A ghostly tale from your lobby correspondent

I’m sure Biddy Baxter would be turning in her grave - if she was actually in one - to see her oddly-coiffed protégé shrieking her way around some of the country’s most terrifying and publicity-friendly ancient buildings.

I still cherish the memory of skipping through the zillion or so channels on the TV in our room at a remote hotel in Scotland last year only to find Yvette and the team joining forces with the ‘celebrities’ from The Only Way is Essex.

The programme was a spook hunt round an abandoned mental hospital near Basildon (I know!) and featured more tears and high-pitched screams than an episode of Britain’s Got Talent - and that was just Harry.

At one point I thought Yvette might have to challenge the quivering blond moppet to a squeal off to reassert her mastery, but sadly that moment never came.

Whatevs - as the cast of TOWIE might say - the whole thing was strangely satisfying as only really bottom-feedingly bad TV can be. The only thing that was missing for me that evening was the presence of psychic detective Derek Acorah who disappeared in unresolved circumstances sometime between series four and five.

I rather cherished Derek’s contributions to Britain’s Most Haunted. Whether it was grappling amusingly with a completely invisible entity, theatrically struggling to breathe on the site of a medieval gallows or simply battling with the sinister complexities of English language - “I feel there’s a malefant spirit down here with us, Yvette” - Derek was quality viewing.

Now, as you’ll gather from the above, the key to my enjoyment of the world of the strange is comfort. When drawing aside the misty veil I like to be at home on the sofa with a book or lolling on a well-sprung hotel mattress with the TV zapper in my hand.

What I don’t like is being completely alone in the office after hours and trapped in a pitch-black lobby while someone or something on the other side of the door holds the knob so that it can’t turn.

This happened to me last week, and I still can’t work out whether it was a genuine ghostly occurrence or an innocent structural anomaly in a creaky old building.

I’ll tell you what happened and then perhaps you can tell me what you think.

First some basics.

I work in a very old office in London. The current building dates from the early 18th century, but it stands on the site of one of London’s medieval priory churches. In our basement - more of that later - you can still see corbels from the original ecclesiastical building.

In common with many old buildings, my office certainly has a distinctive atmosphere and, in the past, there have been mutterings about the possibility of it being haunted. Just occasionally colleagues have mentioned experiencing the unsettling feeling on entering an empty room that someone has recently ‘been’ there. And, interestingly, our evening cleaner no longer brings her youngest son because he says he is ‘frightened’ of the staircases.

I can honestly say that I never felt any of this… until last week.

It was a dreary Tuesday evening and I was working late. I was the last person in the office when I finally made my way down to the post room in the basement to frank a couple of letters.

On my way back upstairs to the front door (where I’d left my coat and bag) I noticed that the light in the lower basement corridor was still on, so, being a good environmentally-friendly employee I went down again to turn it off.

The first strange thing happened as I made my way upstairs again. The light on the top landing went off just as I reached the middle of the flight, leaving me in complete blackness. This was odd because the emergency light should have been on.

I didn’t think about it much, though, because I knew there were only five or six steps up to an inner lobby that led out to the entrance hall where I‘d left my coat and bag.

When I got to the lobby, however, and reached out in the dark for the door knob I found that I couldn’t move it. Try as I might, I couldn’t turn the knob or open the door. I fumbled around in the small pitch-black space and scrabbled up the wall to find the light switch. Instead, I kept knocking the fire alarm and at one point I tripped over the top step leading back down to the darkness of the basement.

I’ll admit I began to panic a bit. I was trapped in the smallest space in the deserted building and my mobile phone was in my handbag on the other side of the door.

Blindly I felt for the door knob again and when I found it, once again it refused to budge. And - here’s the odd thing - like a couple of my colleagues I had the strangest and strongest feeling that there was someone on the other side of the door, playing a game with me.

By this time I was feeling slightly hysterical, but I made myself stop, let go of the door knob, take a deep breath and think.

Of course! - the lobby had two doors - the one behind me opening out to the even smaller inner lobby leading out to the yard. And that tiny space had a window.

I turned and opened the other door easily. As daylight flooded into my stygian box, the door I’d been tugging at so desperately simply clicked open and swung soundlessly towards me.

No one was there.

At the very same moment, the electric light over the basement stairs fizzed and came on again.

Even though my hands were shaking, I don’t think anyone’s ever done the ‘lock up and leave’ drill as fast as me. I was on the Number 8 bus en route to City Thameslink faster than Yvette Fielding can say, “Is there anyone here with us, Derek?”

Frankly, that’s a question I didn’t want anyone to answer last Tuesday. One thing I’m quite clear about now is that I prefer my ghostly experiences to be entirely fictional.

NB. Yvette, this isn’t an invitation to the Most Haunted team, unless you want me to stake out the attic with George Clooney?

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