Johnny The Ghost

During the 1960’s my family moved into a large property called ‘Gladstone villa’ which was in the former mining town of Bargoed in the South Wales valleys. There were my grandparents and their only daughter who is of course my mother. My mother married in the April of 1968 and she and my Dad stayed with my grandparents at Gladstone villa.

My mother told me that it was soon after I was born in 1969 that strange phenomema started in the attic One day they heard a noise like someone jumping onto the landing, when they went to look, possibly thinking that someone had broken in they descovered the hatch to the attic was moved! It started off quietly but eventually occupied itself in the main bedroom which was my grandparents.

As I got older I too began to experience the activity for myself. We would regularly hear noises in the bedroom like footsteps walking around in the bedrooms mostly in the evenings when we’d all be watching TV downstairs, one of us would turn the TV down to hear it more clearly and my grandfather would try to work out where the walking was coming from exactly. I still remember him saying as we heard it,"He’s by here" or "He’s by there now."

We would go up to the bedroom to investigate (my grandfather would always be in front and me last) but we could find absolutly nothing that could be acounted for it. We heard things that simply defied rational explanation and it got so bad that my mother and grand mother and I would sleep downstairs with the lights on, only my grandfather would sleep upstairs. My father had alreadly left the property by 1972 after he had his own personal experience, my parents eventually divorced after a long seperation.

A family friend who would visit us on most evenings wouldn’t believe my grandmother when she was told that the place was actually haunted, she said it was the vibrationfrom the traffic outside that was causing it, but her belief system was soon challenged when she actually experienced it for herself. One evening she was there and she saw the lights go off and on by themselves, she could see it wasn’t us doing it. She knew of a local medium and he came to the property one day.

He asked a few questions first and eventually he began. He challenged the spirit to perform by knocking on the ceiling, sure enough the entity knocked back! The medium went into a trance but failed to get a name but he later confirmed that there was indeed a presence. A priest also came to bless the property of Gladstone villa and said prayers and it was quiet for a few short months, but it returned with a vengeance and this time it decided to show itself.

One evening my mother, grandfather and I were watching TV and my grandmother was reading a book on the sofa.my mother just happened to look at my grandmother and she saw the apparition of a monk standing behind the sofa, she later told us that it was only there for a couple of seconds and it was gone. She described as a monk with typical monks habit and hood over the face.

The town of Bargoed has quite a history and there is a club directly oppposit the property called the R.A.F.A it’s one of theoldest buildings in Bargoed and dates back to the 17th century and was once a monostery and rumoured to have priest holes leading to a well known haunted manor in a nearby village. My grandmother gave the ghost a nick name, she called him ‘Johnny’.

We moved from the property in the summer of 1978 after two local busines men were interested in buying it.It was eventually converted into a hotel in the 1980’s and is now called ‘REDZ PARC HOTEL’ I had my 40th birthday there for old times sake, and the staff told me of the ghost before I mentioned it. There have beem sightings in room 5 and the staff are afraid to go down the celler on their own. What I have said here is true, for those who don’t believe I challenge them to stay the night there!