Ghosts at Christmas by Darren W. Ritson Read Free Book Online Page A

and ventured into the room, the noise of the girl immediately ceased, leaving an eerie silence in which one could hear a pin drop.
    Another witness claimed to have seen a young girl disappear in front of her eyes while she was having a drink in the bar. The girl, it is said, silently ran into the bar area from around the corner, whereupon she stopped dead in the room. She glanced up at the woman and then vanished into thin air, right in front of her.
T HE S COTIA H OTEL , S OUTH S HIELDS
    Another phantom who makes his presence known at Christmas time is ‘Tommy the Cellerman’, who haunts the Scotia Hotel, a quaint little old pub that sits more or less in the centre of South Shields’ busy shopping precinct, on King Street. This one-time spit and sawdust alehouse became so popular with the South Shields locals that an extension had to be built. Eventually, due to more and more people drinking there, the alehouse was completely demolished and a much larger pub took its place. This wonderful ‘Victorian Long Bar’ still does a rip-roaring trade, even after many years of business.
    Tommy the Cellarman was said by some to have died on the premises of the Scotia Hotel back in the mid-1970s, although this is not certain. What is certain is that Tommy walked with a distinct limp, and was quite often seen hobbling around the pub with his trusty old walking stick. After his death, staff at the pub often reported hearing the shuffle of footsteps accompanied by the tap, tap, tap of a walking stick.
    What makes the staff believe this is the ghost of Tommy is the fact that these eerie sounds are heard as they make their way up and down the cellar steps, the steps which Tommy used almost everyday while he was alive. It is said that a former landlady once took a photograph of some staff members one Christmas and, when the picture was developed, there was Tommy the Cellarman alongside everyone else, bold as brass. Why he should make his appearance at Christmas is anyones guess. Perhaps Christmas was his favourite time of year, and he simply wanted to join in with the seasonal festivities. I have attempted to track down this elusive photograph, but so far my efforts have sadly proved fruitless.
    Tommy can still be heard on occasions as he goes about his usual business – up and down the cellar stairs – tap, tap, tapping as he goes. It seems that Tommy has no plans to leave the pub anytime soon, so who knows, maybe this Christmas, or perhaps the next, he might show up in another festive photo as the staff and patrons celebrate the Yuletide.
T HE S TOGURSEY M ONKS OF B RIDGWATER , S OMERSET
    An article in the Somerset Herald , dated 27 February 1927, states that the area known as Monkswood in the village of Stogursey was once subjected to a haunting. A man going by the initials of B.T. stated that, ‘I have brought to memory something I had not thought of for the past forty or fifty years.’
    B.T. goes on to explain that he remembers from his boyhood the ghost story attached to that area and states that any youngsters that happened to pass an area known as Monkswood, when it was getting ‘dimpsy’ (one presume he means dark), had a very real chance of seeing the ghosts. He goes on to mention that one day, near this area, a coach and pair had a terrible accident. The coach belonged to one F.W. Meade-King and was being driven by a local coachman named Mr Tremlet. Mr Tremlet, declared that the accident was no fault of his own and stated that one horse ‘saw something’, resulting in it becoming very frightened and knocking the other horse over. A roundhouse at the local priory, he also claimed, had an underground tunnel that led to the nearby castle. This was the area where the ghosts would ‘take shelter’ during bad weather.
    This first letter prompted the response of another reader, dated 6 March 1927, who remained anonymous, to recall his memories of growing up in Stogursey:
    As an old Stogursey boy I can well remember the