RedGage

Let's face it; we all enjoy a ghost story even if we don't believe that spirits exist. I was one of the non-believers but over the years I'm beginning to wonder if there's something in it. 

Several years back I used to take a 40 minute walk into and home from work. The walk wasn't the most inspiring. It was from the outskirts of the city of Norwich UK to the very centre of the city. In order to shut out the noise of the rush hour traffic and to try and desensitise myself from the fumes from cars and buses, I listened to Classic FM on my walkman. The music was quite calming and allowed me to cut myself off from the hustle and bustle that was taking place around me. 

My journey into work took me along Magdalen Street which had been in existence for centuries but the majority of buildings that stood then were Victorian. The street consisted of shops, pubs and restaurants many of which had accommodation above them. At the time, the Council were trying to update the street without damaging the atmosphere of the area. 

On one particular morning I'd gone a short distance along the street; I came to what was known as 'the old Jacquard Club'; an old pub which had become a gay night club and then became part of the Council's plan to refurbish it and convert it into flats. Scaffolding had been erected along the length of the front of the building but had been netted off for safety reasons. As the footpath was blocked off, the Council had placed wooden beams a couple of feet out into the roadway and placed traffic cones on the top to provide a safe pedestrian walkway. 

As I peered through the orange netting surrounding the scaffolding I could see a tall dark gentleman with a beard, dressed in a dark suit heading towards me. There wasn't enough room along the temporary walkway to accommodate two bodies alongside each other so I decided to step into an alleyway which ran beside the Jacquard to allow the gentleman a clear run. I was listening to a gorgeous piece of Edward Elgar as I waited but several seconds passed and there was no sign of said gentleman. I stepped out of the alley, looked through the netting and along the walkway but he was nowhere to be seen. There was nowhere he could have gone – no alleys or doorways – so I just assumed that I'd been so engrossed in my music I'd missed him pass by the alley in which I'd been standing. There was obviously a perfectly reasonable explanation. 

A few days later, again I was walking into work, I passed by the Jacquard and had almost got to the junction of Magdalen Street and Fishergate, the latter of which ran parallel to the River Wensum. On the corner was a cafe, the King of Hearts, which had an extensive glass frontage, both from Magdalen Street and Fishergate. I glanced through the glass and saw a tall, dark man with a beard, wearing a dark suit, accompanied by a black labrador. At the time it didn't click that this could be the same gentleman I'd seen a few days previously but I stepped into the cafe doorway to allow him to pass along the narrow footpath. Again, I was listening to some wonderfully relaxing music by Gustav Holst on my walkman and, again, nobody came past me. It didn't bother me as I assumed he'd either turned round having reached the end of his dog walking or he may possibly have turned left rather than right and gone across Fye Bridge and headed towards the centre of the city. 

I stepped out of the doorway and headed towards Fishergate and Fye Bridge. I looked across Fye Bridge and neither the gent nor the dog were evident. I then looked left along Fishergate and again, no sign of the man or dog. 

I considered fleetingly that this may have been a ghost but, although I continued walkng the same route for a further six years, I never saw him or his dog again. So what, I wonder, could have been the trigger? It was some years after these events that I wondered if there was some connection with the music I was listening to at the time. Both Elgar and Holst are two of my favourite composers. Both of them were English and, rather eerily, I later discovered that both of them died in the same year – 1934. Holst died two days before my birthday in May and Elgar had passed away some three months earlier.  The year that I saw this gent and his trusty hound was 1984 some 50 years after the composers' deaths.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but it certainly got me thinking.

I have no idea what happened and I still don't entirely believe in spirits although I'm aware that some very strange things have happened to people I know and respect. So, is there anything in these ghostly goings on?