and still do, find it hard to sleep when I'm on nights. I lived close by with my wife, and I went to visit my mum. Anyway, I was in the kitchen when I overheard my mother and my aunt, who always called in each day, talking. I heard my mother say that Billy was in a terrible state when he got them out of bed that morning, sweating profusely, and barely able to speak. He claimed he had seen a ghost in his house. When I entered the room where my mum and aunt were talking, I asked how everything was, and my mother clammed up, acted her normal self, and said nothing about it. But my curiosity had been more than aroused, and I was determined to find out. Then, when Billy came in from work, he exclaimed he was going to move in with them for a while, even though they were already overcrowded enough as it was. He claimed a couple of rats had gnawed up through a floorboard, and he had seen them in the living room. He hated rats, and had I not overheard my mums conversation, I would have thought this a quite plausable explanation.
I tried to get info about it over the next two weeks, and I'm sure my mother thought I knew something, but still she said nothing. Then Billy and I, and some friends went out to our local club for a few drinks. We were all merry, and I urged one of my friends to start a conversation about ghost's. Even though Billy was nearly drunk at this stage, I noticed him go quiet when the word ghost was mentioned. "A load of bloody nonsense," I said, to the six of the others in the company. "I'm 100% convinced there is absolutely no such a phenomenon as ghosts." Billy however remained silent, but I noticed him stare in a funny way at the floor. I used to do a bit of angling, and I knew I had to keep fishing at him if he were to take the hook. "What do you think Bill?" I asked him. He remained silent and shook his head. Then he opened his mouth to speak, but thought the better off it. He was almost on the hook. "What a load of crap, this all is," I stated loudly, trying to goad him.
"Is it?" He said, and gave me a funny stare. Then my friend, Gordon, who I had filled in earlier about it, cut in. "I agree with Gerry," he stated. "There's just no such thing as bloody ghost's. They just don't exist, and anyone who says they have seen one, needs to get onto a shrink." We all laughed at this, and we could see Billy wasn't happy.
"What do you two know about anything?" Billy answered, almost angrily. "I can tell everyone of you here now, I know something that you don't. I've se..." Then he broke off in mid sentence and stopped talking. He still refused to talk about it for ages, and it was only with a lot more pushing at him, that he took the bait and finally came clean.
He had gone to the club that night and had a few beers, he exclaimed, but he wasn't drunk. Then he came home and went to bed about 11 o'clock. He had to rise early for work the next day. It was a summer night, and very humid. Unlike me though, this was a thing that wouldn't normally worry Billy. Because Billy could have slept on the side of a razor blade under most conditions. He said the room was so warm that he lay on top of the duvet. Then later, he felt so cold that he awoke. It was 1.55am on the clock, and the room was ice cold. He said it was almost like being on the inside of a giant freezer. He sat up in bed, wondering what the hell was going on, and shivered badly. Then his bedroom door, which was not closed tightly, but only closed over three quarter way, slowly opened. His first thoughts were burglars, and he reached over for an old baton he had kept under the bed. But it wasn't there, and he remembered one of the children had been playing with it earlier and must have left it downstairs. He said at this stage everything happened very quickly. The room was in semi darkness, but a street lamp outside reflected some light through the curtains. Enough to see pretty clearly under the circumstances. According to Billy, a young victorian looking lady with long flowing black hair, wearing an old fashioned blue dress and a large locket with a shiny stone around her neck, floated into the bedroom, and moved slowly along. Then she turned and moved around behind the bedroom door. She didn't look at him and kept her arms firmly down by her side the whole time, which was only a few seconds, he guessed. Billy immediately flicked the light switch and pulled the door back, but there was no one there. He said he almost fell down the stairs in his panic to get out. Then he couldn't pull the front door open, which seemed to be jammed. He didn't know where he got the strength from, but he almost wrenched the door of its hinges. He never went back to that house, even though my father kept telling him it was only a combination of street lighting, imagination and lager. He also had to suffer some sexual jibes from our friends that evening, about the girl, and he was clearly embarrassed. I would not have mentioned it, had I known the way they would behave toward him, and the way he would react to it.
Now here is the part where I feel the story takes on a very interesting twist. About 15 years later, I was transferred from the Lear jet to a new squad, who's order book had almost shot through the roof. I was to work on the engine nacelle of the RJ. However, there were about twenty of us transferred, and eight of us decided to put in a kitty for our tea etc, (about 50 pence, or 1 dollar a week each.) About eight or nine month's later though, one of the older guy's retired. He was a fitter by the name of Jimmy Murphy, an old ex R A F guy. His replacements name was Robert, but for the life of me, I have forgotten what Robert's surname is. Anyway, we ask Robert if he wanted to join the tea syndicate and he agreed wholeheartedly. Now we were all a friendly little bunch who took our two daily tea and lunch breaks together. It was only about Robert's third day with us, when someone pointed to an article in the morning newspaper of a violent poltergeist that was supposedly tormenting a family in a house in Wales. This entity would break ornaments etc. Someone said the newspapers would print anything to get a story. But then Robert came out with something that was to change my own personal perspective and belief in the supernatural from here on in.
This is Robert's story. "My aunt and uncle had a ghost, or poltergeist in their house," he stated to us, matter of factually. "It was in the early sixties. At first it was just appearances and stuff like that," he claimed. "Yeah, at the start the thing would only move personal belongings etc, and hiding them was a daily event, but within a couple of years, it had become more and more mischievous toward them, and the personal belongings would be harder and harder to find each time. Then it became violent. It had tried to push my uncle down the stairs on at least two seperate occasions within the year. Large pieces of furniture would also be moved about. But the final straw came for them when they left the house for a few minutes to go to the corner shop. When they re-entered the house they found that their sofa and chairs had been moved upstairs to the bedroom. This would normally have taken two or three men a good half hour."
He went on to state that they had left the house with just some very light personal belongings only, and the clothes on their backs. They were afraid of this thing somehow getting into the furniture and moving with them.
"Where was this house?" I asked, puzzled, and getting very interested.
"It was in a street called Frome Street," he answered. "Not far from here."
Well, I can tell you, I almost choked on my sandwhich. "It wouldn't have been about five or six doors up on the left hand side from Tern Street, would it?" I asked him, with a shake in my hands, my senses now alerted to the full. "Now how the f--k did you know that, because i've never mentioned this before, to anyone?" Robert stated, bemused. I stared at him for a moment before speaking.
"Well, I know this," I answered, "because my brother lived in that house about mid to late seventy something, and he seen something in there as well," I answered.
So there it was. How could this be a coincidence? The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and we were both in a bit of a trance, if you could call it that. Then one of the others clapped and laughed. "You nearly had us there boys," he said, smiling. Then they all joined in, thinking we had made the whole bloody thing up for a joke. It was only when we both swore under oath that they eventually believed us. I still think a few had some doubts though. But I can assure you, if you have read this account thus far, then what I have written is the solemn truth. And although I have spoken of it at times in the past, it is the first time I have put it the story onto print. I'm almost glad in a way to have unburdened myself. I would state very firmly however, that to date, I have never witnessed a personal encounter of that nature myself, and I hope I never do.
I have heard of two more things of this supernatural nature that I may write about sometime. However, they are simply second or third party hearsay. The actual wording used in this account may not be exact, but from my memory everything I have stated here is the honest truth. The only other thing that may confuse you is my photo on the den, regarding the timing of this story. Simple-The picture is at least fifteen years old, (it was all I could find at the time,) and although people tell me I haven't really changed much, well, my knees ain't buying it.
Udate--An old guy in work has just informed me that he and his wife have had the ghostly presence of a young girl in their home for the last thirty something years they have lived there. She does them no harm, but simply sits on the end of their bed for a few seconds, sobbing. She once walked between him and the bathroom sink when he was shaving, before disappearing. This unerved him a bit. But I can't say his name, because like my brother, he wants no one else to know.
My own feelings are that he's probably right for not wanting people to know, because look what happened to the guy who bought the Amityville home. Hounded by souvenir hunters and all sorts of head cases, etc.
Although if I was to see a little dead girl crying on my bed, you wouldn't see me for dust.
Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and I hope you found it helpful or interesting in some small way.
And don't let these things frighten you. My own belief is that it always happens to someone else.
Best wishes---Gerry
UPDATE
Although Frome Street is sill there, all the little terrace houses have been knocked down and new much improved houses built in their place. The street has been widened to allow the people to have small front gardens. The house built on that spot would sit back about ten feet, and I drove passed it just last week. A guy was washing his car outside it, but there was no way I was going to frighten him by asking him about it. I do wonder though, did it leave the house with the rubble, or does it still occupy the same space.
I think my dad had some photo's of the street stashed away somewhere, and I will look them out and paste them on here if I can, along with the new developement of From Street.
Again, all the best.
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