Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

Have you read the first part of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

Growing up in a haunted house where I had seen my grandfather as a young child and my sisters had sensed things and one of their boyfriends had actually seen him as well, made me think as a child seeing dead people was normal.

When I went to school at 5 and started telling other children about my dead grandfather – I was given grief counseling. It took my mum to explain I couldn’t just tell people our ‘little secret’ and I learnt to keep it to myself. Irrespective if our ‘little secret’ was a 6′ 4″, barrel chested man with massive shoulders from years working manually in the mines who just happened to be a ghost.

My middle sister was rebellious and had decided to date a bikie! Mum wasn’t impressed but knew the more she would say NOT to go out the boy the MORE she would – so mum kept an uneasy quiet on the matter. One day my sister announced the boyfriend had nowhere to sleep that night and very reluctantly mum allowed the lanky, tattooed youth a camp stretched in our dining room.

My mum says it was just before dawn when the bikie knocked on her bedroom door and stumbled naked into the room! Mum, an ex trauma nurse thought he was tripping on drugs and tried to keep him calm. The bikie was trying to speak but was stammering and not making a lot of sense – when she offered him a cigarette he was shaking too hard to light it, mum concluded he was having a ‘bad trip’.

Frightened but determined to stay in control mum lit the cigarette for him and made light conversation. “There’s a man out there!” the bikie finally blurted out and mum was skeptical reminding him he was the only man in the house and went to get out of bed and walk outside and show him. The bikie shrieked and cowered and mum just offered another cigarette and allowed him to slowly reveal what had happened.

The bikie claimed he had been awakened by a large man entering the kitchen. The man appeared to be fussing about in the kitchen as if preparing breakfast, which ironically my grandfather had worked at a bakery before he died which required pre-dawn starts. But at some point the older man became aware of the bikie watching him and turned and looked at him. Initially, the bikie’s response had been one of typical bravado as he thought ‘and what are you looking at old man?’ and gave him the general stare back. The old man however stepped out of the kitchen and started across the dining room toward the bikie. All the bikie ever told my mother, was at this point he realized the old man “was not alive” though he never elaborated on what that meant exactly. Maybe he was transparent or only partially formed or appeared spectral? The bikie now transfixed in fear was frozen in terror as the old man stood over him, looked down at the bedridden bikie and said quite clearly “out!” and pointed at the front door. Unable to react because he was terrified, the bikie didn’t move so the old man started to bend over as if to touch the bikie. The boy told my mother “there was no way I was going to allow it to touch me!” and at that point ran into my mother’s room.

My mother who is all of 4′ 11″ led the quivering huge bikie down our hallway as he cowered behind her and she switched all the house lights on for him. My mother said nothing was amiss and the only evidence she saw was that the bed covers were indeed thrown back showing the bikie had exited his bed in a hurry. But when Mum turned around the bikie was getting dressed! “Hey I thought you had no where to sleep tonight?” mum reminded. “I don’t,” he agreed pulling on his jeans, “but I won’t spend another minute in this house.” Mum listened as the noisy Harley drew away from the house and off into the distance. “Thanks dad,” she said aloud and locked the house up and went back to bed.

Written by Jennifer Mills-Young, Copyright 2009

Read Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 3