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I completed my Masters in September 2011, and moved to York from London two weeks later. I had been living there for nearly two months, and had established a daily routine of doing research for the first book in my Porter Biggleswade series until early afternoon, and then going for a walk for an hour or so to clear my head.
It was early December – cold and dry, and amazingly still. I say amazingly, for an enthusiastic wind sweeps through York. My wandering, on this particular day, led me down the cobbles of Chapter House Street towards York Minster, where I found myself alone.
I had just ventured past the side entrance to the Treasurer’s House, (a stunning National Trust property in the heart of the city), when the temperature suddenly plummeted. Considering it was already a cold day, the temperature must have dropped well below zero for me to have noticed it. The experience was brief, lasting all of a couple of seconds, but it was unnerving. It felt like someone had walked through me.
I don’t know what caused the cold spot, and I didn’t stop to investigate.
Walking home, I attempted to rationalise my experience by blaming it on the research I was doing for my books. Having spent the last few weeks engrossed in hauntings and paranormal investigations, it seemed reasonable to believe that my work was encouraging my imagination.
And, being alone in such a place, with the knowledge of ghostly events said to occur within the Treasurer’s House, including Harry Martindale’s experience in the building’s cellar, and its former owner Frank Green believed to haunt the building after he had painstakingly brought it back to life, probably made me more susceptible to influence. I have walked down Chapter House Street on many occasions and have never experienced it since.
With my background in science, I would argue that I am a believer with sceptical tendencies. Something happened on my walk that day, something which I can’t explain, but whatever it was, it certainly cemented my interest in the paranormal and writing my Porter Biggleswade series.
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