Exorcise in ghost busting.
Shopkeeper Linda Williamson is hoping a ghost-busting priest has helped clear the air in her High Street shop. Canon Kevin Conway was brought in to exorcise the “ghost” in the shop which stocks wedding gowns, baby wear, wool and other goods because of mystery night time happenings. But Linda is having to keep watch on the situation from her hospital bed after being injured in a car accident on Saturday. She was having a day from work when the accident happened and she was taken to Dumfries infirmary where she is still detained.
An assistant in the shop said yesterday: “We don’t know whether the ghost had anything to do with it, but it has certainly been on our minds all week.” On three successive mornings at the end of last week Linda and her staff arrived at work to find clothes and other goods strewn about the shop on the ground floor and upstairs. Although there had been a number of cases of lights being found switched on over the past couple of years and doors being found open, there was nothing on the grand scale of the past week. “We found clothes all over the floor in the front shop the first morning and we thought it was a break in. On the second morning there was wool and other goods further through the shop and then on the third morning the bridal wear had been moved about.”
And Linda added: “One of the bride’s frocks was hanging over a chair as if it had been tried on. I didn’t believe in ghosts but I’m starting to wonder now. We brought in the police but there was no trace of a break-in and nothing was stolen.”
Canon Conway, the local priest, visited the shop after the third mystery “break-in” and exorcised the 200-year-old building. Linda said: “I’m hoping that the priest has managed to clear the air. We are all scared to go into the shop in the morning and we have to go in together.”
A police spokesman at Dalbeattie said: “We have visited the shop on two occasions and saw the items of clothing which had been strewn about. But we could not find any trace of the building being violated and we have not come up with an explanation. We are keeping an open mind on the matter.”
Dumfries and Galloway Standard, 29th November 1995.