The whole place was weird

The whole place was weird. Just taking the ferry across the channel to the Isle of Wight felt like we were traveling to a different world.

Ferry ride over

The hotel was an enormous old estate.

Vintage postcard

The best part about this break was the fact I would be getting my own room, not having to share with my parents. By this point, I had started to feel better from my epic cholera illness. The rice and yogurt I had been fed was nurturing my soul and getting me able to enjoy food again. But the room to myself - that was a highlight.

No snoring father- no bickering mother. At 19 you need some privacy. I was ready for it. This was the kind of place where you booked a half board stay, meaning you had both breakfast and dinner included in your room rate. The imposing old house had plenty of character. The hosts were brother and sister, running the desk and checking us in smoothly. We were shown around the grounds and told when dinner would be served.

I needed some down time. I knew I was tired of being the “obedient child” trying to placate my parents’ quarrels and their issues with me. I had been sick with cholera, so wasn’t able to heartily delight in the English roast beast dinners they felt entitled to whilst in England. I put a damper on their parade.

All I wanted to do was stay in my room. The bed was soft with its big eiderdown duvet. I closed my eyes for a brief nap. After I while, I decided to get up and explore the grounds. I made two new friends -

Two puppies – Gordon Setters I believe, appropriately named Blackie and Whitie.

Where was everyone? We seemed to be the only guests - creepy indeed.

One of the doors from the drawing room - we sat in here for tea

The whole hotel oozed character with its creaky floors and hallways spreading off in every different direction. You know the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland? You get a glimpse of a long hallway with candelabra floating in the darkness.
Not only that, we were being watched. You could feel it!

Jean Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête" - I swear this was happening

At supper, other guests slowly filtered in, but I had no idea where they came from.

Dinner was a somber yet formal occasion. The brother and sister team changed out their hotelier garb for outfits more appropriate for serving dinner. I don’t remember the meal that well – typically English with some roast, potatoes and boiled vegetable. I do, however, remember the conversation I had with my parents.

My mother told us that she had been walking around the grounds earlier. On the side of one of the main hotel’s walls, scaffolding was set up. She saw a man standing up there, and he waved to her. She waved back. He started to climb down, and as he grew closer, she noticed that his clothing didn’t seem quite right for someone restoring a building. It was old fashioned, the way she described it. She suddenly felt uneasy and went inside to inquire about who this man was. They were confused and told her no one had been working up there for months. “What man?”

My father and I spent the rest of dinner teasing her about her ghost encounter. It’s all well and good to have these conversations with the living close by, but a different thing entirely when you have to sleep in a cold room by yourself. Yes, I wanted the privacy. I wanted to sleep well.

Had there been statues nearby, this would have been happening as well

It’s different at night when you are alone in a creaky old house. It was too quiet and dark. I was just lying there, getting more and more freaked out. I had the covers pulled up over my nose because it seemed unseasonably cold for an August summer night. Then again, we were on an island in the English Channel. My elbows were tight by my sides. I didn’t want to close my eyes for fear of missing some supernatural activity. Yet I didn’t want to keep them open to see it either.

I am pretty intuitive about places and knowing whether bad things have happened there. I pick up on that kind of thing.

Suddenly it was 2 a.m. That’s what I remember. I had a strange sensation of a lid closing down over me. I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I opened my eyes I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see. I was pinned to the bed and felt like I was suffocating. Something was restraining me. I was certainly awake. Something was in the room with me - that I knew. I wanted to call out to my parents next door but that option meant piercing the deafening silence in the room. I was frozen in the same position until the first light around 6:00. The oppression then lifted, and I bolted out of bed down the hall to tell my parents what happened.

I’m a believer that something happens when we die. Souls, spirits, whatever you may call them – some form of energy leaves our bodies. Sometimes I think that these energies get trapped. Maybe places have memories too. The walls in a house or building absorb events both good and bad. Have you ever walked into a house and felt an ominous feeling in your solar plexus, like a weight was resting on your chest? Or maybe you have an urge to get out of a place that just feels wrong, and later you find out that something bad happened in the particular room you felt uncomfortable in? Maybe the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. Our bodies have magnetic fields around them that are sensitive to electrical surges; perhaps we react to these.

We all have this ability, but some have a more acute sensitivity than others.

I don’t necessarily believe that an “evil” entity was in my room that night. But I do know something was in there. Some kind of force was circling around me – no intent to cause me harm, but more to share a mood. It was a heavy burden of sorts pinning me down. And to feel like I was in a coffin – a hallucination? Was my body making up some kind of visual scenario to match the feeling I had? Was I seeing what someone else wanted me to see or feel? I wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t a dream; it was an experience.

We left after breakfast for Bristol.

I often wonder to this day who that man was up on the scaffolding.