Eyes Through The Letterbox.

So I thought I'd get back on track with some of the weird premonitions and ghost stories I have up my sleeve.

Picture it: Blackburn, Scotland. 1983.

I was 13 and my mother and I were back for a 3 week trip to visit family. One of the things I most remember about this visit was that my mother had several parties at my Grandmother's house that would go well into the very early morning.
It was a standard council house, built approximately 10 years after the war, and Gran was the first person to ever live there. She told me when the houses were being built on those fields she said "I'm going to have that first house on the corner, right there." Another fine example of a fact that came from a thought. But I'm digressing.

I always hated that house. There was a very unsettling feeling over it and some nights I was too terrified to get to sleep. It had 3 bedrooms and a massive hall closet upstairs. You'd have to go downstairs for the bathroom. Many a night I would wait until morning before I'd go down there again. I was to find out, many years later, that my mother and cousin, Annette also felt this way.

But back to that summer night in 1983. Everyone had gone home except my mother's childhood friend George. They were having a good natter and they saw no need to end it just because everyone else went home so they continued. For some reason, before he left, I got this crazy notion of eyes looking at me through the letter box on the front door.

My mother was relentless in ridiculing me for that. She walked George out the door and peered through the box and I ran upstairs screaming like a giant girl over it.

A couple of nights later my Gran went downstairs to use the bathroom. It was some time after midnight she later recalled. She heard noises coming from outside. She went into the kitchen, got a knife out of the drawer and went back into the hallway to peer outside the letter box to see if someone was there. She opened it with the knife and looked outside. She said she saw someone standing there and they bent down and stared right back at her.

"GET OOT OF THERE!" She screamed. Whoever it was left.

"I nearly shit ma'self when I saw two een peerin' back at me." I remember Gran saying. What did my bitch troll of mother do? More fodder for her. She told me all about it barely able to contain herself.

Clearly, I put that out into the Universe and the Universe sent it back. I'm glad that it wasn't me that actually had to experience something that unexpected and unwanted though. Even though it happened 26 years ago it still makes my hairs stand up on end.

But Gran's house. Hellish place. I could never stay there alone and, if I did, I'd have to be upstairs and in bed before it got dark outside. It was a corner house, as I previously mentioned, and it's front door was actually on the side. All of the other houses had their doors in front. There was a massive side yard that no one else had and Gran never put anything there. You'd walk into the hallway and the stairs were to your right. She whitewashed it every year so it was very bright and cheery looking. After the stairs was the hall closet, then there was the living room kitchen and bathroom. They all centred around the hallway entrance. The front door had a window on it but when it was dark in that hallway, at night time, you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. The window had frosted glass on it but shadows frequently appeared for no reason and it was usually very startling.

Years after Gran died, my uncle inherited the house. He built a garage for his car directly in front of it and changed the door to a full glass door that you could clearly see through. It made no sense to me. Why change the door for this good view up the street, then stick a great big wall in front of it?

It really made matters worse for me when I stayed there. I was 21, and an adult, but my mind would really get the better of me. I'd start thinking how there's someone behind there waiting to murder me. One night I sat in the living room, well into the evening with a really good book. I felt I was finished at around 2am and wanted to go upstairs to bed. Could. Not. Do. It. I stayed on the couch until morning, unable to sleep. I finished the book. (Annie Lennox by Lucy O'Brian for all you Lennox folks!)

Years later, when I spoke about the house to Finnegan, he told me of a friend who might be able to tell me a thing or 2 about the house's past (or rather) what might have happened there prior to its existence. I had my own theories in my head but I really wanted to speak to this psychic/empath person to see what he'd say.

We spoke by phone. I told him the above stories and about my general creepy feelings about the place. He said, as I was speaking of the house and the dreadful feelings I had, he had visions of a well that poured out seemingly endless buckets of blood. This did not fill me with confidence, however, it confirmed my original thoughts.

I told the psychic that I felt the land held very horrid memories from the Druid time period of Britain. My mother often dreamt of a hooded figure by the foot of her bed when she was a child. In that house. She would also wait to use the bathroom until morning and would not go downstairs unless it was dire.

Those of you that don't know - Druids sacrificed young people to their Gods.
(Google 'Druidism' or go to Wikipedia with it.) I think the land, all around the area of Blackburn (Scotland) probably holds that memory. Can you imagine the terror going through the minds of children on a sacrificial alter? Harrowing.

I think it goes even further. I believe years later, during the period in Britain where Catholics were being slaughtered in the 1600s, Catholics were brought to that general area for their mass executions. Those houses were only just built in the late 1940s, early 1950s. Prior to that they were just fields. For centuries. Who knows what was going on there in all of time.

The general area has a creepy, foreboding atmosphere. Blackburn was, generally, always a safe place at night, but I absolutely hated walking home alone. You always had dark closes to walk through followed by vast emptiness in the dark. There was also this path that you could cut through to get to the cross. (Where you caught the bus to Glasgow.) That was surrounded by trees that hung down low enough to touch the top of your head. Try walking through that at 2 o'clock in the morning. It doesn't half make your imagination run away with itself.

Anyhoo, there's my story about eyes through the letter box and a crash course in Druid times. (Those of you that googled it.) next I'll tell you about the ghost of my uncle paying me a visit.
3Ds
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