This is a true story of something horrible that happened when I was 10 years old back in 1982. The picture admittedly isn’t great but I hope the country lane where the incident took place is clear. This is a lane on the edge of a remote village in North Wales called Llanddona. My mother and two younger brothers and myself remember the incident as if it had happened yesterday.
As I said the village we lived in was in North Wales - on the Island of Anglesey. The population was no more than 500. One shop, a couple of phone boxes and three bus stops. It didn’t even get street lights until 1979.
The lane pictured had no street lights at all and no houses between the start of it (pictured) and our driveway which was 300 yards away. The incident happened in mid-September 1982 around 9pm so it was dark.
My mum mum, myself and my two younger brothers Stephen (eight) and Mickey (five) had been at a housing estate in the village. We were moving out of our house as my mum was breaking up with her partner. The house we were moving to needed decorating and some low level refurbishment. After a few hours at the new place we headed home. My mum was holding hands with my brothers while I rode my bike at walking speed.
Obviously the further we walked down the lane the darker it became. We were around 50 yards from the top of our lengthy unlit drive when we all saw a figure on the bend in the road at the top of it. At the time there was a fashion for fluorescent style clothing and mum made a comment that the figure was a jogger dressed in bright clothing. We continued walking slowly.
We got close to the figure and it felt like there was a tension in the atmosphere - it’s hard to explain - and everything else had gone quiet. My mum suddenly let out the loudest scream I’d ever heard, turned round and started running back to the village dragging my brothers with her. I looked at the figure which had a human shape - it was glowing and had no face.
It was blank. All I could hear - loud - was a kind of “clippety clop” noise made by a horse. There was no horse but that’s the only way I can describe the noise. The presence felt menacing - my feeling was one of utter terror. I span round a few feet from the figure and raced after my mum and siblings on my bike.
The first building back at the village was the shop which was being extended and I hit a big pile of sand and flew off my bike. Meanwhile my mum was banging on the door of the property in a state of hysteria. The owner, the village shopkeeper, came to the door with a shotgun. The four of us went inside and I vividly remember our relief as the heavy door was closed.
After drinking some tea and calming down a little my mum’s soon to be ex-partner was called and he arrived shortly after in his car to take us home. Even being in the car during that short journey down the lane was frightening.
After we moved to the village I couldn’t - well none of us could - walk down that road on my own at night. My mum is now 77, I’m 52, Stephen will be 50 in August and Mickey is 47. We all saw the same thing and all of us remember it as if it was yesterday not 41 years and nine months ago.
It was harrowing.