The House in the Woods, page 16
Yvette’s experiences of the paranormal:
In this book I have drawn upon some of my own experiences when dealing with the paranormal. I kept remembering what it was like when I ventured into my first ever haunted house. It was Michelham Priory in East Sussex. I’ll never forget the fear, terror and utter adrenalin-fuelled excitement. I spent the night shaking, and doing a lot of screaming, but once it was all over and dawn arrived I just couldn’t wait to do it all over again. I had been bitten by the ghost-hunter bug.
I’m fascinated by poltergeist activity. It always excites me whenever I manage to capture some movement or a flying object on camera. The bullet that hits Eve really happened to me whilst investigating RAF Raynham in Norfolk. Something hit me hard in the back, then seconds later an unseen object whizzed past my head. Everyone I was with heard these objects clatter to the floor and eventually after looking for a while we discovered two rifle shells dating back to WW2. I have had all manner of things thrown my way, sometimes when asked for; others when not. The worst I think was a very large crowbar that missed my skull by a couple of centimetres, any closer and it could have killed me.
The knocking phenomena started happening six years into making Most Haunted. We were conducting a seance, another favourite experiment I like to do, when all of a sudden the tap tap tap sound could be felt from under the table, then it got louder and proceeded to travel about the room. At times the noise sounded like it was coming from the walls, then the ceiling and back again to the floor. When I spoke out and asked questions the knocks responded.
Over the years I have developed a way of talking to the spirits using a tapping board and to this day I’m overwhelmed with the words and sentences that are given to me from people that reside on another plane.
I have been lucky enough to see and hear ghosts, some very clearly others only partially. The first apparition I ever saw was a pair of legs walking up the main staircase in the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. They walked as if in slow motion, the image not quite solid. As you can imagine I freaked out and fled. Oh, how I wish I’d managed to stick around and film it.
My own house is haunted and when my family and I first moved in we had so much ghostly activity occur. The scariest was when I came downstairs into the kitchen to discover all the kitchen chairs were stacked perfectly in a pyramid shape on top of the kitchen table. I was dumbfounded. Why had the ghosts done this? What were they trying to say? I decided to make contact using the tapping board and discovered that the spirits of two children called Benjamin and Elizabeth, who had died in the house during the eighteenth century, wanted to play with us. We talked and told them that it was fine for them to move furniture and play games, but not to do it in the middle of the night as it was upsetting my two young children at the time. They agreed, and to this date, seventeen years later, they only come out to play when asked and believe me they have done some amazing things.
I have been investigating the paranormal since 2001 and had an incredible journey. I’ve witnessed full-bodied apparitions and heard their voices, been hit by numerous flying objects, and helped trapped souls reach their new home.
Yvette Fielding, The House in the Woods
