I'm not sure it was a ghost
but when I was a child I did have an odd experience that I can't rationalise.

When I was 8 Mum and Dad bought a house in a new area. It was one of the bog-standard, 3 bed-roomed, 1930s terrace that you can see all over the UK. It was all very exciting as my sister and I went to school from the old house and came home to the new one.

That evening Mum sent me upstairs to unpack things in my bedroom and I was quite happy up there arranging all my stuff. I was sitting on the bed with the bedroom door on my right when I saw something in my peripheral vision. I looked up and for the briefest of moments saw a old woman passing the bedroom door. It was a split second glimpse but long enough for me to see that she was dressed in a Salvation Army uniform. (I was familiar with the SA's clothes as my nan lived down the road from one of their meeting halls.) I remember that I wasn't scared, just surprised and I stepped out onto the landing to see who it was. There was no one there. The only place she could have gone, based on her direction, was into the tiny front bedroom so I checked but that too was devoid of life.

I trailed down to the kitchen where Mum was and told her what I had seen, still quite undisturbed by the whole thing. Mum, however, dismissed it as imagination and forbade me to say anything about it to my sister. She says she just thought I was acting up or letting my imagination run away with me.

I kept my promise to my mum and didn't breathe a word of it to my sister. In fact, I pretty much forgot about it. Mum's reaction had convinced me that I had dreamt the whole thing and moving house was so exciting to an eight year old me that I had too much else to think about. Mum, however, was not best pleased when a couple of weeks later my sister announced at breakfast that she had woken up in the night and seen an old lady in a Salvation Army bonnet standing at the end of the bed. Mum assumed that I had been trying to wind my sister up with a ghost story and told me off. My outraged denials were ignored and I felt most aggrieved.

A few more weeks passed and again we all forgot about it. Then one morning Mum got chatting to one of our new neighbours, a lady who was in her 60s. She told Mum that she had moved into the road with her parents when the houses were newly built and had lived there since. She remarked how much things had changed over 50 years, not least the people who lived in the road. All the original tenants had, like her parents, been members of the Salvation Army.
(Innogen, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 16:08, Reply)