After looking through your spooky stories, our favourite spooky encounter was submitted by Rod Williams from Talgarth. Read his story below:

Many years ago I and two others witnessed a ghostly entity, I have since reached my 74th birthday a couple of months ago. Looking back over the years I have experienced things I could not explain and still I can’t. I was born in the town of Hay where I lived for 10 years then lived the following 10 years in Cusop. My youthful life and many experiences are spread across the Southern Welsh Marches centred on Hay and district. Except one other in Llandrindod Wells which was an apparition.

Now I live in Talgarth and rarely hear tales of ghosts. I worked at the now ruined Mid Wales Hospital which should have provided ghost stories by the bucket load but I spent many years working there in every nook and cranny as an electrician often working alone but what had been seen were stories told by the boiler men in the boiler house, I never saw anything there myself but there were those who claim they have seen things. It was a creepy place at night on your own. You felt you were being watched,

Ghosts are very real at least to the observer there are some that can be explained yet the observer will often remain convinced they actually saw the apparition or heard weird voices or even both. There are times however when two people experience the same thing at the same time, things take on a much more convincing experience. This particular case I witnessed twice events accompanied by two different people.

I have cut the story down a little but it happened in Cusop . I had came home for a break from London. My girlfriend at the time was a young lady named Marion from Hagley in the West Midlands. She visited me in London when she could.

The second half of the story was after Marion and I broke up and I eventually I met Carol who is still my wife today after 52 years of marriage. She still remembers to this day the ghost, In neither case was an apparition seen. The trains from Euston to Birmingham non stop sometimes would shrink the distance.

The story however starts when Marion came to stay in Cusop for a week. This must have been about 1968. We had enjoyed the week together and decided to walk a spooky lane which would eventually take us back to the main road and back into Hay for a beer or two that Friday evening before returning to Moorfields in Cusop as Marion was due to leave on the Saturday.

By the time we set out it was getting quite dark as we set off down the lane that took us close to Llydiartyway Farm. I never liked this lane as a young boy, there was a spooky feeling to it at a certain field gate just beyond some tall trees about half way. The large farm mentioned had a long driveway and it was a farm renowned for it’s horses, the ghost was no horse.

Marion wasn’t too keen she hung tightly to my right arm and it was all very quiet for half our journey then a all of a sudden there was a very odd voice, which we both heard but neither could understand, by now the sky was quite dark and we heard footsteps following us, sounding like hobnailed boots on the rough stony lane. Marion and I decided to run for it, we had no torches to see if our pursuer was for real. We stopped to listen very briefly however, but the footsteps were still to be heard. We ran on once more and I thankfully knowing the lane well from my boyhood days we kept going until we reached the main road without getting lost. We decided we needed a well earned drink and our story was told in the pub but probably disbelieved by the many and we all had a laugh about it. We saw nothing however and we passed it off as a tramp.

The story doesn’t end there, time had gone on, Marion and I had split up and I returned to to Cusop. A year or more went by and Carol was now a greater part of my life and I mentioned the above incident to Carol one evening and I said to her why don’t we do the same walk Marion and I had taken a year or two ago?. I always puzzled whether it could happen again and was eager to try it. So having agreed we set off choosing a similar overcast night, the lane was windless and still and the night getting darker as we walked onwards.

I knew where the ghostly gateway was and we stopped and spoke to each other hearing nothing at first, I then explained to Carol this was where Marion and I had heard the strange sounding voice, then out of the gateway was heard that similar strange voice and the footsteps once again seemed to be following us as we walked briskly away.. Crunching stones underfoot at a slow pace could be heard with no further voice but onward it still it pursued us. We broke into a run but this time I wanted to stop and listen or even get over the near by stile further on and see whether it would pass us by while we sat quietly. Again it was not to be we made our quick getaway, we were fast on our feet in those days, but what was it.

It certainly was not a horse by any means. Time has gone on, fifty three years in fact but I have wondered many times if would it happen again if it was attempted. Who or what haunted this gateway and why, was it a tramp? About 10 ago I had hoped to have contacted Marion via the web, to see if she remembered anything of the ghost but sadly when I finally caught up with her she had passed away. I always said I would do this walk again with any young lady who would risk it, to tempt out this spirit. if that is what it is or still might be?. I however can’t run at a fast space anymore and over 50 years have passed, I would take. a couple of good modern flash lights these days. It still gives me a chill thinking about it but surely it cannot happen a third time? Or could it?

It is possible with hindsight it was a tramp, the same tramp?.

In a small area back then you would see a tramp out in the day doing odd jobs or begging money and hang about a few days before moving on.. I can remember people doing that. This gateway was nothing special and was to a field. No shelter. The footsteps never seemed to be hurried, there was no coughing or breathing, spitting noises you might expect from a old a tramp who lived rough. The voice was weird rather monotone and and not loud. could not understand what was being said. My dear wife said she would not go there again so I guess this really is the end of the story. Tramp or ghost?