In the middle of December, Amy moved to Lower Gornal is a village in Staffordshire close to Dudley. She decided to do it a couple of months ago. It was only a few weeks before Christmas. She really loves cold weather. It's the reason why she like autumn around October/November and winter up till March time. She decided to do it because she wanted to change in life. For her and to be happy. She left her family over 100 miles away in Norwich. For now anyway. Her parents died in an accident a few years back.
Amy had a younger sister named Beth. Beth had 2 kids: Josh and Zoe. Of course, she had some uncles and auties, etc but they live in Ireland. Beth also was a single mother. The father of the kids left them like a couple of years ago. He moved to Germany. He decided that a normal family isn't something for him. That why Amy wanted to settle down and furniture her 3 bedroom house. It might sound like small for 4 people but 2 bedrooms are a good size and one its large than it wouldn't a problem for the divide for 2 parts.
Amy loved her niece and nephew like her own. She didn't have her own. It's not like she didn't want to have kids. She just waits for the right time and right men. That is another reason why she moved. For a better life for her and her sister.
Beth and kids spouse moved with Amy around August after kids finish the school year. Kids would go to Straits school and Beth would work up the road from their school in Bageridge social club. At least Amy would have a few months to sort everything out.
Amy and Beth weren't most religious people. They didn't been going to church. Unless they had to or they feel like it. In the area, you have few. But 1 very inspire Amy while her sister been still living in Norwich. St James' Church had big cementary. Because Amy's hobby was taking the picture and she also like take creepy pictures and this church with an old-style creepy greybeard was perfect for her.
It's finally Christmas. Beth and kids spend a few days with Amy around. They all liked the area. And had so much fun. Mostly after Amy been so busy at her new job, sorting a new place to leave, etc. I had some rest and fun and some lovely food. Yes, it might go fast because just after Christmas Beth had to come back to Norwich and Amy had come back work... Still..... Family time and have some rest before busy a few months before her family will be moving in with her.
.....
Just a day after they went Amy decided that after work she'll go around cemetery take finnaly pictures she planned over a week ago. She finishes at half past 10 at night. It's a perfect time to take some creepy pictures at night. She had a day off the next day because she was doing double shifts over new year's eve and a new year. ...... And now when finnaly she's taking a picture after having permission from a local vicar from St James' Church. She really had a chance to finish her portfolio. She always wanted to send her pictures for a contest. Of course, the subjects of her work would be scary parts of the UK. But meanwhile she was getting ready to leave, after all, a number of ghostly voices had been heard in the churchyard. To start with she thought she's tired and that she hallucinates or partly dreaming. But it was getting more intense. The late time made her decide to go home. The next day she went to a vicarage and talk to a Vicar about that. Vicar Andrew told Amy that in 1881 finally resulting in the local vicar being assaulted by an unknown force. An exorcism finally disposed of the entities. ....
So far she decides to move on. End of the day she didn't want this put her of the area she lives and pictures she took. And still added pictures to her portfolio.
2 months later around Valentine's day place where she works The Woodman was making everything ready for a day. Some people were booking tables for a romantic meal. Also was prepare for people coming for quick drink and food. Also, they needed space for the usual guests. But they didn't expect that the place would start becoming subject poltergeist activity over the last couple of days. In the upstairs kitchen, all the plates were smashed except one which was left in the middle of the floor. A large key went missing only to reappear the following day in the middle of a bed which had only just been made. Perhaps the most surprising activity there, certainly for the staff and customers who witness it (on a Valentines evening), is full pint glasses being lifted off the bar tables and placed on the floor without a drop being spilled. On one occasion a heavy metal spirit measure was thrown in the main bar by some unseen hand. Fortunately, it dropped just short of the intended target, a customer ordering a pint. It surely caused some problems for a bar. they lost some customers. And some refuse to pay.
......
After a story about what happened on Valentine's day, The Woodman become a popular place for fans of paranormal activity and start have more completely new customers. This started Amy having a conversation with a couple of paranormal investigators about what happened to her by a greyviard around new year time. She shows them pictures from the time. I spoke to them about her passion to take pictures, mostly around cemeteries. Which they ask her if like her taking pictures wouldn't wanna join them with their investigating paranormal stories around Sedgley (which wasn't too far where she lives) and the Gornal area. They needed someone with a camera who like some kinda paranormal hobby. Of course, they offer her some small payments each time she goes with them. And yes she did agree to do it for them but only in days off from work.
A few days later they came to her for a chat. It was the first time after a while since she had 2 days off work. Sebastian and Sheldon (because that's what their names were) had something interesting to show and tell to Amy. After the thing, she told them about the church and a greyviard it makes them interesting enough to make a little research. They did find that this leads to The Doppelganger and Ghosts of Lower Gornal stories from the same time scale as the story she knew from a vicar. The following news story (they find a copy in one of the books in Dudley Library) appeared in 1881 and relates to what Beach has tentatively termed ghost riots. That ghosts are seen is, of course, absolutely par for the course, particularly back in the nineteenth century when fairy sightings were occasionally reported in local newspapers. But what is special about community ghost hysteria is that a wider group, sometimes the entire community, are caught up in the excitement. Beach has a handlist of a dozen of these events and the hysteria ranges from unofficial curfews to miners patrolling the streets in an attempt to lynch the ghost in question. Which this actually match slightly to what she saw and knew from the Vicar. And it seems to interest. This is an intermediate case in a newspaper the copied in a library from the time said:
"Great alarm has been occasioned in Lower Gornal district in consequence of its being alleged that the ghost of the convict Martland, who attempted to murder the Rev. J. Rooker the vicar of the parish, has been seen in the churchyard. Scores of people assert that ghosts are seen in the churchyard every night, the result is that hundreds of persons are afraid to be near the church at night. The choir and other persons are so terrified that they refuse to go to the church unless protected by the police. For several nights the vicarage has been guarded by people who are afraid that the vicar will be murdered. The people are very superstitious. This morning a woman asked the vicar to cut a turf four inches square from a grave in which lay a man who could not be at ease because of a guilty conscience, and stated that the putting of the turf on the communion table would cause all the ghosts to disappear. (1881)"
Sebastian tries to show that there are a couple of interesting points here. To start with, why is there a confusion between the ghost of the convict Martland and ‘the ghosts' more generally? It sounds as if ‘the ghosts' are a recent, not a longstanding problem. Have they somehow been called into existence by the treacherous Martland and are they his allies? And another thing, who the hell is this Martland? Well, in 1879 Rooker who was a vicar since 1848, had had a run-in with the head of his choir one Charles Hartland (but don't forget that newspaper editors in the 19th century had almost as little fact-checking skills as bloggers in the 21st). Hartland shot Rookerbut he miraculously survived the shooting even though 2 bullets lodged in his head and on the end Hartland was sent to prison for 12 years of hard labor: the general feeling in the locality was that Hartland had not been himself and many signed a petition for leniency including Rooker, a much-loved village personality. A completely different source, incidentally, reveals that one of his parishioners accidentally attacked the vicar believing him to be a ghost for some reason. Rooker seems to have been one of life's fall guys. One very weird thing in all this is that as of the census 1881 Hartland was still alive and in December there is a record of an attempt to have Hartland's sentence reduced again. In other words, this wasn't Hartland's ghost but a doppelganger! Which this story completely confused Amy. And she wasn't only one. It seems like "ghosts" and doppelgangers might sounds they the same thing? Or what really it can be.
It's been almost a month since Amy was helping Sebastian and Sheldon with paranormal investigating between her working time. While then they been around Sedgley. And, fittingly for a village steeped in history, there is no shortage of spine-chilling stories and eye-witness accounts of scary and ghostly apparitions…. The picture Amy manages to take shows or seems to show a spectral figure emerging from the darkness on Turls Hill bridleway – a route which local historians believe dates back to before 1600 and has been the scene of several ghastly incidents. They manage to find that local photographer Mike, who also manage take the same/similar image on his Flickr page under his username, Derarfni, says: "It all started about 10 years ago, after hearing local stories and reading an article about the ‘Turls Hill Ghost'. "We went down for a laugh, just with simple a ‘point and shoot' digital camera and came back and noticed peculiar occurrences in the photos.
This became a bit of an obsession and we ended up spending many nights, taking photos – which amounted to many thousands, mostly pictures of nothing, but occasionally, say 1 in a 1,000, we had something unexplainable."
It's the reason why Amy, Sebastian, and Sheldon decided to talk to Mike and his friends. Because it Looks like they manage good very good observations.
It didn't surprise Sebastian and Sheldon that Mike and his friends captured something unexplainable on camera. Turls Hill bridleway is known to be haunted by a veiled lady and her two suicidal sons, who shot themselves in the adjoining quarry on separate occasions. Also, a steelworks owner, who once lived in Turls Hill House, at the top of the lane which was also known as The Belgians (which now is demolished), apparently went bankrupt, building a wall around his estate and eventually shooting himself in the quarry.
..............
After this part, they have also been in another part of Sedgley which it didn't been taken any less scary or interesting. After the thing that happens in Woodman, they decided to check some pubs and hotels around Sedgley if they had anything similar or another style of paranormal activity.
And it seems like pubs are notorious sites for hauntings, so it comes as no surprise to discover that not all the spirits at Sedgley's Beacon Hotel, home of the Sarah H. brewery, come in bottles.
Sedgley's Beacon Hotel has been the site of numerous weird and scary happenings
Anthony, a former manager of the Beacon Hotel, tells Amy and guys this following story:
"In the summer of 1994 when I was managing the Beacon I often used to stay overnight for security. I usually slept in the sitting room. In that room is a painting of Sarah Hughes in which the eyes seem to follow you around the room. I suppose you never sleep properly when you are on protection duty, and one night something awoke me.
"My alarm clock showed 3 am. Opening my eyes, I took a quick glance around the room. In the corner by the door to the passage stood a figure. After a couple of seconds, I realized they had not broken into the pub or the alarms would be shrieking.
"I don't know how long I looked at the figure. It was a man in his 50s wearing Wellington boots, dark trousers and a grey or white shirt with an old-fashioned Grandad-style collar and a waistcoat. I have always thought that ghosts were transparent, but he looked quite solid. Suddenly grasping what I was seeing, my heart raced and I shut my eyes tight. When I looked again a few seconds later the figure had vanished. I told my father about the night visitor and described what he was wearing. He said it sounded like the father of the present owner who always liked to go about in old-fashioned clothes."
Pete, another former manager of the Beacon, claims he has seen Sarah herself. He says: "She was walking across the smoke room and through a wall where there is now a conservatory. Fifty years ago there was a door at this point.
"If you stand in the corridor near the main server and listen carefully, you might hear bumps and bangs from upstairs and the noise of someone standing on a loose floorboard, though those rooms are used only for storage. Many regular customers claim to have heard the noises."
Pete's story is backed up by the fact that one of the book's authors, heard similar noises when researching. "At first I took no notice of the sounds, though they were quite loud. It sounded as though someone was moving heavy barrels about upstairs.
"Later the same evening, a casual remark to Aidan, the barman, revealed the story and confirmed there had definitely been no living person upstairs at the time."
...............
After 2 months of investigating Sedgley was June time. And it was getting close for Beth and kids time to move in and Amy notice that she is so busy with a job and investigating for Sebastian and Sheldon that she hadn't much time to do in a house. She was slightly get stressed out. But Sebastian's cousin was a guy who done decorating and was good with other home and handy stuff that 4 of them can sort Amy house and still have time for their jobs and investigating. 8 weeks at the end of the day is a long time. And after what they already found in an area it wasn't much to do for them that Amy could move on with her life and job and Sebastian and Sheldon could move on with taking a break (again) from investigating and their new book and DVD.
Their last thing they decided to check is ghost stories as well a feature prominently in Gornal's history, including shocking incident for a caretaker's assistant at Ellowes Hall School – which now is a sports college. What they could find from the local community website, Yampy, explains further:
"About 12 years ago, Clive Brookes, the school caretaker, left his assistant Phil to lock up the school on the 6pm-10pm shift. Clive is pretty certain that it was a Thursday and there was nothing on at school that evening. Phil had already worked at the school for around six months and so was used to the procedure.
"Before going home, (the caretaker's house is on-site), Clive had taken a floor ‘buffer' to Phil and asked him to take it down a flight of stairs to the cupboard where it was kept. As Phil started to wheel the buffer down the stairs, something attracted his attention down the corridor, so he lifted the buffer back to the top of the stairs.
"He went to check everything out and walked through some glass double-doors, down to the end of the corridor. The staffroom door was locked. He went back to the floor buffer.
"As he started down the stairs again, he ended up dropping the buffer down the stairs as a "bloke in overalls walked straight through the double doors and straight through the staff room door."
"Phil rushed to the caretaker's bungalow, and Clive says that, although he was a big fellow, he was extremely scared. It was a long time before he locked up alone again! "
Also, they find out that over at Upper Gornal Conservative Club, there have been several reports of a monk in a gown, which has apparently been seen by several people in the bar and cellar.
After almost 3 months of work with Sebastian and Sheldon, they got what they needed. It was a very busy time for all of them. Amy apart doing her 2 jobs (pub+work for guys) she manages to make the house ready for Beth and kids moving in. Of course, she wouldn't have a chance doing that without help she got from her new friends and Sebastian cousin. She really missed her sister and niece and nephew so much. Because kids were off school and in the middle of August starts her new job Amy decided that since now she has only a pub to worry about she'll have more time for a family. But when Beth started work 2 weeks before kids would go to school Amy took 2 weeks of work to help her sister. Also, she enjoyed that after what happens in a pub-like in grayviard never happens to her again and she could move on with her life and make her dream come true. Though Sebastian and Shelson really helped her. And when Beth would start her job at the Baggridge Social Club. Yes, of course, her job was cleaner/cater and apart bank holidays, etc. she worked only in a day while kids are at school. It means because Beth does mornings and Amy afternoons/evenings that Amy would be the one taking kids to school and Beth takes them fro school. That why Beth was happy both of them were working not far from home and that Beth works not far from kids school.
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Its December, a year after Amy moved into the area. few months since Beth did. Its gonna be her first proper Christmas in a new place. A few days before that Beth was walking to work through Straits Road, the junction of Cotwall End Road. It was 07.30 in the morning. was surprised to see a 17 or 18-year-old man wearing an orange t-shirt and jeans out with so few clothes on one early cold, frosty morning. Her skin was incredibly pale. The figure walked past Beth, looking right at her but did not speak. Beth was amazed that anyone could have such pale skin and turned to take a second look, only to find that he had disappeared.
But then she went to work and by the time she forgot all about it up till Christmas day..... She told all about to Amy who looked scared. After that, she said what happens to her while they still been living in Norwich. Amy couldn't understand why it happens to them now. While they all lived in Norwich yes.. They weren't happy. And people weren't as friendly but they never had problems with ghosts. But Amy gets to a point that may be becoming a paranormal investigator with Beth is her future..........
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