The first time I went to St Margaret's Church in East Wellow was back in 1993.
I went there with a friend who had previously visited and was convinced he had seen something paranormal in the graveyard adjacent to the church. He told me he had seen a grey figure walking in amongst the graves. I was also told that he had gone inside the church and as he and his friend walked inside, something had fallen off the table that was just inside the door. I wasn't sure if I actually believed him, however I still wanted to go and investigate and find out for myself as did a few other friends.
The night we went was a very dark night and we could hardly see the moon. I was a bit scared before we even got there to be honest! We had to drive down dark country, unlit lanes to get to there.
We knew that Florence Nightingale was buried in one of the graves in the church yard. We had intended to visit the grave when we got there, however once we arrived that was out the question, as it was far too dark to search for graves.
Once we arrived we got straight out of the car and walked up to the gates. The gate we had to walk through had a little wooden turnstile.
Back then the doors to the church were left unlocked all night, which surprised me. We walked up to the door and opened it slowly and walked in. All the lights were on, and because of that I started to feel a bit more easy about being there. I still wasn't that sure that we should have been in there that time of night, however there was no one around to tell us to leave.
We all walked in and sat down on the pews at the back. It was a really beautiful church and we just sat looking around. By this time it was almost midnight and it was silent inside and outside of the church.
My friend who had been there before kept trying to pursuade us to go out to the graveyard and look at Florence Nightingale's grave. But it really was so dark out there I don't think we would have found it without a torch - and no one had thought to bring one!
One of my friends coughed really loudly and it echoed all round the church. When the echo finally stopped we heard a faint voice of someone outside the church saying "Hello?"
We started to panic thinking we were going to get into trouble for being in the church so late. My friend called "Hello?" back.
We waited but there was no answer.
So I said "Hello is there anybody there?" and still we received no answer. I asked the boys to go outside and have a look and to see if anyone was about. We had left the door open a little bit and one of the boys just went over and stuck his head outside. He looked out but couldn't see anything. Then he came back in and sat back down. I said that I thought it was time to go.
Then what I heard next scared the sh*t out of me - and all of us!! We heard the sounds of children playing outside but in the distance. We heard laughing, shouting and singing. It didn't sound clear it was sort of muffled. Like it was a long way in the distance.
We all looked at each other and said "What the f**k is that?!?” It was very late at night and pitch black outside and really we were in the middle of nowhere.
So what were children doing out this late playing? This went on for a good 2 to 3 mins.
After that we decided to leave.
I was looking all around me as we left but couldn't see anyone. We got to the turnstile and had to go through one by one.
I went through second and as I did there was an almighty crash from the side of the church which we had just come from. I ran back to the car as I just wanted to get in and hide.
However the guy who had the keys had decided to be brave and wanted to go back and see what the crash was. I wasn't about to go with him. The boys all went back inside the graveyard to see what it was. They weren't gone long when we saw them running towards the car from the other side of the church.
They jumped into the car and we instantly set off. I asked if they had seen anything when they walked around the church. They hadn't seen anything, however they had heard the voice saying "Hello?" again. But this time it was right beside them but they had seen no one. Mind you they never stayed around long enough to find out!!
