Quakers Graveyard and Chapelton

When I was a young boy, aged from about 7 upwards I had a fascination with all things paranormal. At this time I stayed in a small village about 15 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland called Chapelton. As with most small villages it had its' fair share of ghost stories, the usual grey ladies and the like but none as enduring to me as the ghost of quakers graveyard.

The graveyard was about a mile bike ride from my house and was a place of constant pilgrimages for friends and myself. It was the burial place of people from the quaker movement of the 1700's, is round in design with a three stone high wall around its' perimeter, about a 20 foot diameter. There is, however, only one gravestone left visible, that of a Robert Murdoch who died in the 1700's.

The story amongst the children said that if you walked around the top of the wall three times you would hear the footsteps of Robert following you! Of course this was too much of a temptation and we would all try this, frequently, to no avail.

One lovely summer day about 23 years ago my brother, his friend and myself headed for the graveyard with the intent of hearing the footsteps of Robert. We each took a turn and walked round the wall three times, alas nothing. We then discussed ways to try and see or even trap the ghost. My best suggestion being to put down wet mud and we could see his footprints. After about and hour with no results we jumped on our bikes and headed home. I was holding up the rear and had glanced over my shoulder to take one last look at the graveyard when I saw the shadow of a man riding a horse on the ground behind me. He was wearing a tri-pointed hat and had flowing robes of some sort. There was no-one behind me and I could also see the shadow of myself in front of this ghostly shadow. Needless to say I was first home, but no-one believed me saying it was my own shadow, I can guarantee everyone, IT WAS NOT!

The only other telling worthy incident relates to a flexi- disc given away with a magazine in the early 80's. For those who don't know, a flexi-disc was a floppy plastic 45 record with abysmal sound quality but made so cheap it could be given out free. This disc was meant to have voices of people long dead who had been picked up by someone on radio equipment. One recording in particular hit me big time. It was of a man calling out for someone called "Zenta." The sound was hissing and then "zenta", over and over. I was so disturbed I destroyed the disc, but all my stories for seances after that featured Zenta. One day four friends and I were in my garage holding a mock seance calling for Zenta to give us a sign. There was a huge thud at the door and we piled out to see.... nothing. This happened several times until we discovered it was my father trying to scare us. As we all confronted him there was a huge bang at the rear door of the garage where no-one was, we all scattered sharpish and it took me all day to go back home.

Does anyone reading think that as children we are more susceptive to things of a paranormal nature?