Ghostly goings-on in the bakery.
By Brian Shewry.
Everyone likes to hear a fictional ghost story at Christmas but baker John Foxon may be having spectral encounters of the real kind. For there have been some most mysterious and inexplicable happenings at Wilkins Bread Shop in Littlehampton High Street where he works. A kettle disconnected itself from the mains and flew on to the floor, a fire extinguisher fell from its bracket on the wall, taps have turned themselves on.
John has seen a shadowy figure on the wall by the staircase and often has the impression he is being watched as he goes about his work in the small hours of the morning. Asked if he believes in ghosts, 49-year-old John, who lives in Arundel Road, says he has an open mind about the supernatural. But he would certainly like to get to the bottom of the strange incidents that have haunted him since he first went to work in the premises in 1978. It started early one morning when a driver making a delivery put the kettle on in the kitchen to brew a cup of tea. John was working in the shop, heard a crash and called out, ‘Are you all right?’
Getting no answer, he went to find out what had happened and discovered that the driver had left and the kettle, complete with lead, was on the floor 8ft away from where it had been plugged in. Shortly afterwards, John saw a shadow on the bakery wall out of the corner of his eye. ‘It was only a glimpse but it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck stand up and I wondered if I was seeing things,’ he recalls.
Three weeks later, when taps in the kitchen turned themselves on, John began to query in his mind whether the incidents were connected. But nothing more happened for 12 months…
Suddenly, fans in the bakery turned themselves off, even though the switches were in the store upstairs. On another occasion, he was working in the bakery when he felt the left side of his body turn freezing cold while the right remained warm. Seconds later he had the impression of a shadow moving away along the wall and he was cold no longer.
Two years ago he took another job and several bakers who worked in his place apparently had some strange experiences.
In August John returned to the High Street bakery but it was not until the end of October that the ghostly incidents started up again. At 3.50 a.m. a fire extinguisher, which had been firmly clamped to the wall, crashed to the ground for no apparent reason. Then one of the shop assistants was upstairs and heard water running but no taps were turned on when she went to investigate. And John has again started experiencing the feeling that he is not alone but is being watched. He knows nothing about the history of the building, which dates from the mid-19th century, although he has heard rumours that a man once killed himself there.
Littlehampton Gazette, 22nd December 1983.