The ghost stories I am about to relate to you have been family legends for a significant number of years and involve my great great grandfather, my grandfather, my father and finally myself.

MY GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER

My great great grandfather owned a mine in Victoria during the turn of the century and employed several workers. One of the workers that he employed was a man whom I will call "John". The ghost story revolves around "John" and his colleagues at the mine.

"John" had been very ill for a significant period of time and had therefore been absent from the mine. The other workers at the mine were very concerned for his well-being and continued to be concerned until he made an appearance at 4:00am one morning during a night shift. "John" appeared well and chatted with his fellow colleagues. He then left after a period of time, leaving his friends thankful for his apparent recovery.

Later that day one of the mine supervisors came around to visit the miners. One of the miners mentioned how nice it was to see that "John" had recovered from his illness. The supervisor appeared puzzled and enquired what the miner meant. The miners informed him of John's visit at 4:00am and how he appeared to be very well and in good spirits.

"That can't be. John passed away at 4am this morning" the supervisor stated

MY GRANDFATHER

My Grandfather lived in a house in Tasmania when he was young. The house was located in what is now a ghost town and my great grandfather had moved down there from Victoria. My grandfather and his family remembered that they would hear mysterious footsteps every night in that house and they could find no rational explanation for them.

In the late 1920s, my grandfather traveled overseas to Singapore. He suspected that a house nearby the one where he lived was haunted. This was because he would hear a party going on and noises around the house every night despite the fact that it was unoccupied.

The most eerie experience that my grandfather had was when he returned to Australia and had become Dean of a faculty within the university at which he worked. As Dean, he had the responsibility to greet overseas delegations that arrived from overseas. Since this was the 1950s, some of the overseas delegations still traveled to Australia by ship.

On one occasion, when Grandpa was scheduled to greet an overseas delegation who were arriving in the morning, he had an eerie dream that the ship that they were traveling on was shipwrecked and that the members of delegation would be discovered dead. Sure enough, when he went down to collect the delegation, he discovered that the ship had been shipwrecked and that all the crew members had been found deceased. Grandpa had had a premonition of the fate of the ship.

Grandpa would also be personally responsible for my ghostly encounter in 1991. More details later.

DAD

Dad's first encounter with the supernatural came when he was a young boy. His parents had rented out a holiday house that had previously belonged to two old ladies whom had been deceased for a few years. One night my grandparents invited a few friends around and they began debating the merits of whether to play with an Ouija board. At that moment, dad sensed a strong feeling of disapproval at the idea coming from the two old women whom were deceased. He had a very strong feeling that the two old women disapproved of the idea very strongly. He acted on his feelings and requested that his parents refrain from contacting the dead. His parents agreed and abandoned the idea.

My dad followed in my grandfather's footsteps and traveled to Malaysia and Singapore (where he would meet my father and where my sister and I were born and raised). On his first night in Singapore, he stayed in a hostel. Since he was single at the time, he booked a single room. Nevertheless there were two beds in his room and dad proceeded to sleep on one of them. He was just lying down, when he heard breathing coming from the other bed. Puzzled, dad switched on the lights and searched for the source of the breathing sound. He couldn't find any rational explanation for the breathing (and, knowing my dad, he would have examined every rational explanation) but couldn't find one. He suspected that a ghostly presence was in the room with him but, being much more courageous than I would be in similar circumstances, he just returned to bed and had no further troubles.

ME

I have two encounters with spirits-one good and one bad. I will relate my encounter with an evil spirit first.

My mother is Malaysian and my uncle and auntie therefore live in Penang. At one time, we visited them during Thaipusam (an Indian festival that involves various rituals).

One night we had just finished dinner and I had gone into one of the guest bedrooms to listen to my Walkman. This was progressing normally, until suddenly I felt a very evil presence in the room. I became very frightened and then I heard the phrase "Satan, Father of Lies" drifting through my head. I was petrified and fled out of the room. My uncle, my auntie and my parents were sitting outside and they asked me what was wrong. I told them about my encounter and they tried to reassure me that everything was fine, that I had been imagining things and not to worry. But then my dad said that, as I had exited the room, he had also sensed an evil presence.

Now to my encounter with a friendly spirit. I must give you the background to this story. My grandfather -the same one mentioned above-lived in Melbourne with granny while we lived in Singapore. This ensured that we only got the opportunity to see him every few years. The last time that I had the opportunity to spend time with him was in 1987. Four years later, we were due to move to Australia. By that time, my grandfather had suffered a few strokes. I had a dream and a general feeling that he hadn't much longer to live. One night I found myself thinking about how nice it would be to see granny and grandpa again. That was the very same night that he passed away

. We went to Melbourne for Christmas to spend time with my grandmother. My mum and I were sleeping in the room that my grandfather used to sleep in. I didn't sense anything when I came in and so I had no reason to assume anything out of the ordinary would happen.

Everyone had gone to bed exhausted on the night and I was in my grandfather's room alone while mum was somewhere outside. I was playing when I suddenly heard what I presume to be my grandfather's voice saying "Hello O____, welcome to Melbourne". It was coming from near the fireplace and there was no-one there. I was petrified and I ran out of the room briefly. Then mum came back and I slept there. Strangely enough, I wasn't scared of being alone in that room and was very comfortable there.

A few days later my Uncle M______ and Aunty M__________ took us for dinner. That night I was alone in the room again when I once again heard the voice from the fireplace. This time it asked me, "How was your dinner with U M__________ and Aunty M___________. I summoned up the courage to say that I had a good time and the voice responded "That's good" - something my grandfather used to say regularly. I wasn't particularly scared that time.

Nothing significant has happened other than these two incidents. But you never know what the future holds. I do have some other tales-I may tell them at later date-but I've taken up enough time now. Thank you for reading my story.