To continue with my true ghost stories during Hallowe’en month, I am going to cheat a little today as this tale isn’t an experience of mine, but my father’s. I am including it because the strange experience does involve me, even though it took place before I was born. I have called it, ‘Spooky’.

This is a tale told to me by my father and occurred when my mother was a few months into her pregnancy with me. It was at the time they were living with my grandmother that my mother became pregnant, but for reasons I’m not sure about, perhaps simply superstition, they hadn’t told anyone their news.

In the middle of the night my father woke up to see a man he described as a monk sitting on a chair in the bedroom. My father insisted he wasn’t dreaming, the man was real. He got out of bed and went over to him and it was only as he reached him, the monk disappeared.

A few days later, he was talking to a work colleague who claimed to be a spiritualist whose nickname was, Spooky. They were arguing over the existence of ghosts. He asked my father if he’d ever seen a ghost and he told him about the monk. Spooky, who had never even met my mother, confidently replied, “I will tell you about it. Your wife is expecting.” My father denied it. He continued: “Go home and tell her she is. The man you saw, visits fathers-to-be whose first born will be a son. He came to tell you, your wife will have a hard time, but also to reassure you both everything will be ok.”

He was correct, I was a boy, my mother did have a hard time during my birth, but everything turned out ok in the end.