Vicar’s ghost story.
A vicar has backed up claims of ghostly goings-on in an old house. Grocer Harry Laidler called in the Rev. Robert Watkins after a “supernatural prank” at his old family home near New Hartley, Blyth. And the vicar confirmed yesterday that something “very strange indeed happened.” A bedroom door which had not been locked for 50 years mysteriously closed – “and apparently locked itself” – with Harry inside. And there was not a key in sight. “It sounds daft, but I know it was the forces of the supernatural which did it,” said Harry of Fountainhead Bank, Seaton Sluice. “I used to lock up my auntie in there when we were children and she hated it. She died recently and I think she could have been taking her revenge.”
Newcastle Journal, 26th March 1980.