The Lady In The Bay Window: A True Story Of A Haunted Sheffield Home

0:17

Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past one ghostly tale at a time.

I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this eerie journey through the pages of history.

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Picture this, a realm where the supernatural intertwines with the annals of time, where the echoes of the past reverberate through haunted corridors and forgotten landscapes.

That's the realm we invite you to explore with us.

Each episode will unearth stories, long buried secrets, dark folklore, tales of the macabre, and discuss parapsychology topics.

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From ancient legends to more recent enigmas, we're delving deep into locations and accounts all around the globe, with guests joining me along the way.

But this podcast is also about building a community of curious minds like you.

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So whether you're a history buff with a taste for the supernatural or a paranormal enthusiast with a thirst for knowledge, Haunted History Chronicles is your passport to the other side.

Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge, because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history.

1:58

And now let's introduce today's podcast or guest.

Welcome to another episode of Haunted History Chronicles.

Today, we're diving deep into a story that blends the eerie and the extraordinary with the touch of heartfelt humanity.

2:20

Picture this a quaint house in Sheffield, seemingly ordinary from the outside, yet brimming with supernatural mysteries that have unfolded over nearly two decades.

The home holds tales of ghostly figures, unexplained shadows and eerie whispers.

2:41

My special guest today is the author behind the compelling book The Lady in the Bay Window, in which he is chartered and penned down these first hand supernatural experiences from the time he and his family moved into his current home.

2:57

Writing under the pseudonym of William Graves, the author has not only chronicled the haunting events but also turned his personal account of life in a haunted home into a beacon of hope with sales of his book surpassing 30,000 lbs.

3:14

All proceeds have been generously donated to Cavendish Cancer Care, a charity close to his heart.

So get comfortable as I'm joined by my guest and we begin to delve into the haunted history of this Sheffield home and explore the spine tingling encounters that inspired a best selling book and uncover the heartwarming story of how a haunting became a powerful force for good as we explore the personal motivations behind the writing.

3:47

Without further ado, let's welcome.

My special guest, Hi, thank you so much for joining me this evening.

Hi, lovely to see you, Michelle.

Do you want to just start by giving a little context to the book and you know, the background of the book, the house that it's, it features and it's about in terms of maybe sharing a little bit about how you came across this property in Sheffield and, and what initially attracted you to, to moving into it.

4:19

Yeah, sure.

I mean, it all starts back in November 2004.

So I was on the property I was looking for my first property with my fiance at the time and a property did come up in a quite a quiet suburb in Sheffield on the South side of Sheffield that we both really liked.

4:37

But unfortunately the owner pulled out of that deal a couple of weeks before everything went ahead.

So I'd start searching for property again and we came across one literally the next day.

My fiance phoned me while I was at work and said there's a property just around the corner from there.

It's a 3 bed semi attached.

4:54

It looks a nice place, we should go and have a look.

So I ventured to the property and had a quick look from the outside on a Friday night, knowing that I'd got the viewing on the Saturday and the viewing went well with my fiance.

We walked out and said we love the house, we've we've got to have it.

5:09

It needed some TLC.

It looked a bit sort of brickwork, looked a bit dark and weather worn on the outside and the window frames needed replacing.

But on the inside it was really cosy and sort of the homely house.

We knew that somebody had been in and refitted the whole house in in the prior six months before it had been put for sale.

5:28

And that's pretty much all we knew about it now.

We put an offer in and the offer was accepted.

And a couple of weeks before I moved into the property, a good friend of mine, Craig from work, who was a mechanic, was taking me out for the night.

We were going downtown for a Christmas too with our work colleagues.

5:46

And he, he drove to my mum and dad's house about 7:00 or 8:00 on, on a Saturday night.

And as he pulled up outside in his very, very chubby course he had at the time, which was sort of the in thing to have the old fast and furious days with the loud exhaust and, and blue headlights and things.

6:03

And he pulled up and he, he picked me up and said, I hear you've, you've purchased your first house.

And I said, yeah, yeah, it's, it's only around the corner.

And he said, oh, let's, let's go and have a look before we go to the bowling alley to meet everyone from work.

And as we drove round to the house, I sort of directed him in and I said, it's just down this hill here.

6:21

If you just drop down the hill and I'll tell you it's on the left hand side in a second.

And he pulled up outside.

Bear in mind, this was a cold, dark December night.

So there's pretty much just the street lights outside that you could see the properties from.

And we looked up at the house and I sort of went down, looked up at it's quite high up off the roadside.

6:41

And I said, it's, it's that one there, buddy.

And he he sort of bent across and looked up through the window past me because we were facing down the hills on the left hand side and he was driving.

And as he looked up at the house, he sort of sat back into his seat and looked at me and said, it looks like a lovely house, but who's the lady in the Bay window?

7:02

And I looked back up at the house and said, that one there, it's, it's number 333.

And he sort of bent back across me again and he pointed his oil stained finger from being a mechanic up at the window and said, yeah, I'm looking at that one number 333, who's the old lady in the Bay window?

7:19

And literally, I looked two or three times and couldn't see anything.

I, I couldn't see what he was seeing for for sure.

And he started driving off down the road and sort of shrugged his shoulders And I looked at him and I couldn't let it go and just said, just tell me what you've just seen.

7:38

You're winding me up.

Is this, is this a joke?

And he said, no, there's, there was an old lady in, in the window.

I said, OK, what, what did she look like?

And he said, well, she's probably in her seventies, 80s.

She had a short grey perm.

She had a dark cardigan on a white blouse.

And she has stood with her arms stretched out onto the Bay window upstairs, the bedroom window, which is now the master bedroom window.

8:00

And she had a real piercing stare.

She was staring straight at us like she didn't want us being outside the house.

And at the time I didn't think much of it.

I was a 19 year old lad, I'd just bought me first house for the first time.

I just thought he was a work friend trying to wind me up.

8:17

Didn't think much of it at all and didn't really.

Well, I was a full blown sceptic, nothing paranormal had ever happened to me so I had no reason to believe in anything beyond our realm if you like.

And that was the first sighting of what I've now become to know of Mrs. Tompkins.

8:34

Now, just to let you know about the book side of things, I have changed all the names and the address and everything in the book because it is still my family home.

So my name's not actually William Seagrave.

Unfortunately, it's a pseudonym.

And I think that's absolutely right.

I mean, you've got to maintain privacy.

8:50

And given that it is the family home that you're still living in, you don't just want anybody wandering and turning up having found the details in the book and thought that's an interesting location to go and, you know, scope out.

So yeah, no, I think anybody would completely understand that one.

9:06

Yeah.

So you move into this home, you've kind of dismissed this first initial kind of encounter with your friend as maybe a bit as a bit of bit of a wind up you you kind of said that you're a sceptic.

Do you?

Recall the first moment you personally experienced something that you thought was really unusual in terms of activity, something that happened.

9:32

I think there's been loads.

I mean, in the years I've lived here, I've now been here pretty much 20 years.

We'll come this December, it'll be 20 years I've been in the house.

The, the things that have happened here, we've had shadow figures walk past doors that multiple people have seen, not just myself, multiple visitors and friends and family have seen.

9:53

We've heard footsteps, voices.

There's been poltergeist activity in the house, even to the stage of five very sharp knives been stuck in the floor two inches deep in the floor.

And there's actually been, this is the bit that kind of gets me.

There's been four, sorry, five different sightings by 4 different people of the same or what's seemingly the same old lady from the description.

10:16

I haven't seen her.

I've been here nearly 20 years and I haven't seen her but the four different people that saw her didn't know each other so had no prior warnings or could have could have known what had happened.

And to go back to your question as to what was the first thing that kind of turned my mind because I am now I class myself as an open minded sceptic so I am still sceptical about things.

10:38

I'll always look for the the logical explanation if you like to things and and try and fathom what's actually happened and try and debunk things is probably the best way to put it.

But the first time that something really sort of creepy happened to me, either I could not explain logically.

10:56

I was sat in the front room with my wife now, so the the fiance I was with when I was 19 didn't work out.

Unfortunately, we weren't our separate ways after about six months.

I've now been married for the past four four years, but we've been together for the last 10 years and it was probably about it was only about three or four years ago, though.

11:15

I sat on the sofa with her and the doorknob at the bottom of the stairs.

It's just a normal door handle that's sort of a spring loaded door handle.

We were sat having a glass of wine one night.

It was a nice dark winters evening and we were talking into a first glass of wine together and having a chat about what we've been doing that day.

11:35

And then at the corner of my eye I sort of saw and heard it's a it's a creaky door as you'd imagine in a haunted house.

It's a creaky door and kind of heard the door handle sort of trying to move.

And then I said I kept on looking at it as we were chatting and the door handle came down.

11:53

Now these are spring loaded door handles, so it can't just happen.

There has to be somebody exerting a pressure or force on the other side of it for it to happen.

There's nobody else in the house.

And the front door was locked.

So I watched the door handle come down.

I watched the door creak open, probably about 8 inches wide as I looked through the gap into the dark, the darkness of the the bottom of the stairs.

12:16

And as I tilted my head, My wife at this stage is watching the same thing that I'm watching.

We're both a little freaked out.

And I sort of bent my head around, just said hello.

And as I said hello, the door handle snapped up and the door slammed shut.

And I ran to the bottom of the stairs and looked upstairs.

12:33

And there's nobody there.

Didn't hear any footsteps run away.

I would have heard them.

There's only us two in the house.

It just really sort of, that was the first thing I'd seen with Mariner Hayes.

I've, I've heard things, I've heard voices, I've heard footsteps, I've I've seen the odd shadow pass a door.

12:49

But this was the first sort of physical thing I've seen in front of me that that really opened my eyes to what actually could be going on here.

And I think one of the really compelling aspects of of reading the book and kind of discovering more about the experiences that you've had over, like you said, this almost 20 year period.

13:08

I think what's so fascinating is that these do seem to be shared experiences.

So for example, the the moment that you just described, it's something that you and your wife were seeing and experiencing together, which adds real credibility to, I think any kind of encounter.

13:24

Likewise, to have so many different people with no connection, with no shared prior knowledge being fed to them, describing exactly the same figure in that manner just again, adds real credibility.

13:41

Because this wasn't something that you were kind of singing from the rooftops, if you like, and announce it to everybody.

No, no, no.

And don't get me wrong, it took me a long time to actually think about.

I wanted to write the book and I'll tell you how that came about.

In essence, I wanted to write the book to raise money for a cancer charity that had helped my mum.

13:58

So I'd I'd been doing a lot of sponsored dog walks and raising money for about two years.

In the first two years of my mum's condition of having breast cancer and I had to have an operation on my knees.

So my, my long dog walking days were over and I thought there must be something else I can do.

14:15

And a good friend of mine came round to the house.

He was fitting some electrics on the outside of the property.

He actually used to live in the property.

He used to rent A room off me.

And if you've read the book, you'll notice there's quite a few friends and family that have have rented rooms in the property over the years.

14:33

He was one of them, a chap called Doug.

Now the other chap who was inside Ian, who's also mentioned in the book, was sat on the sofa and, and they invited Doug to come in and get some, some lunch while he was doing some work for me.

And when he came in, he said, come on then tell me what's what's happened, what creepy stories, what paranormal things have happened lately?

14:52

And I was laid there with a brace on my leg, couldn't really move a lot.

And I, I started to tell him the the most recent thing that had happened and it's one of the last stories in the book.

Now I basically on a normal, what would have been a normal weekend on the Friday night, myself and my wife were the only two in the property.

15:12

She'd gone to bed just before me and I walked upstairs to get in the bedroom.

Now when I walked up the stairs just normal.

I put the dogs away to bed downstairs.

I came upstairs and as I walked into the bedroom, I saw a strange coin in the middle of the floor.

15:29

Now this was strange because both myself and my wife pride ourselves.

I'm really looking after the house and it's always nicely hoovered and there's nothing ever left out or out of place where we try to be as best we can as I'm sure we all do.

But this coin was sat in the middle of the bedroom floor and I bent down to pick it up and realise it was an American coin.

15:48

It was an American 1 cent piece.

And I looked at the date on the coin and it was dated 2014.

And I thought to myself why is this here?

And kind of looked at my wife and said to her, what's this about if you put this on the floor?

16:04

And she said no, it's nothing to do with me.

And I didn't think much of it.

I put it in the top drawer at the side of my bed.

And I went about my night sleeping the next day on the Saturday.

So that was Friday, Saturday, my wife went to bed about an hour before me.

I was watching something on the television.

I put the dogs away.

16:19

I went up to bed.

I walked into the bedroom.

The same thing happened.

I looked down and saw a coin in the same place on the floor.

Now I bent down and picked it up and, and the date on the coin, it was dated the same date and I kind of looked at my wife, woke my wife up and said which is not what you want to do 2 nights on the trot and said you, you must have put this here, you must be winding me up.

16:41

Now she's not the sort of person to be a practical joker.

So she kind of looked at me and said just it's not me.

I've, I've not done it, just put it away and and get in bed.

So again, I put the coin in my top drawer and I went to sleep again.

16:58

This time I'm thinking a little bit more about it because it's happened two nights on the bench.

On the Sunday, I hoovered all the house, meticulously hoovered all the house, thinking I don't want to find this coin again.

It's very strange.

Now the prior night I've actually gone back in my top drawer to see if that coin was there.

17:16

There were no other coins in there.

So I assumed this date, this coin dated the same date, must be the same coin.

On the Sunday, I walked upstairs to go to bed.

Wife's already gone to bed just before me and in the middle of the staircase that I knew I'd hoovered that day was an American 1 cent piece with the same date on it.

17:34

Now at this point I ran into the bedroom and sort of shouted my wife and said you must have put this on the stairs, there's no way this has reappeared.

Again, I checked in the drawer, it wasn't in the drawer so I assumed again it was the same coin and she wasn't happy that I'd woken her up and said just give it here, I'll put it on the bedside table.

17:51

What is it with you in this coin sort of thing?

And she put it on the far side of the bed.

Now this is where the old lady has now been seen twice in that Bay window.

And the next morning I got up as normal.

I actually went to bed that night Googling why am I finding American coins in my house?

18:09

And I went to bed and woke, awoke in the morning to get in the shower to go to work.

I was working from home that day.

But as I got in the shower, took my towel on the on the railings and was having a nice shower for about two minutes until something went slap on the back of my cough and I looked down.

18:27

And before I looked down, I knew what it was going to be.

And I've never had anything thrown at me anything like that.

There's been poltergeist activity in the house, but not necessarily towards me.

And there it was, this American coin, same date on it, laid in the bottom of the bathtub and excitedly.

18:44

Everyone thinks you'd be scared about things like this.

I've been here, like I say, nearly 20 years now.

Things do scare me, but this didn't this excited me.

I jumped out of the shower, wrapped my towel around me and ran into the bedroom and said, you're not going to believe what's just happened to me, to the wife.

And I explained it and I put the coin on my bedside table and took a photo of it and it had a little water droplets around it.

19:06

And I said, leave it there, don't move it.

I want to see if it moves again.

And I checked my top drawer and there wasn't a coin in there.

So it was probably the same coin, I assume.

And my wife went to work.

I got chained.

Well, I had to go and finish my shower, to be fair, because I was halfway through having a shower.

19:22

So I had to get back in the shower and then get changed.

And I went downstairs, I had a work call first thing actually after I'd been changed.

And then I went downstairs at about 10:00 and I phoned my dad to tell him what happened.

And he said, and this way it gets a little bit weird.

He said, where is it now?

19:39

And I said, oh, it's, it's still on the bedtime table, I think.

And he said, well, go and check if it's still there then.

And I ran upstairs and I picked it up off the side and I sort of scooped it up into the palm of my hand.

And I remember it's in my left hand, turned my phone to my my right ear.

And as I scooped it up into my hand, I realised there weren't just one, There wasn't just one coin there.

19:59

There were two coins, both American, once sent pieces with two different dates, 2012 and 2014 on them.

Now I know there was only one coin on there when I put it on the side and the water droplets were still around that coin.

The water droplets were still on the side.

And he just sort of laughed and said, well, if this carries on, you'll, you'll be a millionaire.

20:18

And I kind of put the phone down to me, Dad.

Now if I take you back.

To my friend asking what's what weird has happened or what paranormal things have happened.

The electrician is working outside the house.

This was a week later after all these events had happened.

And I've just told him this full story.

20:35

What I've just told you Michelle.

And he sat there and as I'm telling the story, he was going whiter and whiter and he looked a little bit poorly by the end of it.

And I said what's what's the problem?

Are you OK?

And he said what day was I at your house last doing the first fix on the electrics outside.

20:51

And I said I think it was last Sunday, it was the day before the coin was thrown at me in the morning.

And he said Oh my God, that's really weird.

I said well what's happened?

And he said well I got home on the Sunday and I gave my work trousers.

21:06

You have these sort of, I think the Snickers work trousers with loads of pockets, like combat trousers, loads of pockets down the side.

And his wife had emptied the pockets.

There's nothing in there apart from one American 1 cent piece.

And it really, really freaked him out because he thought he'd lived here.

21:23

Things have happened to him and he thought that somebody had followed him home or something had followed him home.

And that was when Ian sort of piped up off the sofa who was sat there listening to all this and said you should write a book about all this.

I'd, I'd buy it and I'd definitely read it.

Then that's when I started writing the book which took me 3 years to to self publish.

21:43

And again, just an incredible account of of something whereby you're having an experience that someone else is being able to add something to that in terms of verifying that same phenomena.

Again, without again, without knowing anything about what you were talking about, but being able to come in with something else to add to that picture, which is so compelling as evidence.

22:06

And the fact that you have lived there for such a, you know, a great length of time enables you to really keep kind of abreast of these different experiences and the range of experiences and people's different accounts of them to be able to verify, to confirm and capture those details.

22:24

That is just incredible as a as a case study if you like.

It's, it's crazy.

And I mean, there's, there's been quite a few people that have been in touch with me since like, like yourself for podcasts and things, but also a few TV and, and film companies that have, are quite large that have been interested in doing something with the story because they've not heard anything like it before.

22:47

I mean, there have been, there's the Enfield Haunting, there's 30 E drive.

There's a few houses around the UK that before doing my, I've just done the audiobook for the book, which has just been launched as well.

But before doing that, I listen to those as well to try and get some sort of thoughts around how I do my audiobooks.

23:04

I've never done it before.

This whole writing experience has been a first for me.

But yeah, there's there's a few other houses around the UK that are similar, similar sort of stories.

Well, you don't often have hauntings that kind of endure for this length of time.

You know, poltergeist activity, for example, tends to be quite short lived.

23:22

It's quite unusual to have something persist in this manner in the, in the time frame that we're kind of talking about when it comes to your house.

And, and again, I think it just adds to this real interest around it and how, you know, the compelling nature of the, the experiences that you document.

23:39

And I wonder if as part of that, you know, you've had any opportunity to research the house further, find out, try and find out anything else about the house that obviously you didn't know when you first moved in.

Yeah, I certainly have.

I mean a lot of the research to be fair, I went to the library to look at where the the land lies and and that side of things.

23:59

I didn't find out anything out really interesting.

It was just old farmland.

The house was built in 1936, March the 25th 1936 as a council house.

Now the council houses back then, it's, it's quite a large 3 bed semi detached home.

24:15

The ceilings are really high.

It's quite a pretty house.

And basically it'd been owned by an old lady who I've named as Mrs. Tompkins in the book because I can't put her family name in there.

She still has family around, so I didn't want to share that with people.

24:31

But the old lady I speak of did did die while she owned the house.

We don't know if she died in the house, but she certainly died while she owned the house.

And she did have a partner.

And it's interesting that it wasn't a wasn't a husband, but she did have a fellow that she lived with in the house.

24:50

And he died when he was about 50 years old.

So back in the sort of 70s era.

And I've been told now in the book of the 25 short stories are all separate things that have happened in the house, from the poltergeist activity to shadow figures to to all sorts of things in there that are creepy and weird and wild.

25:12

But they're all true stories, not just about myself, but about friends and family who've experienced things here.

The last two chapters, after I'd sent round the draft of the 25 stories to friends and family and said, look, I need some real feedback on this, they said they wanted to know more.

25:28

So I got in a paranormal investigation team.

Now this was against my sceptical nature, but they came in and spent the night here.

And I also invited in the head of the local spiritualist church, who's supposedly a very good medium, a chap called Tim Doyle, who came to the property and both of which I didn't tell them the address until they were literally outside.

25:52

I guided them in by phone.

I didn't tell them my name.

They couldn't do any research before they got here.

And they both came out with the same thing that there was an old lady that that owned this home.

She did lose her partner here.

And it wasn't a husband, it was a partner.

They both came out with the same thing on that.

But he's the he's sort of a nasty spirit because he's trying to find her and she's she's just a very home proud person.

26:17

She's not a nasty spirit.

And the people that have seen her said that she has got quite a piercing stare.

I don't know what that means, whether it means she doesn't want them here or what, I don't know.

But maybe that's why I haven't seen her, because I've always looked after the house and I'd love to see it to be fair.

26:33

And might also explain the various and range of types of experience and phenomena that you've reported in the book, because you know, you've got some that is much more benign and and others like the knives being embedded in the floor quite a considerable way as you detail it in the in the book section.

26:52

You know, those are suggestive of a very different maybe kind of responses that it's trying to elicit from from those around experiencing that.

So maybe that's something to do with the different people who've been part of this Houses story, if you like.

27:11

Yeah, potentially.

Potentially.

Yeah, I do know that he did die in the house.

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29:47

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30:05

What spectres await?

What secrets lie dormant, waiting to be unearthed?

Let us venture forth, for the journey into the unknown has only just begun.

And one interesting story that I've not shared with anybody yet, so you might you might like this one.

30:28

But a chap got in contact with me who is in his late, like he said, his late 60s.

From memory.

He got in contact with me on Facebook, through the books page and through the description of the house and where it sat.

He managed to fathom which house it was and he'd messaged me and said look I know which house it is and I've got a bit of a weird story to tell you.

30:51

Now bear in mind that Missus Tompkins, as I said before, had been seen five different times by 4 different people which are family and friends of myself.

This chap, I don't know, I've never met him before.

He lived across the house when he across the road from this house when he was growing up.

31:08

Now his mum was friends with the old lady who lived here and when the old lady passed, he actually went to the funeral and a week later he was in his.

I think he said he was eight or nine years old at the time, maybe 10 years old.

But about a week after the funeral he was looking out the front window and saw Missus Tompkins in the Bay window upstairs.

31:33

Now this is a chap I've never met before in my life.

I've, I've actually asked him because I'm thinking about potentially writing a second book.

I've asked him if we can meet and I can get the full story from him.

But he went in and spoke to his mum because he didn't really understand.

He was that young.

He didn't really understand what death was.

31:48

And it was first funeral he'd ever been to.

But he mentioned to his mum that he'd just seen her in the window and when he brought his mum back through to have a look, she wasn't there.

But at the time the house was empty.

Like the time when I purchased the house, the property developers had been in and done the house up, but there's nobody there.

32:05

The house was completely empty.

It had no furniture, no flooring, no nothing in the house.

There shouldn't have been anybody in there, but this chap saw as well.

Which again, is just more compelling kind of confirmation of, of experiences that you've had.

And I'm kind of glad you raised that because one of the, the kind of the, the takeaways that I have having read the book is, you know, that question of would there be more to come?

32:29

Because I think, you know, it's obviously a house with further stories potentially that you could, you could keep adding to.

You know, again, just very compelling to share that I think to be able to keep documenting the experiences that you are having as well as other people who visit the house.

32:48

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I have, I've started writing down dates sometimes of things that happen.

Now I've mentioned to people this I do live in what I believe is a haunted home.

There's too many coincidences, there's too many things that have happened.

33:03

There's too many people involved that have seen and heard things to kind of turned a blind eye to this now.

So I I write down times and dates as to when things happen, but it doesn't happen all the time.

Now.

I say that because we we might have a month or two with nothing happening and then we'll have a, we call it the week of madness where things just start to happen again.

33:28

Strangely enough, this started last week, so we started having things happen again.

We were actually talking about saying nothing's happened for a while and then things started to happen again last week.

One of the stories involved in that involves another American coin, which randomly has appeared in the House.

33:48

But again, there's something very cyclical in these types of cases where you do often see them die down for a short period of time or a really lengthy period of time and then start up again and again cycling through certain types of experiences.

So the coin for example, that you mentioned that not happening for a while and then suddenly that happening up again.

34:08

And it's, it's fascinating to start tracking and trying to keep a record of when those are happening and if there's any patterns which you don't get to really see unless you have the opportunity, which you do having been in there for such a long time, which is great, which is really fantastic.

34:27

I mean, if if it's something that you can live with that you are happy to live with and that doesn't frighten you, it's a perfect opportunity if you have an interest and that kind of mindset.

To.

Start to ask those questions and just think about what it's trying to share and and show you about the house itself and the stories it has to to to kind of tell.

34:49

Yeah, definitely.

And I've, I've, I've, I've certainly tried to.

I mean, the first time I tried to communicate with whatever is here, we were getting this sort of knocking noise coming from the ceiling, but it was like a dull fold.

It was like somebody banging the fist on a floorboard.

And a good friend of mine, I, I got a plumber.

35:05

Sorry, I'll tell you first.

I got a plumber and an electrician into the house to have a look to see what it was.

It was during COVID, but I managed to get a plumber and an electrician to come in, have a look in the house and find out if there was anything untoward which could be causing this knocking noise.

The problem was every time they went upstairs to find out where it's coming from, it stopped so they couldn't find where it was coming from.

35:25

But he did say it sounds like it's coming from the master bedroom which is where Mrs. Tompkins has been seen twice before.

But it only happens when you're downstairs in the living room which is below the master bedroom.

Now a good friend of mine who as I say I'm, I'm quite a sceptic, but with an open mind now good friend of mine who is really into his paranormal things said it's a spirit trying to communicate with you.

35:49

You need to ask it a question.

Do the whole say not twice for yes or once for no.

I said next time it happens because it was randomly happening.

It could happen during the day, the night, whenever, but it was always when we're in the living room.

Now, this one particular night, it was so loud and these thuds were coming in ones twos, threes, that it's kind of like a pattern to it, but not in a in a sense, which sounds strange.

36:16

I know it's kind of contradicting yourself, but it was sort of 1121123.

It's really weird, but you could hear it thudding through the ceiling and I say we, it's myself, my wife who were downstairs at the time.

And I said to him, I'm going to record, I'm going to pause the television, I'm going to record on my phone.

36:35

And it's a shame.

It's actually quite a shame.

It was on an old iPhone 8 which the microphone was a little bit a bit rubbish on it to be fair, not as good as the technology we're probably using right now.

But I did say on the video, I've still got the video which is on the Facebook page for this, for the book.

36:54

And I just said, look, if there's any spirits there, can you just knock twice for me now?

And the two largest thuds sort of thundered through the house.

It was like he answered me straight away.

Now bearing in mind that not being a thud for probably 2 minutes before that, it just bump, bump straight through the ceiling.

37:14

And my wife at the time said, Oh no, we, we need to get out this house.

And she was quite distraught with it and wouldn't let me ask any more questions.

Now, I'm, as I said before, some things do scare me.

That sort of did scare me a little bit because it kind of felt like us communicating with something that wasn't there or seemingly wasn't there.

37:34

But my wife is really freaked out by everything that goes on in the house.

I think if she could move, if we'd not just extended all the house and renovated it all over the past four years, I think she would probably be out of the door.

So something that you you have mentioned about the motivations for wanting to write the book is I think something that I really would like to touch upon because I think it's a phenomenal aspect of the story of the book and why you went about writing this.

38:03

And you briefly mentioned how, you know you were raising money at the time for a cancer charity that was very much a kind of a personal charity linked to you in case in terms of your mum's health.

And I don't know if you want to just go into that in a little bit more detail in terms of that motivation for wanting to support this charity and why it has such a special place for you and your family.

38:33

Of course I can.

Yeah.

So my mum was diagnosed just over well, just over six years ago with a really rare form of breast cancer.

As I mentioned before, for the first two years I was doing anything I could, sponsored dog walks, whatever I could do to raise money for, it's actually Cancer Research UK at the time.

38:50

And about two years in, that's when I had the operation on my knee and sitting there and Ian said you should write about this.

At the time I kind of said, oh, that's not a bad idea.

And literally that night as they left, I laid there on the sofa and I got my iPhone and started writing in the notes about what had actually happened.

39:10

Like, just like bullet points as to different, different stories that happened in the house.

And from there sort of went on to contact all the different people that are involved to find out how it made them feel and, and that sort of thing at the time that it happened.

And then put all these stories into place as to time and year and how they happened through the years.

39:30

And that's, that's how it's kind of read out as a story.

But the cancer charity itself, my mum unfortunately lost my mum last May.

So she passed away just over a year ago.

She lost her battle with the cancer, which she was very brave throughout.

But one thing that really helped was a, a charity called Cavendish Cancer Care.

39:49

They're a local charity and they've got some fantastic people that work there.

And they do things that a little bit sort of thinking outside the box when it comes to looking after the patients.

So they don't just look after the the cancer sufferer they look after.

Family members and, and, and things as well who are suffering because it's, if you, if you've got somebody in your family that you're suffering with cancer, it's quite a hard thing to deal with yourself that you're trying to help them, but you've also got your own worries and, and things there as well.

40:20

And they do all sorts of treatment, which are brilliant.

And I can vouch for that now because they've actually helped me over the last year, especially more so since I've finished the books.

I think the book was kind of my coping mechanism for three years and unfortunately mum didn't get to read the last edit of the book, bless her, but I know she'd be very proud that it's raised just over 29 and a half 1000 lbs for Cavendish Cancer Care now since it was launched on October the 31st.

40:48

So every penny goes to them and that was my mum's chosen charity who looked after her.

This is part of the story that I just think makes this book so very special, not only because of the very compelling evidence that you present about the house, but this very heartfelt message and intention behind writing the book, which is to support this charity that sorted your mum and has supported your family.

41:13

And you know, speaking from personal experience, my mum has terminal cancer.

She's battled cancer most of my life, you know, since she's about 16 or 17.

And it's a horrible disease.

And the fact that you have raised almost 30,000 lbs in such a short amount of time, offered the sales of this book of which you're donating everything to this charity is absolutely phenomenal.

41:41

It's so impressive.

Thank you.

I'm sorry to hear about your mum as well because it's awful, It's an awful disease.

It's horrible and it can be so isolating.

You know, you have support from other people, but you still feel very much like it's you and your family dealing with it by yourself until you find these angels.

41:59

You know, these people who have this expertise who just walk that journey with you for as long as you need them to.

And again, the impact that that kind of money, I know again experience, I know that that kind of money will have such a profound impact on what they are able to do for other families.

42:22

It's, it's so good.

And I mean they, they've been brilliant as well.

Cavendish Cancer Care especially.

There's a lady called Hayley who works there who's been working with me since I actually phoned them and said I've written this book.

And I must have come across as a bit of a bit of a strange one, a bit of a weirdo.

At the time.

I was kind of like, I've written this book, it's about my haunted home and I want to give you all the money from the proceeds.

42:42

And this lady, when I met her back then, she said, how much do you think you'll raise from it?

I said, well, if I just sell it to my friends, I'll probably raise about two and a half, 1000 lbs.

And I never expected it to go.

It's like it's still number one on Amazon after 6-7 months, it's still number one in the paranormal realm on Amazon, which is just amazing.

43:03

The support's been literally overwhelming for it, but they keep sending me from Cavendish these stats to say what the money's actually paid for.

And as you say, the amount of families it's helped, it's over hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of patients.

And it actually pays for their lease and all their utilities for the whole year, which is just amazing to think that I've done that just from a, a bit of a silly idea one day, to be fair.

43:27

But it's it's, it's paid off for them, which is great.

And I, and I don't think people can appreciate that it's support that comes to those families that doesn't just impact them in that moment, but it's, it's a lasting impact.

You know, that's something that benefits and supports that family for generations to come.

43:46

Because if it's helping someone, as I said, to walk them through that experience of a family with, you know, a, a, a cancer diagnosis or someone themselves battling cancer, that support that impact just lasts for so long from generation to generation.

44:06

It kind of filters down, I think, based on how people cope with dealing with that kind of news.

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree.

And I think seeing the families and things there and knowing how how much it means to the staff at Cavendish because they're not a big charity, they're quite a small Sheffield charity.

44:23

But my mum, she told me how much they looked after her when she was and she was very poorly at the time.

And in the last days I, I literally said to her, look, I've nearly finished the book.

I'm so sad that you can't read it at this stage.

But who do you want the money to go to?

44:38

And that was her, her first choice straight away.

She said it's got to go to Cavendish.

But I've given all the, I've pledged all the audiobook sales to them as well, which I don't know how much that has made yet because they won't send me a report until it's been out three months.

But it'd be interesting to see how much that's made as well for them.

44:55

You know, for people listening who maybe have not heard of this book before from wherever they listen in the world, if they want to try and support this effort of what you're doing, how can they get behind the book?

How can they support getting the message out in terms of sharing the story of the of the house and the book, but also obviously what you're trying to do with raising funds for this charity?

45:22

Yeah, sure.

There's, there's two ways to do this.

You can go onto Facebook and if you search for the Lady in the Bay Window, that's what the book's called.

It's under the author's name, which again is a pseudonym, but it's William Seagrave and it's a true story of a haunted Sheffield home.

45:39

So if you go on Facebook and search for the Lady in the Bay Window, you'll find my page on there.

It's got about 8 1/2 thousand followers, which is just, again, just overwhelming.

It's crazy, but the there's some real big fans of the book on there who put some nice comments and things and reviews on there so you can have a look through.

45:56

If you want to buy the book, you can go straight onto Amazon and you can get the hardback paperback Kindle.

It's on Kindle Unlimited for people who have Kindle Unlimited and it's also on Audible as an audiobook now as well.

46:11

So you can go on there and you can order the book today and every single penny from all book sales, audiobook sales, go directly to Cavendish Cancer Care.

And I will certainly make sure that every single one of those links is very easily accessible for anybody listening to the podcast.

46:28

So they will be in the podcast description notes.

So you can just click on it and it should take you to the pages that have just been mentioned.

But likewise, on the podcast website, there will be a page dedicated to you and the book.

So again, people can find that information.

46:44

And again, just find those very easy links to get behind and support what you're doing because I think it's such a fantastic way of just giving back a little bit to a great 'cause that I think touches many of our lives at some point or another.

Yeah.

46:59

Thanks, Michelle.

I really appreciate it.

Honestly, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you to find out more and thank you so much for your time on what you're doing.

And, and as I said at the start, it's such a compelling book.

And for that reason alone, if people have an interest, they should be supporting the book, taking a read because it's such a fascinating read to have these stories that you you pick out and you detail that really do offer such a wide variety of experiences, but also that chance to corroborate and compare based on that, you know, the very unique position that you're in with so many people experiencing similar things over this time span.

47:39

And like I said, at the same time support what you're doing in raising some money for a fabulous charity.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And yeah, thank you ever so much for having me on and and having a chat with me.

It's been a a real pleasure and I wish you mum the very best as well.

Oh, thank you so much and I will say goodbye to everybody listening.

47:57

Bye everyone.