These things always start innocently. So there we were stuck in one of these old, ancient back street pubs that are always inevitably haunted and the subject of ghosts always crops up. Except this time we followed it through.
After a bit of research the destination was set: Clitheroe Castle on a blisteringly cold November night. Myself, Cem and Monika (yes the other boys in the office chickened out!) and our newly appointment office mascot (my housemate!) were set for a night of discovery. Newcastle being the northernmost point of my travels so far, this was set to be an adventure.
Unfortunately, the journey was not without its problems. With shocking customer service from Virgin, many missed trains and an overworked, irate bed and breakfast manager, the spirits needed were not of the supernatural kind, but more of the intoxicating type. Five hours on the road and we were ready for our adventure – let’s also not forget that a journey without mishap isn’t one worth remembering either.
After checking in to our Hotel we started the preparations. Lots of layers were required as it’s rather chilly up north, camera’s were packed and torches were fitted with new batteries. If there were ghosts to see we were well prepared. It genuinely was insanely cold and as we discovered soon after, quite dangerous too. We decided to climb the castle in the absence of any guides and before long, the treacherous steps took one of our team out.
Halfway down the slippery stoney steps later and Mascot fell, cracking her foot in the process. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, the ghosts did it! So one man half down and us still not knowing where the hell the meeting point was we headed back to the gates. As it turns out there are apparently two sets of castle gates and we were waiting at the wrong ones.
So FINALLY after arriving at the correct location and meeting up with the rest of the group we were ready. Again I could take you through step by step the whole seven hours of the evening but i’m sure you want me to get to the juicy bits. We were taken around the museum, which was interesting, but a little disappointing as a lot of the original features had been covered up with modern fittings and then brought back to the meeting room to meet the mediums. (I’ve deliberately missed out the ‘buffet meal’ that we had which resembled something rather more like school dinners or as Cem so articulately put it ‘prison’ food!)
We had two mediums on the hunt with us. A demonologist called Dan and another medium (who had some sort of apparition speciality) called Jill. After going around in a group, which was annoyingly quite huge, we got split up into three and put with one of the mediums. We went with Dan first. We were all ready and rather excited for the experience as up until that point the huge group of fourteen had sort of killed the atmosphere.
Our first room was upstairs in the museum where we all had to stand around in a circle and hold hands. After much humming Dan started doing his thing…honestly I was a little freaked out. While he was in one corner talking to ‘things’ I had Mascot on one side freaking out about seeing black shadows floating in front of her face and things touching her head and Cem on the other talking in Turkish to one of the spirits. All the while i’m squinting in a corner at something that I swear is waving at me. Weird things definitely happened in this room and I liked Dan, he really made the group connect together.
And so on to the next room we went. This was downstairs in the study, which as part of the museum is set up to look like it would have done when the Lord lived there (which Lord I have no idea, someone called Stanley but we will come to him later). This room was interesting, a lot smaller than the others and because it didn’t have the modern fittings inside I felt I could get more absorbed in the history. We were split again into groups of three or four and given a table each with a glass and little red light. For me nothing much really happened. The glass didn’t move and I didn’t really feel that there was any sort of presence in the room. However, when one group moved out into the hallway we suddenly started seeing weird flashes of light. We all thought that someone was taking a picture in the hallway but when one of the other guys came through to ask us the same thing we realised it was a random occurrence! Lovely, finally some more activity! This happened quite a few times actually, the interference with torches and flashes. In one of the other rooms we thought the girl with the SLR had taken a picture by accident but when questioned she said she hadn’t touched it. I was quite close to her at that point and have to admit her hand hadn’t moved.
After this room we moved to have a session with the last medium Jill. This was based across two rooms that had various doorways connecting them. Apparently a lot of activity can happen in doorways and I have to admit they are rather scary when all the lights are off and you can’t see very far into the other room. I was stood next to Monika quite far into the room, Cem was stood with one of the doors closed behind him and Mascot was on the other side. While we listened to Jill, who was going on about some children that were in the room, Cem suddenly gasped and moved. Upon questioning he said he felt something rush through him and that it freaked him out (he did look rather unsettled!) and then five minutes later said he felt something grab and pull his hand. So it seemed that he was quite connected to this room! I was just glad that someone was experiencing something! I hate to admit it but as the chicken of the group I was rather nervous to experience things, which probably stopped me being open to connecting to any spirits that may have been there.
After this vigil things started to wind down. We were put back together into a large group again and this sort of killed the atmosphere. The idiots that came in a big group kept sniggering like school kids in the back seats of a bus and when that happened all concentration was lost. People were focusing more on their annoying presence rather than what was going on in the room. It was about 1.30am by this point too so because of tiredness tolerance was low. We had one more small go in a room upstairs where Jill’s torch started having a life of its own and flashing on and off (Monika didn’t know at this point that this was happening as she was snoozing leisurely on my shoulder) then after that it was home time. We were definitely all looking forward to a warm bed and some sleep, it had been a long night!
After a quick snack of some chocolate rolls (Cem took the box!) we retired to bed. A nice check out time of 11.30 am meant that we didn’t have to rush in the morning and weren’t too tired for the journey home. In fact we got a nice taxi man (who Cem pointed out was dressed in leather trousers and a yellow fishermans jacket) to take us to a place called Waddington for a casual pub lunch and then pick us up again to take us to Preston.
And so as 3pm approached and we boarded our train back to reality we went…and a three hour train journey sat on the floor in between carriages. Seriously, what is it with us and Virgin Trains! However our camaraderie was not lost, naps in awkward positions were had, sweeties were shared and a short game of eye spy was played (Cem, please come prepared with better games next time!) and as the clock struck six we pulled into Euston station ready to head home and get a good nights sleep before work on Monday.
All in all a fantastic Demo team adventure was had! Would we do it again…YES. Will we force the rest of the boys to come next time…OF COURSE. Should we bring Mascot? MOST DEFINITELY, we just won’t let her navigate any steps by herself next time.
