by Neil Arnold
Another naval encounter of the ghostly type was said to have taken place in the late 1700s when Britain were at war with the French. Sheerness docks were extremely busy at the time as Britain was in need of great ships, but one morning, as Sheila M. Judge writes, ‘… there were to be heard sounds in the air of a nature well known to the ears of the many old salts who then dwelt in the town’. It was said that the cacophony was of some ‘heavy naval engagement’ taking place not far away and that so many men were put on guard as the booming echoed across the sky from over the horizon. However, much to the bemusement of those on guard, there was to be no attack; instead it seemed that those on alert had witnessed some type of ghostly battle but alas, no, the sounds emanating from the sea were simply heavy, iron water tanks being struck by the strong gales, causing a booming effect. At Garrison Point Fort, situated within the docks, there is talk of an old ghostly tale which is attached to the dockyard church. Many years ago there was a rumour of several sightings of an eerie figure being seen hanging from one of the trees in front of the church. Those unfortunate enough to encounter the hanging spectre spoke of how there was never any rope visible, but merely a dangling wraith floating in mid-air under the stark branches.
Psychic medium Mia Dolan, who is mentioned in the Minster segment, had a creepy encounter whilst living in a flat with family in a residential close inside the docks. At the time she was in her mid-teens. It was a pleasant morning when Mia exited the top-floor flat with her elder brother’s friend, but as they closed the front door behind them they heard the most horrifying scream. Both shocked, they peered over the stairwell in time to see a young boy tumbling down the stone steps, hitting the bottom with a crunch. Within a few moments Mia and her friend were within several feet of the boy, who suddenly disappeared into thin air.
View towards Garrison Point.
There had been no sign whatsoever of the incident, and not a trace of the boy. Shortly afterwards, so intrigued by what they both had witnessed, Mia visited the Sheerness department of births and deaths but could find no mention of the boy. When she visited the library situated at Sheerness, however, she came across something which shocked her to the core. A young boy had been killed at Blue Town by falling down a set of steps some fifty years before. An even more staggering detail was the fact that it had happened on 21 January, the same date Mia and her friend had witnessed the tumbling apparition.
From then on Mia began to realise that she had become a person sensitive to such spirits and energies. She would begin to hear messages in her head, warning her of things about to occur. Mia now gives psychic readings and is a best-selling author.
The docks have long been considered haunted. A resident of Sheerness once reported that:
A friend of mine’s father was a petty-officer in the war – attached to submarines – but he spent most of his time diving. Unfortunately one of the things he had to do was dive and get into a submarine that had gone down off the Isle of Sheppey, where all hands were lost. He had to break into this submarine, locate all the dead bodies and bring them to the surface and off to funerals and so on.
It’s sometimes said that the shadowy figures seen around the docks on certain nights are these restless souls who perished onboard those submarines, although areas where waiting sailors used to hang their hammocks could also explain some of the peculiar shadows of a night. A chap named Peter once recalled how, ‘along the walls [of the docks] there are hundreds of enormous eyes – like hooks and eyes – where sailors waiting for ships would stick their hammocks up’. Perhaps their energy has seeped into those granite structures, replayed back on the rare occasion to those susceptible to such things. Peter added that there are ‘lots of little ghosts lurking in those places – real atmospheric places’.
Bridge Road, Sheerness.
Just outside the docks at Sheerness is Bridge Road. The Civil Defence Corps used to be situated here and the building was thought to have been haunted. According to a small report in the Sheerness Times Guardian in 1961, ‘Doors have been heard to open and close. Footsteps have been heard in the passage. But nobody has been found.’ Members of the building told the newspaper that the ghostly presence often makes itself known during committee meetings, with one associate commenting, ‘we first noticed the noises about two years ago soon after I came here. Sitting round the table at a meeting we heard the front door open then close. Footsteps went up the passage. And that’s the mystery because they have yet to be heard coming back.’
The article added that the premises may well have been built on burial ground and this confirmed my suspicions when I found a small snippet of information regarding the discovery of a 150-year-old skull and other bones whilst during an excavation at Bridge Road.
The Civil Defence Corps were keen to move from their premises in the early 1960s but not because of the reputed presence. Civil Defence Chief Mr Ken Thomas stated, ‘He [the ghost] has become part of the Corps now but we want better accommodation.’
Intriguingly, the following year the Sheerness Times Guardian of 30 November 1962 asked, ‘what on earth has made George the ghost go?’ after the same Civil Defence members had reported a distinct lack of activity on their premises, regarding a spirit that had now been given the name of George. The article stated that the spectre ‘seems to have vanished’, leaving ardent ghost-believers of the committee wondering if he’ll ever return. The small snippet of information appeared in the ‘Island Roundabout’ column, with its author stating, ‘some said in no uncertain terms that George existed. Others were more sceptical and said that a loose floor-board needed to be nailed down.’ Even so, the article once again touched on the idea of the building at Bridge Road being erected on a cemetery site, with a historian claiming that the Civil Defence building ‘stands on the site of a cemetery in which the bones of the victims from two ancient wars still rest’. The report concludes that ‘George’ could well be ‘the ghost of an old warrior who is trying to get into this life to prevent war-suffering by joining the Civil Defence Corps’.
More Shivers …
In 1989 island resident Paul Deadman met the woman who would become his wife. However, in the autumn of that year the couple had a spooky encounter at Sheerness. Paul reported:
We were walking along the beach path near the floodgate at the bottom of Beach Street one evening. My wife was wearing a knee length skirt and was messing around pulling it up to her thigh and we were laughing and joking around when she said ‘Oh, I’d better stop as there’s an old man there!’
I looked around and answered her but less than a few seconds later I looked back and he had disappeared! I said ‘Where’s he gone,’ or something similar and looked up and down the beach front which was flood-lit; the flood gate was closed also and there’s no way an old man could have run away that fast! The nearest steps were quite a distance away in each direction. Needless to say we left the area very quickly! As for a description we both confirmed that it was an old man wearing a flat cap and a long coat. It was a very eerie experience!
One of the weirdest ghostly encounters at Sheerness took place a number of years ago and involved a window cleaner. One afternoon a Mr Crome was cleaning the windows of a Sheerness house when suddenly, in the reflection of the pane, he saw the figure of an old man standing directly behind him. Mr Crome could see every inch and detail of the man; he estimated his height to be over 6ft and saw that the chap was wearing a collarless shirt. However, when Mr Crome spun around to greet the fellow there was nobody within sight. The eeriness didn’t stop there, though. As the window cleaner descended to the basement windows he felt a terrible weight on his shoulders and became frozen with fear. Hurriedly finishing the window, Mr Crome came out of the basement and a short while after spoke to a local lady about the incident. She stated that in the past a builder, whilst perched on his ladder over the same window where Mr Crome saw the ghostly reflection, was suddenly flung from his steps by an invisible force.
Beach Street.
S
tranger still, this hadn’t been the first time the window cleaner had seen spirits in the reflections of windows, there having been similar encounters in London before.
In 1996 the Co-op branch situated on Sheerness High Street announced that it would be closing its doors. At the time of its closure it seems that the protests did not merely originate from those who would be left without jobs. A ghostly presence began to make itself known, particularly in the Wheatsheaf Hall segment of the building, and staff would state quite categorically that they were not willing to venture into the adjacent areas known as the Unity and Wellington Halls. The ghostly presence would sporadically manifest itself in the form of footsteps and odd noises and the Co-op staff would occasionally speak of an unseen manifestation that would move items around. Minster resident Betty Oldmeadow informed me:
The old Unity Hall was over the Co-op furniture shop next to the Wheatsheaf Hall at 100 High Street, Sheerness. The hall was eventually used to store furniture. There was a series of corridors that linked the buildings together, thus I was jokingly reminded about the ‘ghost’ when it was necessary for me to go up to a temporary office near the hall; I can’t find out more about the ghost because unfortunately, most of my old colleagues from the Co-op have now passed on.
However, after a few enquiries I was contacted by a chap named Tony who told me:
In September 1986 I began work at the CWS Co-Operative Furnishing store in Sheerness High Street which is roughly where Iceland is now. In those days Health and Safety had never been heard of and so upstairs on the top floor, which was next to the Co-op hall, the remaining floor space had been turned into warehouse space. Furniture was stored in the hall, and in a room at the back of the hallway the hardware stock was stored whilst the electrical goods for the electrical department were in a separate shop further up the High Street. This room was kept under lock and key and in order to get to it you had to walk across a dark room to access the lightswitch to turn the lights on, for not only the room in which the electrical items were kept, but the floor space you had to traverse in order to reach it. In the Christmas period of 1987, after the Co-op toy shop had closed and the remaining stock transferred to the furnishing store – also being kept upstairs – I had occasion late one afternoon when it was dark, to go to the electrical storeroom in order to check on the stock level of a certain model of TV. As I walked into the darkened area of the stockroom, having walked across a lit floor, and had begun to undo the padlock that secured the electrical stockroom door, a sudden chill came over me and I suddenly felt a cold hand clap me on the back of my shoulder. I was aware that no one else could possibly be in the warehouse with me and a chill went down my spine. Feeling very alarmed at this I rushed back downstairs to gather my wits and as I reached the shop floor it was pointed out to me that I was shivering. One of the two other men who worked there suddenly exclaimed ‘Oh look, he’s met Mary.’
I asked who Mary was and was told the following story … A few years earlier when the Co-op hall had still been used to host dances, one Christmas whilst locking up, Joe, who was at the time the caretaker and was now still working at the store as security, came across the body of an elderly lady who had been attending the dance there. She was at the base of a short flight of stairs. It was thought that she had been looking for her way out of the dance hall and had fallen down the stairs, which had resulted in her death. She was said since then to often reappear during the Christmas period, mainly to male staff who often reported feeling someone touching their shoulder. Joe had had several encounters with her over the years and had in the week preceding my experience been sitting upstairs in the staff room alone whilst waiting for a keep fit class that used part of the hall on a Monday night to finish up. Whilst he was sitting there [Joe was partially deaf] he felt someone clap him on the shoulder as well.
Whenever it was dark and I had to go up to the warehouse after that I would always announce myself and say ‘Hello’ to Mary in case she was hanging around as such. I encountered her on two further occasions after that. The first was a few weeks later whilst carrying a three-seater settee down the spiral staircase that led from the dancehall to the hallway that separated the furnishing store and the Co-op chemist that was next door. As I reached the bottom of the stairs – I was going backwards – I happened to glance upwards at the landing at the top of the stairs and there, to my astonishment, was an elderly lady, dressed as though she was going to a dance and quite petite. I immediately realised who it was and didn’t say anything until we had finished loading the settee into a delivery van. I then went and found Joe and asked him to describe to me what Mary was wearing and looked like when he discovered her body. He described perfectly the woman that I had just seen a few minutes ago.
Site of former Co-op building in Sheerness High Street.
The final encounter with her was not a sighting but a happening that occurred in connection with her. In the winter of 1988 a few weeks before I left the Co-op several of the women who worked in the hardware department and I were discussing Mary when all of a sudden a rack of saucepans that was fixed hanging to the shop floor collapsed and came crashing down to the floor. Upon checking the fixture there was no reason as to why it should have done this. After talking to various members of staff who worked there at the time and a friend of mine who had worked there previously and had encountered Mary, I have come to the following conclusion as to her appearance. It was always to male members of the staff and always in the winter time. I believe the reasons for this were that Mary was looking for the way out of the hall when she died and knew that there was a male member of staff on duty. The clap on my shoulder was similar to that which someone would administer to you if they were tapping you on the shoulder to get your attention in order to ask you something. I think she was still trying to find her way out of the building and was approaching male members of the staff in order to try and ask them to show her the way out. I don’t know if she is still there as the Co-op shut in the ’90s and was sold off as separate buildings.
Tony’s theory intrigued me and was confirmed by a former warehouseman who added that at the time of the store’s imminent closure:
There are so many things that are unexplained since the announcement that the stores would close. The first noises I heard were like someone in torment. Then there were sounds of footsteps, lights coming on and off, showers of new nails and nuts being hurled around and smashed mirror glass in a place where there was never a mirror.
Oddly, none of the dancers who used the Wheatsheaf Hall reported any levels of strangeness, but the warehouse operative commented:
Now there are sounds from all three halls. We hear footsteps and in the Unity Hall we were astonished to see the head of a mannequin go flying across the room. Then, for no reason, an old brass light-fitting crashed to the floor, from a ceiling where there are only strip lights. We’ve also ducked a well-aimed ashtray.
A psychic medium called in to help the unsettled spirit claimed that the spectre had pleaded to be left alone to roam the empty halls and also confirmed that the apparition is that of a woman named Mary. Mind you, the medium’s version of Mary’s death differed from Tony’s: it was claimed that the woman had died after she had fallen over in the Wheatsheaf Hall and somehow become locked in the building where she suffered a heart attack.
The ghostly episodes had become so severe that on one occasion the warehouse operative, who was a keyholder at the time, had to call the police. For some unknown reason the alarm to the building had sounded but when the police left, assuring the employee everything was in order, several footsteps could be heard echoing through the building and a number of doors were also heard banging. The police returned but could find no trace of an intruder. The warehouse worker in question always considered himself a down-to-earth fellow and not the sort prone to flights of fancy, but he was quite content to tell a newspaper, ‘There are times when the hair stands up on the back of my neck – there is a presence.’
Tony also to
ld me about another ghostly encounter he experienced:
In July 1989 I was away at Hendon Police College doing my twenty weeks’ basic training having just joined the Metropolitan Police Force, as it was in those days, in March of that year. As was my custom I would phone my mum on the Thursday night in order to let her know that I would be returning home for the weekend on the Friday night. That Friday I arrived at Sheerness railway station at around 5.30 p.m. and instead of walking straight home, which was in Granville Road at about the midway point, I walked into the High Street up to Viddlers newsagents at the opposite end to the railway station and picked up my weekly magazines that they reserved for me. This meant that I then walked the short distance down St Georges Avenue to enter Granville Road from that end as opposed to the Rose Street end that I would normally have accessed it from. As I got outside No.71 I saw the elderly male resident that I was very familiar with, Mr Jenkins, stood outside his front door which, having no front garden, meant that he was on the pavement. I was close enough to reach out and touch him and said ‘Hello, Mr Jenkins’. He just looked blankly at me and raised his hat that he was wearing. It was a hot day but he had on his overcoat and hat! I just shrugged my shoulders and thought, miserable old git, must be in one of his funny moods again. I walked the few yards to my house, which was ten doors away, and upon entering the living room the first thing my mum said to me was, ‘Guess who died last night? – Mr Jenkins!’