{Little Ghost Story: Postscript}[10th January 1974]

[Redbook2:31-32][19740110:0053]{Little Ghost Story: Postscript}[10^th January 1974]

Thursday 19740110.0055

            I have just reread my diary entry for Tuesday 19730307.2359*.  It concerns a night I spent in the basement at [my school] House, in theory and as far as I know alone, during which I repeatedly heard swift footsteps, a door being banged, and (possibly) whispering.  I put it down afterwards to ordinary causes (although none such have yet occurred to me [as reasonable <197401101243>]) until a year or two later I remembered my questions at the time.  Since then I have told it, mostly in fun, as ‘my own true ghost story’.

            I have a postscript.

            Today I said to [the Housemaster] (words to the effect of): ‘Did you know [the House] is haunted?’  He asked if I knew the stories.  I said yes, I knew the [HO] *story, and began to explain my own.  When I told him of the noises, he asked where they had seemed to be.  I said from the kitchen – not directly, but round through the passage (ie by the stairs).  He asked if I meant the stairs.  I said yes, that was exactly what I did mean.

            He then told me that it was always at the foot of the stairs that footsteps were heard – including by [his wife], who rushed out with a poker for the burglar and found – nothing.  But she had heard measured footsteps.  I think he said that [the previous housemaster] also heard them or something similar.  But [the previous housemaster] once entered – I think – […] Dormitory, to see an old man standing in the room.  He asked the old man – whatever one does ask – and the old man vanished.  One has to know a little of [the previous housemaster] to know that this story is unlikely to be purely a figment of his imagination.

*[Redbook1:291-294]

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