Seeing a 1940s schoolboy creeping out of your fireplace is a frightening hallucination by anybody’s standards.

Luckily for 73-year-old David Stannard, he was warned of the extraordinary visions before they started.

Mr Stannard, a former Surrey County Council assistant county secretary, was diagnosed with glaucoma 25 years ago but never imagined it would lead to him being registered blind in 2005.

It was during an annual glaucoma check-up that doctors picked up macular disease in Mr Stannard’s left eye, which affects the brain’s ability to cope with colours, shapes and faces.

At that point his right eye was fine so he could still read and drive but one night, as he went to bed, his vision was permanently damaged.

“I saw a mass of red in my good, right eye. There was no warning, no pain or sensation at all. I realise now that I could see my own blood,” he said.

It was after being registered blind that Mr Stannard saw the schoolboy in his living room.

He said: “His hair was combed and Brylcreemed. I couldn’t see his facial features. The apparition was amazingly life-like.

“A moment later, I turned to the television set and saw two RAF officers with distorted faces watching the screen as if they were watching a show from the wings.”

The following morning he saw a little girl with curly hair in bunches and Victorian dress, standing on the sofa looking out to the garden.

Surrey Association for the Visually Impaired warned him beforehand about Charles Bonnet Syndrome, where apparitions occur, so he was fully prepared.

Half a million people suffer from macular disease but not everyone is told about the hallucinations and some are misdiagnosed with dementia.

Mr Stannard said: “I find it hard to believe that people can be left to think that they are going mad. It’s nonsensical not to warn people that they may develop hallucinations when they are diagnosed with a serious eye condition.”

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