Our family moved from England to Dublin’s Ringsend district to a house called ‘Sandyfjord’, shortly after the Second World War. My brother James and I were young boys in our teens at the time.

We pondered over the name of this house because of its Scandinavian spelling. When we first saw the property, a big red brick place, we knew somehow that a great adventure was in store for us. James and I could not wait, we explored the house thoroughly.

A hidden passageway upstairs, with a secret door, soon revealed itself, to our absolute amazement.

Then we came across the artefacts. A peculiar type of whip, and a strange kind of skirt made from hundreds of teeth from God knows where, lay hidden in an old chest of drawers.

We scampered down the steep, ornate staircase to tell Father about the find, but he cautioned us immediately about disturbing anything that could be dangerous in some way. That night I lay awake unable to sleep, due to the mystery of our very odd find, so soon after our arrival.

Months later, Father came home with details of the artefacts– the whip was Mongolian, while the skirt was from Polynesia. The mystery was obviously enhanced.

As we grew, father gave us some interesting facts about the house. He told us that the staircase was from a ship wrecked in Dublin bay. In my bedroom I found the word ‘FRED’ deeply carved into a part of the wood panelling. This intrigued me, but I was somewhat scared. The list of all the strange happenings that I made would come in useful eventually, I knew.

In 1950 I found a new friend, a guest, who visited the house regularly at dawn. He just sat up on the chest of drawers, tilting his head now and then.

His black trousers and jacket gave me the distinct impression that he was a fisherman at first, but he wore a Breton hat as the skipper of a barge would wear. Was this ‘Fred’?

When my father heard about my visitor he did not believe me. Following that, after each morning’s breakfast I checked the chest of drawers. On every single occasion when the visitor had gone I found a definite hot spot, at the position where he had sat.

I widened my research in the years after these events. My curiosity became unstoppable when I received snippets of information about the demise of a clipper vessel, the ‘Palme’, which sank about a mile off Blackrock, in times past.

A maritime museum in Finland sent all the data necessary to close part of the mystery. I received details of ship and crew from the Mariehamn museum, which is near the Clipper’s home port.

I re-checked my notes, written during the years since our family had taken up residence at Sandyfjord, facing the port of Dublin. Apparently, sailors collected and exchanged artefacts during stopovers at the port of Hong Kong, my research revealed.

This would account for the foreign items found at Sandyfjord, given that the original occupant, a sailor, had sailed from Hong Kong to Dublin on the ‘Palme’.

Then, by chance, several years later, whilst I was working in Europe, I came across a short newspaper article about Fred. After the sinking of the ‘Palme’, he had spent several years in Dublin. He frequented a tavern in Ringsend known as Cleary’s.

Fred Becker later took part in the 1914-1918 War and he was injured in the first battle of Ypres in 1914. He died in his home town of Bremerhaven in 1950, a year that I couldn’t forget, since it was the year I met the guest who appeared in our house at dawn.

Visiting the Dublin 4 district again in 2000, I talked with the people who then lived at Sandyfjord in Ringsend. They had not used the upstairs of the house because of a regular sighting of a ghostly presence. A fellow dressed in black with a Breton hat!

Perhaps, just perhaps, Fredrick Becker’s spirit may have been trying to pass a message through these years.
My Grandfather died in battle on the first week of the Great War. He is resting at Ypres in a grave close to where he fell. Fred Becker’s injuries were sustained in the same battle fighting for the other side!

This situation is quite unique, but we will never really know the reason for Fred’s haunting appearances at the house called Sandyfjord, which caused such mystery at Ringsend in Dublin.

Above: The crew of the ill-fated ship ‘Palme’.