Local author wants to chart every spooky sighting made across the city.
Have you seen a ghost, felt a presence or heard something that went bump in the night in Milton Keynes?
If so, horror writer and parapsychologist Steph Lay would like to hear from you. The ghost-hunter is planning a book on spooky stories from across Milton Keynes and wants to talk to residents who have had a creepy or unexplained experience in the city.
She has a map of the 114 grid squares that make up the city’s landscape and wants to find a story of a haunting or paranormal experience from every one of them. She already has more than 20.
“This will be about people’s genuine true stories and the accounts and experiences they have had,” said Steph, of Crownhill. “I will write commentary around them, but the stories themselves are all true as told to me.
“I spend a lot of time walking around the Redways and I think there is something about the way that we have designed the city, how you’ve got that separation between where the people are and where all the traffic is, that gives rise to a certain eeriness. You can walk anywhere quite easily but you’re often on your own, and I think that can bring a sense of creepiness.
Steph says that although people write Milton Keynes off as a ‘concrete city’, it has much more to offer and adds that modern buildings are just as likely to be haunted as crumbling old mansion houses.
“The buildings I am hearing about are the last places you would expect to find hauntings,” said Steph. “I say the paranormal can be anywhere, but isn’t it interesting that it is even emerging somewhere as modern and high tech as Milton Keynes?”
The writer has challenged herself to find enough stories to fill the grid squares and hopes people will get in touch with her to help compile an interesting list of ghostly tales. She says the way Milton Keynes was designed makes the job more manageable.
“I love the way that Milton Keynes is organised, you have almost got a gameboard and you can fill in the squares one by one,” she said. “It’s the idea of getting that complete coverage. I am almost escalating Milton Keynes from being the least haunted city to potentially the most documented place in terms of these stories.”
Although she’s always looking out for her own first spectral experience, Steph says she has never seen a ghost herself – although she would love to.
“It would be fascinating,” she said. “The reason for starting this was because my husband passed away a couple of years ago and I was really expecting to hear from him from the other side.
“We had conversations about ‘whoever is the first to go will send a signal’, that sort of thing. But he never did, and my quest for this started by understanding if that was something about me.
“I don’t think I’m psychic but during my studies for a parapsychology diploma I did get exposure to people who have had these experiences and that’s how it all started. That’s been really fascinating for me on a personal level but also for people who share those stories by getting them heard.”
Stony Stratford is the most haunted place in the area, according to Steph’s research, but the creepiest story she’s ever heard is from Great Holm, where two children new to the area waved at a group in a playground but, as they went over to talk to them, they vanished.
“Two children looking for playmates but finding youngsters from a completely different era,” said Steph. “That story has always haunted me.”
More details: https://cityofsecrets.blog.
