I have no memory of these stories other than what has been told to me by my parents, but I did have a significant role in them. They involved me as a baby and my grandmother, Doris Daniels, who had passed away sixteen days before I was born.

Doris Daniels, ghost stories.

Story 1.

CowbellMy first ghost story took place when I was only a couple of days old, and I have no memory of it other than from the stories that both my mum and dad told me, who both swore that the story was true. 

In the house where they lived, in Walthamstow, London, they used to have a heavy brass cowbell, similar to the one in the picture on this page, that was hanging on the wall. In the room that the story took place in, there was no fireplace, no open windows or doors, and no way for a draught to have caused the event of this story to happen.

I was only a few weeks old and was at home with my mum and dad. My grandma, Doris Daniels, had died only 16 days before I was born, and I would have been her first grandson. I was in my mum's arms asleep whilst she sat with my dad talking. My mum looked at my dad and mentioned to him that it really was a shame that his mum hadn't lived a little bit longer so that she could have seen her grandson.

At this point, the cowbell, which was hanging on the wall next to my parents, began to swing like a pendulum. It was not a fast swing or a short swing or even just a little movement, but a slow 90° swing in either direction. It slowly moved to the left to a 90° angle, hovered there for a moment and then slowly swang a full 180° degrees in the other direction before hovering there momentarily and then repeating the swing.

It was as if my Grandma Daniels was in the room with us all, signalling that she could see her Grandson.

Story 2.

Doris DanielsMy second ghost story was when I was very young, about two years old, and involved the ghost of my Grandma Daniels again. Once more, I have no memory of it myself, and I only have my mother's stories to relate to.

I had been put to bed in my cot in a bedroom, and my parents were in another room. My mother heard me awake in my cot having a whole conversation, although she could only hear my side of the conversation. She came into the bedroom to see what was happening. I was sitting upright in my cot, having what my mum thought was a one-sided conversation, and she asked me who I was talking to.

I told her that I was talking to the old lady at the end of my bed, and when my mum asked what old lady, I pointed to the end of my cot and said that old lady. She is smiling at me. My mum then asked me to describe the old lady, and I described Grandma Daniels, who had died before I was born, perfectly, including the fact that she was wearing black glasses. The fact that I described the old lady in front of me in such perfect detail was even more convincing because I had said she was wearing black glasses. My Grandma Daniels had become registered blind because of diabetes and wore dark glasses in her later life to protect her eyes from the sun. There were only a few photos of her wearing these glasses, and there was no copy of any of these photos in the house. It would have been impossible for me to have known that my Grandma wore these glasses.

I then apparently said goodbye to my Grandma because she was going. I then spoke to my mum as if this sort of thing happened every day, and it was normal. I don't remember if my Grandma Daniels ever revisited me, as I have no memory of even these two stories. Still, I can honestly say that as I finished writing this story for my website, I got a cold chill very briefly and a feeling that she had always been with me.