The Woman in the Car
I was 9 when it happened.
My Grandad had just died, and my Nan had moved in with us for a while, so we could look after her, try and help her with the process of coming to terms with her loss.
My Mum had to help her sell her house and sort out all the usual mountain of paperwork after a death. I went with my Step Dad to the local scrapyard to get rid of their beloved old car, a navy blue Austin 1100.
I had very fond memories of that car.
Me, my mum and sister lived with my Nan and Grandad for the first 3 years of my life,after my parents had split.
We had many happy times in that car and I can vividly recall the smell of the interior on a boiling hot day out to Hayling Island or the New Forest.
Grandad used to enjoy a few pints at the pub and drive us home afterwards, which could be hair raising on the odd occasion.
This wasn’t to say he was an irresponsible person. He was 67 when drink driving became illegal in the UK so he took a bit longer to adapt to the change. He’d always loved beer and pubs, an interest I undoubtedly inherited from him.
He was born in a pub and ran a pub himself, later in life. It was about 3 months later when it happened.
It must’ve been a Saturday afternoon because I was off school,and returning from a trip to the local shops.
I was walking along the top of the low wall of the small car park opposite the grocers.
The winter sun was low in the sky and there was a dazzling glare from the windscreens of the cars parked nearby.
As I crossed the road, I noticed a woman, sat in the passenger side of a blue car, parked on the opposite side of the road.
There was a black dog with her, in the back, jumping excitedly on the back of her seat as she laughed and petted him.
She looked strangely familiar, but I couldn’t quite work out why.
The car was an Austin 1100 and looked identical to the one my Granddad had owned.
It was then I noticed the number plate
BPT 231F
It was the same registration number as my Granddad’s car.
But this wasn’t possible!
The car had been scrapped 3 months previously.
I looked again at the woman inside the car, more intensely this time.
Then i realised.
The woman in the car was my own Nan.
But a much younger version of her.
She was in her mid 20s, wearing a floral blouse and her raven black hair in roll curls, in the 1940s style.
I recognised her from pictures I’d seen in my Mum’s family photo album of her childhood.
The dog with her looked exactly like Charlie, their beloved family pet who had died when my Mum was a teenager.
I felt a sudden panic rise inside me.
My Nan was still very much alive at this point in time, and well into her 70s, so this wasn’t a ghost that I was looking at.
I staggered back against the wall, breathing fast.
Had I somehow wandered into a time slip of some kind?
I ran home, nervous as to how my Nan would be when I got there, worried that I had somehow upset the fabric of her temporal reality by seeing her out of place and time.
Thankfully, she was absolutely fine, and was sat with a cup of tea, watching TV.
I didn’t mention the experience to anyone as I felt it might have some kind of negative impact on things.
I’ve never been able to make sense of that day, though I often think about it.
My Grandad’s death was the first family death I’d had to deal with so could this have been a grief or stress induced hallucination of some kind?
The incident happened in 1979, at a time in the UK when there seemed to be many paranormal and unexplained occurrences. Was my imagination just tapping into that realm, creating a metaphysical mystery of my own?
I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened had I tapped on the car window to talk to the woman in the car.
But I’m glad I didn’t.
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