Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 14

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

Now a mother myself and aware children have a bit of a window into the other world we tend to close as we grow older, I did entertain an experiment with my son. Asking a question not many parents would put to a two year old – very casually over lunch one day I asked “who were you before I was your mummy?”

Unlike an adult who would process the question and reject it with their own reality as a silly question, my son took it as face value and answered me! “Oh, I was Mgumbo,” he said munching on his sandwich. The name always stuck in my mind, because while it sounded made up and like gibberish, yet it reminded me of that 50′s/ 60′s movie set in Africa with Clark Gable and Ava Gardener.

Instead of rejecting or projecting my own interpretation …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 13

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

My life with the paranormal went on the back burner when I married and moved into a lovely ‘normal’ house where I personally never saw/ heard or sensed anything much to my relief and I got busy raising my son and daughter.

The “gift” as we prefer to call it causes a lot of unusual coincidences in my family and appears to be hereditary. My two sisters and I now live literally at three cardinal points on the Australian continent, as far away as we could be from each other without getting wet. Yet, without fail every year – either Christmas, Birthday, Mothers Day – which ever – from three cardinal points on the compass – my mother has stopped counting the times she will get three identical cards from all three daughters or three identical presents.

When my middle sister had a car …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 12

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

I eventually married and had children myself and given my history I was very opened minded to the paranormal – though my then husband was a skeptic. This didn’t bother me, as I didn’t need any validation for my own experiences.

As far as my children were concerned I realized what a blank canvas they were ( as I had once been )and how open they are in their innocence to paranormal experiences – which they accept not as paranormal but as completely normal!

The first hint my son had any type of guides or spiritual friends came only days after his birth. I had had an extremely complicated delivery and had now developed a serious infection from which I was not recovering. My husband had already been given the ‘if she doesn’t improve in the next 48 hours we could loose her’ speech …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 11

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

My elder sister moved into a house only 10 minutes from my Mum and I used to go there and baby-sit her new baby daughter – but now I was an adult and a little more educated about what I had experienced growing up.

My elder sister had joked she thought she had a ghost in her house as well and given our history we had a good laugh….was there no escape?

I can admit I was privy to it once myself – I was in her main bedroom watching TV and it was night and I knew my sister was due home any moment.

I clearly heard the back door open and close and the floor boards creak under the body weight of someone crossing from the backdoor – the kitchen and across the house to the main bedroom where I was.

Instinctively …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 10

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

Having ‘grown up haunted’ with the full spectrum of experiences; full bodied apparitions, EVPs, apports, residual and seemingly intelligent hauntings, as a family we concede we are probably a little ‘sensitive’.

As a teenager I found I did have a receptive audience for my stories amongst my peers but as a result I don’t recall too many ‘sleep overs’ at my house. One friend who did decide she would sleep over had an experience I never witnessed and I only have her word for it. She was going to be sleeping in my bedroom with me, first on the right along the hall.

We were watching TV, when she got up to go to the toilet, first on the left along the hall and to hear her tell it every door in the hall (6 in total) were all wide open when she walked …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 9

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

Growing up with a traditional haunting, poltergeist activity, Ouija Boards (yes we had one, but in the 60s and 70′s we were very naive about their inherent dangers) and EVPs, you can imagine we were fairly open minded but we had strange events in our family even before my father died… in fact before I was even thought of.

Firstly you must understand there is a 12/13 year age gap between my older sisters and myself hence why I was left out of a lot of things growing up. The event that unfolded involved my middle sister and the concept of reincarnation.

In 1957 my Dad was home from Korea and not long discharged from the army and we were getting used to having him home full time as a civilian. I was just a twinkle in his eye as Mum would later tell …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 8 EVPs

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

In the late 70′s no-one even knew what an EVP was. While I have since studied and read up on the paranormal in an attempt to understand what my family and I went through growing up – we did once manage to unintentionally capture a rather impressive EVP.

Only My Mum and I were in the house – my new step-dad was away working. My mum who had been an extremely qualified ex trauma nurse and matron had done the ‘done thing’ in the 50′s and given up work when she married, as was the done thing in those days. Now in the liberated 70′s she was throwing herself back into study as a psychologist (maybe the ghost had driven us crazy and we needed one in the family?) and she had to practice a speech she had to give to her lecturers. Mum …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 7

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

While the “big” and exciting events of growing up in a haunted house always make for the good stories, not everything was intense and amazing… the little things often made to just remind us ‘he’ was still around.

Mum was doing the laundry and going through all the bedrooms and tossing the dirty laundry into the hall where she could scoop it up and take it to the laundry in one trip. Mum noted a number of items; her navy slacks – my new Mickey mouse undies (very important to a 5 year old in the 60′s!) and my sister’s brand new ‘hippy’ shirt. Mum remembers throwing them into the hallway and even them flying through the air in her peripheral vision. It wasn’t until later when she was pegging the clothes on the line she realized all 3 items were missing. Being a …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 6

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

One of the standards of growing up in a haunted house in the 60′s and 70′s before a lot of literature was available on the paranormal, meant we were left struggle with dealing with a haunting mostly on our own. My mother told me she did go to the local church one time in the 60′s when my Pop’s ghost was rather busy and was told she just needed to pray more. She didn’t need to exactly get rid of him, just understand what was going on and no-one seemed to be able to help.

Of course coming to terms with a full bodied apparition that appeared on a regular basis was different to a “poltergeist” and we didn’t even know the word at the time – but we had one of those as well.

Being a recently widowed mum to two teenage girls …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 5

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

Knowing I was growing up in a haunted house in an ‘ ordinary ‘ suburb in an ‘ ordinary ‘ looking house, became the family secret. Most families have their ‘ skeletons in the closet ‘, unfortunately ours walked around…..literally.

The house was a 50′s style bungalow my Dad had financed after coming back from Korea – he and my grandfather both died suddenly in 1967. We often saw my grandfather’s ghost, as did friends and neighbours which did make for some awkward explanations, but much to my personal disappointment no-one ever saw my father.

As a sudden single mum with 3 young daughters and strapped for income my mother took in a boarder from the country who was studying at a local University. One day as the boarder was sitting in the lounge, she saw what she would later describe as an elderly …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 4

Have you read the previous parts of this story? Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 1

While we had many little anecdotes and stories growing up in a haunted house in Liverpool, Australia – we knew it was my grandfather and while it was a little odd we had become used to him being around.

There was only one time we truly felt terrorized and to the best of our knowledge what ever happened, was nothing to do with my grandfather.

The late 70′s were busy – I was now a teenager, my older married sisters had ‘ run home to mother ‘ fleeing bad marriages bringing grand children and pets with them. We suddenly had a full house….again.

The night it started I had a fight with my mother and stormed down the back yard to hide in the dark. I picked up dirt from my step-father’s garden beds and threw it at the fence in the typical rage …

Growing up Haunted in Sydney Part 3

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

My family had long accepted we had the ghost of my grandfather wandering around… literally. My older sisters recounted the sounds of my grandfather going down the hallway to prepare a pre-dawn breakfast many years after he died.

As the youngest I was mostly shielded from these events as they happened but as I got older I became aware of the ” stories “.

I can remember being 17 and waking with the same pre-dawn alertness I recognized from an experience when I was almost 5. I lay there and there was no mistaking the screaming of my senses – something was about to happen.

With my older sisters moved away – there was only my mother and myself in the house. But I heard the door of pop’s room open and close with its distinct “click” and the sound of heavy male footfalls …