Of Ghosties and Ghoulies and Things that go Bump in the Night
As a child I frequently suffered with night terrors. Periods of waking through the night with inexplicable intense fear and dread which led me to scream out until pacified. My parents, after a while, subscribed to the "she'll grow out of it - just leave her to it" philosophy, leaving my older sister, with whom I shared a room, free reign to exacerbate the fear even further by telling me such things as the bogeyman lived in the airing cupboard in our bedroom! I can't blame all of it entirely on her, I will admit to an interest in, even a fascination (possibly macabre) for the supernatural from a very young age. I read innumerable ghost stories, loved Tom's Midnight Garden and would sit for hours in my Grandad's shed listening to the older children in the neighbourhood relating ghost stories. During daylight hours these were all fascinating and would spur my imagination - which would return with a vengeance in the dark hours before the dawn and scare me to dea