It looks like every house on the street, a normal semi with a bird-bath perched in the front garden.

But the unassuming facade of this home hides a ghostly secret which, almost four decades ago, drove a family to run in terror from “The Thornton Thing”.

Today, its resident says he lives with a ghost – no longer the sinister apparition which reduced residents to sheer terror, but the spirit of his late wife.

And in an amazing story, Frank Jones admits he believes wife Sadie is contacting him from beyond the grave… by mobile phone.

Frank, 59, says the spirit of Sadie and son Steven, who both died five years ago, are visiting him at home in Windsor Avenue, Thornton.

Mr Jones had his home exorcised 12 years ago following disturbing visits from a supernatural being, known as ‘The Thing’ which had forced another family to flee the house 37 years ago.

The Ross family told The Gazette in 1971 how the ‘Thing’ pulled at their bed covers while they were asleep. They also told how they sensed a vile smell and felt something breathing in their ears.

When Mr Jones moved into the house 20 years ago he was sceptical about the legend of the ‘Thing’. But he soon changed his mind.

He said: “I just thought they were imagining it. But there was a lot of banging and an earthy smell in the house. Then one night I was lying in bed and a mist came across the room.

“I wanted to shout out at it, but I couldn’t get my words out. My face seemed to be paralysed. It all got too much for me when that happened.”

Mr Jones’s daughter, Maureen, 30, also recalls experiences with the ‘Thing’, including taps coming on full force and the house being “ransacked”.

She said: “You think people are exaggerating until you experience it. I was home alone one evening and suddenly heard these footsteps coming up the stairs.

“They went into my dad’s bedroom and then I heard all the cupboards banging open. It sounded like burglars.”

Mr Jones contacted Fleetwood Spiritualist Church for an exorcism to be carried out.

He added: “A lady came to cleanse the house. She said a man was trapped between two worlds.”

But the strange goings on returned five years ago after Mr Jones suffered a double tragedy when his son Steven, 32, died from a brain tumour and wife Sadie, 69, died from a heart attack three months later.

Mr Jones, who runs his own scrap metal business, said: “Just after Sadie died I came home and I felt like I didn’t want to go in the house.

“I got a missed call on my mobile, but it didn’t ring. The call was from my own home number, but there was nobody in the house. Then when I went inside there was a smell like cigarettes which Sadie used to smoke and the smell of her perfume.”

Mr Jones said the family has also received strange text messages, which they believe to be from her.

He added: “She always had a mobile with her. We buried her with her phone. There have been messages with words Sadie would say but there’s no number.

n Have you experienced such visits from your relatives after they have died?