[Watching You]

Hi all,

I am not sure if ghosts exist or not …. but do I believe in ghosts…yes and the reason why is this true story that happened to me back in the early 1990s.

There we all were all bright & happy, no global warming or congestion charging in London under another Conservative government that looked like they were going to be in power for the next 1000 years. (OK so that bit is not really true).

Anyway in my youth I used to work in a London football ground. There were a couple of toilets (Americans say bathrooms), male and female, that we used that were very strange. For example when you were using these toilets hand dryers would automatically cut on and off in quick succession for two seconds, always when your back was turned – never in front. However, you could explain this away by saying maybe someone was playing a prank on you, but no matter how hard we tried we could never get the hand drier to cut on and off like that, because it would run for its full cycle of 15 – 20 seconds.

When women were using the bathroom they would say that not only would the hand drier go on and off but it seemed like someone was trying the door. In fact one woman was so paranoid about these happening that she would not use the bathroom unless someone was standing outside the toilet male or female she didn’t mind as long as she was not alone in there. Typically these things would not happen until it was at dusk in the winter months, at around 3pm and onwards – never in the day time.

These hand-driers were actually changed twice and no one could figure out why they kept doing this. These same hand driers worked perfectly elsewhere in the stadium but only played up in this particular location and the problem only arose after dark.

At that time I had an ambivalent view towards all this about ghosts in the toilets, until one evening in late October whilst it was dark, I was trying to use the toilet when I could not go, despite bursting to go, it felt like someone was standing there beside me watching, I could sense a presence despite there being no one else in there but me - guys may know what I mean. I tried and tried and could not go for a few minutes, then the hand dryer went off twice. With that I promptly came out of there and left the place and went on a fence in the car park where I was able to go no problem whatsoever.

I am not sure if this proves anything, but as to add some background to this story, in this toilet a guy passed away with a heart attack. It seems during the excitement of watching his team either win or loose, he found the only quietest places he could and went and sat in the toilet and passed away there, he was not found until after the match had finished - dead.

On top of this, in the days before security cameras the night time security guard, who was known for liking the odd drink fell down some steps after a session in the pub one night, in the same stand and died.

So do I believe in ghosts, yes I do and I can certainly recommend you somewhere not to use the toilets especially after dark.