Dr Spook goes a-haunting.
Nick Parker.
Brickies on a Black Country building site are getting the shakes… from a ghostly doctor! Workmen restoring an 18th century house in Upper Gornal are being plagued by a phantom physician who doesn’t care for home improvement. So far, the dreaded doctor has turned the air cold at the Kent Street building by:
Appearing as a shadowy figure in a doorway; Skimming metal building tools around rooms; Throwing timber at the workmen; Walking heavily across the floorboards in upstairs rooms.
But the workers have got used to the ghost’s tricks and treat him as an everyday hazard. Owner of the building, Mr Philip Slater – who is converting it into a restaurant – believes the ghost may be a doctor because the building was once a surgery and a chemist’s shop. “We hear his footsteps upstairs when we are working and it seems we only upset him when we are doing something to his house he doesn’t approve of. It’s getting to the point where we are getting used to him.”
Builder Michael Jones said: “I never thought anything about ghost stories before I came here, but now I believe there is someone else in this building apart from us.”
Sandwell Evening Mail, 14th March 1985.