It Happened To Me - Real-Life Tales Of The Paranormal

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of people in this world: those who hear a floorboard creak in the night and think old house, and those who immediately assume an eighteenth-century widow is trying to communicate through the airing cupboard. It Happened to Me – Real-Life Tales of the Paranormal is very much for the second group, though the first group will probably read it too, if only to mutter “rubbish” every few pages while somehow never putting it down.

Compiled by David Sutton and bearing the unmistakably raised eyebrow imprimatur of Fortean Times, this 2011 collection serves up a buffet of the strange, the uncanny, the unexplained and the frankly inconvenient. Here are real-life accounts of things that allegedly happened to ordinary people who, one assumes, would probably have preferred a nice quiet evening instead. Apparitions, premonitions, impossible coincidences, spectral visitations and all manner of things glimpsed from the corner of the eye parade through these pages with cheerful disregard for scepticism, common sense, and the known laws of physics.

What makes a book like this so enjoyable is not merely the possibility that something otherworldly may indeed be lurking behind the sofa, but the deeply British tone in which such matters are often presented. There is something uniquely splendid about extraordinary terror being described with the emotional register of someone reporting a delayed bus. One imagines many of these tales beginning with the sort of person who says, “I’m not one for all that sort of thing, but…” shortly before describing a headless monk in the pantry with complete conviction. It is this blend of sincerity, oddness and low-key dread that gives the book its peculiar charm.

And let us be honest: paranormal anthologies occupy a noble place in the ecosystem of bedside reading. They are ideal for dipping into late at night, right up until the moment you hear a tap at the window and decide perhaps tomorrow would be better. You tell yourself you are reading with anthropological interest, as a student of folklore and human belief. In reality, of course, you are waiting for the really good story about the haunted child, the vanishing hitchhiker, or the inexplicable figure standing at the foot of the bed. This book understands that perfectly. It knows why you are here.

As a good copy sold by Crappy Old Books, this example comes with exactly the right aura. Not pristine, not sterile, not offensively untouched by human hands. A paranormal book should look as though it has spent some time being read in nervous silence under a lamp in a draughty room. A bit of wear only improves the atmosphere. A mint-condition copy might feel faintly suspicious, as though no one had dared open it. This one, by contrast, has the reassuringly honest look of a book that has already accompanied someone through an evening of intrigued disbelief.

David Sutton, long associated with the gloriously weird hinterlands explored by Fortean Times, is exactly the sort of guide one wants for this material: someone who appreciates the strange without reducing it either to gullible hysteria or smug debunkery. The result is a collection that lets the stories do what they do best, which is sit there in the mind afterwards, refusing to be fully explained away. Even readers firmly committed to reason may find themselves glancing over a shoulder, or remembering an odd thing their aunt once swore happened in 1974.

So here it is: a solid, handsome paperback of things that allegedly cannot happen, written down by people who insist they did. Whether you read it as testimony, entertainment, folklore, psychological case material, or simply as a series of excellent things to mention when the conversation is flagging, It Happened to Me delivers precisely what it promises. Real-life tales of the paranormal. Which is to say: either a fascinating collection of uncanny human experience, or a very enjoyable compendium of people having an absolutely extraordinary time of it. Either way, hard to resist.

Keep browsing: See more Non-Fiction books Other books by David Sutton