The old adage 'New home, new baby' certainly applied to me, for within twelve months I presented my husband with a beautiful daughter, this time with a home confinement, and a grand Home Help engaged to keep the situation under control. Sadly, Ron's Mother, who always wanted a daughter or a granddaughter died without seeing Gay.

Month by month the flat seemed to shrink, heaps of baby clothes and napkins overflowed from the bedroom into the kitchen, into the living room, into the bathroom - just everywhere.

We solved one problem by turning the short, broad hall into a bedroom. It seemed an ideal solution and worked well until, returning from hanging laundry down in the garden, I saw a cluster of shoppers standing gazing up at the side window of our flat. "Ah! Malcolm playing to the gallery already," I thought, but as I got nearer, my heart missed a beat - he was giving the show of his young life. Our sixteen month old infant was standing on the outside sill of the window grinning at the upturned faces.

I will never quite know how he got there nor how I climbed three flights of stairs and brought him safely inside without scaring him into falling, but I do know that the sounds of relief from the people below equalled mine. It didn't take me long to fix that window permanently shut with a large screw.

Having had his attempt at the high jump scotched, he next turned his attention to poison. Pulling the table runner hand over hand until a pot plant was within reach, he devoured it, berries, leaves, stalks, the lot. This was worrying to put it mildly as even the Florist only 'thought' it was harmless. Anyway, that is what it proved to be.

As the children grew, it became increasingly apparent that we needed a house. The housing 'Points' system came to our aid again and we moved into Tudor Avenue, Cheshunt. And, yes, we started another baby, Paul. We were there for seven years, long enough to add two more sons to carry on the family name.

It was while we were there we also acquired our own private 'ghost'. Over a period of months peculiar things had happened which I'd put down to either my imagination, or to Malcolm's mischief, until one day when all the children were confined to their bedrooms with measles, I found a complete re-arrangement of pictures and ornaments in the sitting room. This was no figment of the imagination. There was nothing damaged and there had been no noise.

I can't say I was nervous but I was decidedly on tenterhooks until my husband came home from the office - I firmly decided that we must get to the bottom of this mystery, if none of the others.

He listened patiently enough while I described what had occurred, but he guffawed loudly, pooh-poohing the whole thing - he refused to be convinced.

Later that evening we were standing in the kitchen discussing an improvement we hoped to make, when we were silenced by an odd sound from above our head. Suddenly the electric light bulb fell from it's socket, bounced three times on the floor, which was of concrete, and came to rest whole and entire at our feet.

Countless pieces of crockery, glass and even plastic had come to grief on that floor - there could be no other explanation of this undamaged glass globe than that our 'spook' was determined to prove his existence. This he continued to do in irritating though not harmful ways throughout the following years and months.

In an effort to find a clue to his identity we questioned friends and neighbours, consulted knowledgeable people, turned the local library upside down and even talked to the oldest inhabitants.

A startling fact emerged. Our house was built on the site of an old Burial Ground, where rested the remains of many hundreds of victims of the Black Death, London's Bubonic Plague.

Promptly we asked our Parish Priest to bless our home. He came armed with a copious supply of Holy Water which he sprinkled in every room, up and down the stairs and along the hallways, and departed, leaving us confident that our ghost was well and truly laid.

The following week we celebrated our deliverance with the regular lively party, with Blanche Lacey and other neighbours, playing cards, talking and laughing and singing around the piano. But we had rejoiced too soon, the very next morning we searched in vain for the teapot lid which had vanished into thin air never to be seen again.

As time went by we learned to live with our unwanted guest, believing him to be, not an Evil Spirit, just a mischievous one.

Our next move took us from the lovely Hertfordshire countryside, to Ipswich and the rural wilds of East Anglia.

Now, what self-respecting ghost will leave it's familiar haunts to settle in an entirely different house? Spooks and spectres are usually associated with places, not people. Well, ours is different, he has firmly established himself as the eighth member of the family. Eighth? Yes, of course - new house - new baby again. Another very happy home confinement, this time in my own private maternity ward, a double bedroom with running H and C. Heaven!

The older children were able to come in and look at the new arrival within half an hour of her birth.

It's very easy to conceal the existence of our ghost from the younger children, but not the teenagers. They also have heard the footsteps and the creaking of the stairs, and doors. These sounds we have always attributed to the neighbours when the kids were around, until their house stood empty for three weeks and the noises continued.

The decision to let them into the secret was forced upon us. One night when everywhere was covered in a blanket of snow and all was light with the brightness of it, Malcolm ran into the house looking pale and shaken. He declared he had seen a dark shape wearing a flowing cloak leap into the air clean over the coke sheds, without making a single sound.

This was to my knowledge the very first time our 'Lodger' had materialised and frightened anyone, so I do believe the scare was unintentional. He's always so quiet and unobtrusive except when he rings the door bell or turns on the record player.

Perhaps we've been adopted by yet another ghost, how can we ever find out? I must be careful what I write especially when I think that there may be one at each elbow.