Memory is a funny thing…

It's not often I pass through Wakefield these days. No need to, now all my relatives over there are gone, not that we were much of a close family anyway. However, I did drive through the place the other day and I am fairly sure I passed the place where their cottage was. There's some not-so-new nondescript houses there now but before that there was a fire station, and before that I suppose there must have been the cottage.

It must be a very early memory, the cottage. My grand-father (step-grandfather he was really) was a groom for the Coal Board. I think I remember a big yard with stables and plants growing in rows in the middle, lots of them. I remember picking the long pea-pods and then popping them open and easing the sweet-smelling peas into the dish. I suppose there must have been ponies but I don't remember any talk of the old man going down into the pit and yet I think I've read that pit ponies used to spend all their working lives underground. There's a photo or two in a family album - small fuzzy black and white pictures showing the family standing at the door but all I can bring to mind is the sun shining on the allotment in the yard and the small of new peas.

But these halcyon days were not to last although what comes next is much more fragmented in my mind. For some reason my grand-father could not continue to work as a groom - it was farmer's lung according to family legend but possibly the Coal Board no longer needed anyone to look after the ponies or perhaps they wanted to sell the land off and make a bob or two. It doesn't matter why now but the cottage came with the job and so, of course, they had to move.

You mustn't think they were just thrown out into the cold. Oh, no, these were brave new times and the mines were now owned by the National Coal Board on "behalf of the people." The ever-so-caring management found them somewhere they could have for a token rent and it was a farm house not a cottage.

I've never been back to Starling House after the one trip we made there when I was a child and I have been told it was demolished years ago. I imagine the ground is a bit uneven where the house once stood and when the wind blows through the tall, grey grass you might just see a stone or two. Anyone who ever lived there has now gone and a few images conjured up from somewhere in my unconsciousness are all that may be left. And yet?

Nothing in my very short life up to then could have prepared me for the old farmhouse standing alone in a field. At dusk the starlings squawked loudly in the trees that stood around the house.

It was a dark building lit only by oil lamps - although by then electricity had reached most homes - and warmed by the fire which burnt in the black iron range. The living room was far from unfriendly; my grandma was an excellent cook and scotch pancakes and other delicacies usually sizzled on the griddle. The bedrooms, though, were cold, cheerless and sparsely-furnished, and I probably dreaded the idea of going to bed but we didn't get as far as bedtime before I realised I just wanted to go home.

Looking around when we arrived we noticed the bedrooms had china pitchers and basins but there was no sign of any toilet. We assumed it would be out the back, and out the back it certainly was, across the rough grass and into the next field. As my mum and I made our first excursion there to this most inconvenient of conveniences we noticed a bulky shadow standing a few yards behind the small hut which housed the earth closet and we heard slight movement in the grass. Why had nobody told us there was a bull in the field? Were such things just taken for granted in the countryside?

I was put to bed. I think I remember the murmuring of the grown-ups downstairs. I can't remember now if I fell asleep easily amongst the feathers or if I tossed and turned, frightened by myself, unable to get to sleep. All I remember now (or think I remember) is waking up and hearing voices in the room, men's voices, urgent. Now, when I look back, I find it difficult to recall what I heard. Was it just a murmuring or could these distant voices have been shouting? Could I have heard a younger voice, crying. But probably this thought has come to me only more recently.

It was pitch black. I think I probably screamed and brought the adults running. In the light cast by the oil lamps their shadows loomed large on the wall but for a few moments… There was nothing there, of course - only the old wardrobe with its door hanging open. I was told not to make such a fuss but we left the next day.

A few years later I got round to asking my mother about that night. "There were plenty of pits around there in those days. It's likely that at least tunnel went under the house. It was pretty unstable - that's probably why they demolished it in the end although I can't imagine it could ever be converted into a desirable residence."

Life went on. My grand-parents moved to the city. From Manchester to Minneapolis kids danced in the cinema aisles and rock 'n' roll was born. In Dallas an assassin's bullet struck down a President and a guy from Ohio took the first step on the moon. Pits became trading estates and industry became heritage. I never really thought about my trip to Starling House but somehow I learned it had been demolished , probably not that long after our visit.

In Wakefield one small colliery became a mining museum. Going underground, once a necessity for some had now become an entertainment for many, just another good way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon. We donned safety helmets and got into the lift, not quite knowing what to expect. As the lift descended I began to feel unbearably cold, and then felt icy fingers grabbing at my arm. Looking ahead as the lift gates open, desperate to get out, I was blinded by an intense flash of light and a loud noise seemed to be tearing my head apart. Now I was unbearably hot and fighting for breath The guide, an ex-miner, got me back to the surface as quick as he could.

"Will you be all right, love?"

My 12-year-old son was less concerned , "Oh, don't worry. It's just typical. She's scared of everything." No doubt he felt a bit cheated.

And perhaps he was right, but all I can say is that's when the dreams started. These are not like any of the other conscious or unconscious fleeting thoughts or visions that come to me in the small hours. It is the face of a boy, his eyes shining out from a coal-blackened face and his mouth opening in what looks to be a scream but this a silent movie and which makes it all the more frightening. It's difficult to say why I believe this dream is different from the others I have - it's just the picture is much clearer, more 3D, closer somehow. I know the face of this boy better than my son's.

There's an obvious story here. It's too late to compare memories with my mother. Perhaps I should go to the library, do a bit of research on pit accidents and lay my ghosts to rest. I got as looking for Starling House In Google and was surprised when the name flashed up before me on the screen - two incendiaries had fallen there, in 1941 destroying a haystack. (Other towns were less lucky on that particular night but that is a very different story.) A map reference was given so there must once have been a Starling House but there is nothing on the actual map to prove the farmhouse had ever existed. I imagine there's just the odd brick on the ground and the only voice that can now be heard is that of the wind making its way through the grass.

Of course, I still see the boy in my head from time to time and perhaps one day I'll do some serious research but for now I prefer just to look back to those long-ago shadows on the wall that belonged to people I once knew along with the smell of freshly-picked peas - my own personal ghosts.

Memory is a funny thing.