Chester: England's Most Haunted City

The Ghost who Loved Children

"When I was around 15 years old my family - my mother, father, younger brother - and I were living in temporary rented accommodation in Boughton, on the outskirts of Chester, while our newly-bought house in central Chester was being renovated.

Space in the small rented house was at a premium and my younger brother, Mark, and I had to share a bedroom with a double bed. Mark was around 5 years old then. The bed was OK and we usually slept soundly. But then, one night, Mark woke me up crying and screaming. He was really upset.

When my Mum came in to comfort him, he told her he was frightened because he'd seen an old lady come out of the cupboard, walk round the bed and kiss me, before walking back around the bed and kissing him, and then disappearing.

My mother sensibly made light of it and managed to calm Mark and carried him off to sleep in my parents' room - leaving me to sleep alone in the apparently haunted room!

My mother never mentioned Mark's strange experience to anyone outside the family. But then a strange thing happened. She was in the local shop and the shopkeeper must have realised where we lived, because she told Mum that our rented house had previously belonged to an old, bedridden woman.

The old woman had apparently loved children so much, the shopkeeper said, that many of the local children had been invited round to visit her in her room. And that's the room where she eventually died. Now that's weird - and even though my brother Mark is now in his mid-twenties, he still won't talk about it."