The twentieth century has often been accused of rampant materialism. Yet at no time in man's history have so many people barracked for so many different religions with such ratbag intensity.

Which is why I try to remain a sceptic, disbelieving in God, ESP, Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny, UFOs, Uri Geller, and the Liberal Party.

So you can imagine my embarrassment when we turned out to be living in a haunted house. I mean, here I am a strident agnostic, an unfinancial member of the Humanist Society, co-habiting with a supernatural phenomenon.

Nothing happened for the first two years. The ghost waited until we were settled in before it began its unsettling activities. And really, you couldn't ask for a more convincing setting. For we Adams dwell in a large decrepit pile built around 1860 by one Clement Hodgkinson, an associate of Governor La Trobe and an energetic surveyor of sewers.

No sooner had the home been discovered by the National Trust than the developers began sniffing around, the wreckers hot on their heels. Obviously these monsters, afflicted by brick-venereal disease use the National Trust to seek out and identify the buildings most eligible for destruction. A look at the recent history of the Trust confirms that for a building to be classified is tantamount to a death warrant

Outraged by the possibility of the old joint being replaced by ticky-tacky units, I flung my ample form before the bulldozer blade. Well, to be perfectly honest, I made a nervous bid at the auction. As it turned out, the only bid. And although it seemed an exceedingly modest amount the auctioneer leapt upon it with a grateful cry. 'Sold!' he yelled. Whereupon he broke into uncontrollable laughter.

At the time I thought the low price was explicable in terms of the building's rising damp and falling plaster (I distinctly remember the blow of the auctioneer's gavel causing something of an avalanche) not to mention the termites and the dry rot. Now I realise that the fellow knew all along. About our incubus, our spook.

As I said, it's an appropriate setting for a spectral visitor, being permanently shaded by the ancient pines that sough in the wind. (Even when there's no wind from anywhere else for miles, our pine trees sough.) It reminds me of the famous Eckles driving a team of huskies through London one summer afternoon, surrounded by his own personal snowstorm.

Moreover, the building suffers seriously from rheumatism and at night you hear its joints crack. Even more ominously are repeatedly visited by a crow worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, the only such bird seen in the vicinity for decades.

I distinctly remember a night when I was reading alone. I'd bought the latest Kingsley Amis - The Green Man ã without realising it was a ghost story. As I turned the pages the pines soughed and the joints cracked and I felt a rising sense of panic. Yet at no time did I entertain the possibility of our own apparition.

Friends of the kids confuse us with the Addams Family on television. Quite often they'd say our house was 'spooky'. But still I didn't suspect. Indeed, the only. odd thing that happened was my discovery of two dozen whale-bone corsets in the cellar which suggested that Clement Hodgkinson was either a transvestite or an organiser of orgies with ample, colonial matrons.

Mind you, there was the mystery of the fountain, a slimy circle of black water in the front garden that would lie there for months on end without losing a drop, only to drain empty on odd nights. You'd swear it was being siphoned down into some chthonian underworld. Then there is the way internal doors spring open, so that you look up to see who's coming in. And nobody does. 'The wind,' you mutter, turning back to your reading.

'Then came the night when my wife was walking up the long, dark hall from a sitting-room to the kitchen. As she described it many months later, a large grey shape suddenly emerged from the dining-room and filled her field of vision. Startled, she dropped a tray full of teapots and suchlike, and stumbled back. Whereupon the shape moved up the hall and, without giving a hand signal, made a right turn into the kitchen.

She didn't tell me of this at the time for fear of being ridiculed. Which is exactly what would have happened. Nor did she tell the children for fear of causing nightmares. She kept the incident to herself, but started leaving the hall lights blazing.

Then came the encore when my mother was baby-sitting for us. Now, it's important to realise that the two women are poles apart in temperament. Where my wife is quiet and romantic, reminiscent of Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms, my mum is forceful, boisterous and pragmatic reminiscent of Marjory Main in Ma and Pa Kettle. Yet she, too, saw exactly the same thing.

But whereas Rosemary had been frightened, Mum took the experience in her stride. When we arrived home she told me that there'd been two phone calls and one appearance by a ghost. But we weren't to worry as it was 'a benign presence'.

Needless to say she was roundly ridiculed, with only Rosemary coming to her rescue. It was only then that the two stories could be compared, and the similarities remarked upon. The thing I found fascinating were the parallels between the two accounts, in particular the trajectory or the path followed by the presence, benign or otherwise. After all, it's a large house and the odds against two people describing the same phenomenon coming out of the same room and moving in exactly the same direction were fairly lengthy.

Well, I don't suppose it's much of a story. After all, the grey emanations of the dead are now commonplace thanks to old movies and the way film survives flesh. Now you can see the ghostly manifestations of Clark Gable or Spencer Tracy every other night. But I became rather taken with the idea of having the ghost, yet only because the parameter of logic and reason do become a little claustrophobic. Anyway, it made a change from having a budgie or a corgi.

Not that I'd ever see any emanation of the astral plane. As my wife and mother agree (and I can assure you they agree on very little), I'm far too pedestrian.

The trouble is that the kids are petrified of the dining-room now and the electricity bill has doubled because of the lights being left on around the clock. And there have been some other odd developments. So I'd willingly have our ghost exorcised, if only I believed in clergymen.