Hello and welcome to part 2 of the Christmas campfire for 2021. It's a little bit later than

I had planned. I ended up spending a little bit more time with my family than we sort of planned for but yeah it was nice, had a nice time. I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year and whilst I can still just to mount get away with saying it, Happy New Year. I'm looking forward to podcasting for another year hopefully in your company, say Happy New Year to you. With that said, we're in part 2 of the Christmas campfire. We still got lots of stories to

go, so let's just jump straight in with the first story from Tony. Going back to the 80s, I was a Met Police Officer working for what was then the Diplomatic Protection Group. I was an armed police officer and we were tasked in guard in VIPs, government buildings and diplomats. I was working nights on the day in question. I was posted to the residents of a government minister whose house was not very far from Buckingham Palace.

It was about 2am and I was inside the main house and decided to take a walk around the perimeter of the building to check its security. At the time in question, we were on a heightened state of alert, the IRA were planting bombs in the capital along with the Middle East and terrorists.

The area in question is very atmospheric. It was gaslit and was used for filming TV and movie costume dramas, Sherlock Holmes and the like.

I opened a heavy front door and was somewhat surprised to see a young boy standing just back from the doorstep.

He was about 10 to 12 years old, well dressed in a baker's boy flat cap, a polover that buttoned at the shoulder, cord-roin-nicabokka trousers, long woolen socks and boots, and he was holding his hands a full sized dark brown leather football.

I said to him, now I mate, what are you doing here? He didn't say anything and just smiled. He then started to bounce to football.

At this point, I realised that as the football struck the tarmac surface in the front of the premises, it made no sound.

I then saw a lady standing about 10 yards behind the boy. She was about 30 years of age and was wearing what I can describe as Edwardian dress.

She wore her long hair pinned up and she wore a straw hat decorated with wax fruit.

She wore a long grey dress that had a leg of mutton sleeves. I saw her mouth move and she indicated with her hand for the boy to come to her.

The boy smiled at me again, wave goodbye and turned and ran towards the lady. As he reached her, she held her hand, the boy took it and then they vanished.

I don't know what happened that night. Was it a time slip or ghosts? I don't know. I immediately asked my control by radio for a time check, which upon receiving it, I come to end it with my watch, so I definitely wasn't dreaming.

That was Tony's story. I liked the kind of thing that sounds a bit like a time slip or something, because time slips are great. I'm very much in for stories of time slips.

I think sometimes there can be even more intriguing than ghosts and somehow I feel like they're slightly less scary for the experiencer, but I'm not sure if that's the case.

I'm not sure if I experienced a time slip. I'd be any less scared than if I saw a ghost, but I feel like in a way like the time slip. I don't know. I think because the entire atmosphere of a place changes.

When you get, you know, it's almost, it's somehow less personal in a way or less sort of focused upon like you and that one other entity.

I'd probably still break my pants, but yeah, no, great stories. Thanks very much.

The next one comes from John who said, when I was in my like 20s, I lived in this old house on a street called Ebenezer Terrace in Dublin, and to set a geography straight, that's the capital of Ireland, which is good. Yeah, good, you said that straight.

Now this old house had a bit of a peculiar history. The infamous and nowadays subterranean river poddle flowed right below the back garden, and this garden contained a wooden shed in which a brand new tenant once found a single live kitten locked inside.

Unfortunately, at the time it was buried under a pile of other kittens, all dead for goodness knows how long.

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