Soon after the Nunthorpe Hall experience, Margaret moved with her husband and sons to a temporary residence in Cobden Street in an old part of Thornaby. From day one Margaret and co felt uneasy in the house. In the twelve months they were there it was never a home to them. Indeed when things started happening it was nothing short of a nightmare.
At first, owning a cat, Margaret put down the nightly knocking over of her ornaments on the mantelpiece to the family's feline, not giving it much more though. Each night the ornaments were in place in front of the fire in the living room, and each morning they would be knocked over onto the carpet. In retrospect she thinks the spirit resident of the house really didn't care for them and this was his way of showing that.
She says 'he' because one night she and her husband were in bed talking when an old man's voice suddenly bellowed in her ear to 'Get out of my house!' Margaret was rightly terrified and leapt over her shaking husband who had also heard the bodiless voice. Neither she nor her husband slept much that night.
Odd little occurrences kept happening after that, but for her husband it all came to a head one night when he was alone in the house. Margaret was working nights and he was alone in bed reading the paper. All was quiet for a while until he began to get an eerie feeling that he was being watched. Moving the paper to one side he was confronted by the most terrifying sight he had ever seen. An old man was stood at the foot of the bed facing towards him. He was opaque, as though only half there, but by far the most horrific thing about the apparition was that it had no face. Margaret's husband literally ran from the house leaving the property empty all night long. He drove around aimlessly until daylight appeared, too terrified to set foot back inside the residence.
Living next door, at the time, was a pleasant old lady with whom Margaret and family got on famously with. One day Margaret mentioned the incidents to her and she surprisingly offered that the ghost may be her old boyfriend. They had lived side by side for many years and there had even once been a connecting door between the houses. The old lady went on to say that sometimes, even in death, she saw him walk though the wall where the door used to be and come and sit with her.
This was getting too much for Margaret and she sought some kind of explanation to the haunting, and indeed an answer to what happens to the soul when the body fails. She thought there might be some comfort from the Spiritualist Church. There she was told that another spirit would make itself known to her, that of her departed mother. The advice given to her was that should her mother's spirit appear to her, Margaret should firstly not be scared, and then talk to her as though she was just another living person. Margaret bore this in mind and sure enough, a few weeks later, whilst trying to get to sleep one night, she became aware of someone else in the bedroom. At first glance it was her mother, sat on the bed smiling at her. Despite the advice, Margaret was terrified and closed her eyes trying to gather her wits. After a few seconds she plucked up the courage to speak to the ghost. But, when she opened her eyes, it was not the transparent, smiling image of her mother. Instead, in the exact same position was the most hideous and sneering old man. This time it had a face and it's grizzly countenance will be forever etched into Margaret's mind. She was frozen with fear until the image faded. The family soon found another property and moved out of Cobden Street forever. Margaret still lives with her family in Thornaby, but nothing else has happened and she is very happy about the fact.
