Ghost laid to rest.
Preist is called in to release the spirit that has haunted town shop.
Keith Farr.
A tormented ghost, which has haunted one of Carmarthen’s oldest buildings for centuries, has finally been laid to rest. The spirit, which could be that of a man who was savagely executed in a tunnel leading to the former medieval dungeons of the town’s castle, has been released into the afterlife by a Catholic priest. The Gorseinon-based cleric was called in by Irishman John King who discovered that the phrase ‘things that go bump in the night’ was something of an understatement at his new business premises.
Mr King moved into a run-down shop in Nott Square last July after deciding to relocate his popular Compleat Cookshop cooking accessories store from another site in Carmarthen. As renovations got underway, Mr King and his merry band of 12 staff began to experience supernatural phenomena. A presence, as though someone was standing next to them, could often be felt and the shop developed teeth-chattering ‘cold spots’. Then loud, clumping footsteps began to come from the attic, but no-one was ever there.
An internal phone, linking an upstairs restaurant to the shop, rang after hours on Christmas Eve, but the only message was one of silence. There was no-one downstairs. This prompted concerned restaurant manageress Sandra Louth, who was locking up, to call Mr King at his home. But Christmas cheer meant the jovial boss was unable to drive to investigate, so he tipped off the police. They drew a blank.
All went quiet for a while until the spectre developed an incontinence problem and had to avail himself of the upstairs loo. He would clump to the toilet, then flush the chain. But shocked staff never managed to find him, even when waiting outside the wc.
Then one day, Mr King, who has witnessed, at first hand, the terror of voodoo magic in Mauritius, heard noises coming from the shop cellar, home to a delightful array of kitchen wares. Chastising his workers for not accompanying whoever this mystery customer was downstairs to look at the goods, Mr King and senior sales representative Katya John went to investigate. They watched open-mouthed, as a heavy cast iron stand levitated five metres across the room, before settling again. Mr King said: “Katya looked at me and said: ‘That can’t happen, John.’ I said ‘I know’ and we beat a hasty retreat. But I never felt it was evil, only in need of help. Shortly after that, two liqueur glasses flew off a shelf in the restaurant.”
The final spooky-beyond-belief straw came two months ago, when Mr King brought his children to work with him on a Sunday afternoon. He unlocked his office to do some paperwork then saw the word ‘HELP’ scrawled in white powder on the floor. “I thought to myself: ‘This is not the sort of trick staff should be playing on their boss,’ then locked up again. I came in on Monday, determined to find out who had done it. But the message was gone, and so was the powder. No one else could have got in. I thought whoever the practical joker was had done it on the Saturday when we first locked up. But how could htey have got into the room again to clear up the mess? I spoke to a priest immediately after that.”
Around 15 family and staff members crammed into the Compleat Cookshop as the store was blessed and mass offered up. That was four weeks ago and all has been quiet since. “It is like a different building. Nothing odd happens now,” said a relieved Mr King, who revealed that the shop was built on the site of former tunnels used to take medieval prisoners to torture chambers, dungeons and an execution room. “As far as we know, one man was garroted in what is now the cellar. He never made it to the execution room.”
The three-storey listed building has recently been refurbished by housebuilders-of-the-year Cymric Private Developments, attracting strong praise from the Carmarthen Civic Society.
John King at the scene of ghostly goings-on in the shop. (Ralph Carpenter).
Carmarthen Journal, 19th June 1996.