Not a believer in visitations from the other side by any means but….A good few years ago I was on a residential course held on an old RAF base in the middle of nowhere in Norfolk. All building trade related stuff. We’d done 2 separate week’s study and everyone on our course were back for a further couple of day’s revision with the exam on the last day.
I was confident I knew enough to pass, was bored with studying on the last night and had teamed up with a Londoner who was quaking at the thought of the exam. He needed a drink, I fancied a bevvy, so we arranged a taxi expedition to the nearest town and abused it to the full. Hammered, would be a fair description of us both.
When morning came I skipped breakfast and headed to the exam room a little worse for wear, grabbed a coffee and sat down, surprised to see only the examiner there and nobody else.
After a while he said “you decided not to take up the offer of a lie in then ?” My blank look must have told him that I hadn’t a clue what he was on about. Especially as I appeared to have missed the chance of a few hours extra kip.
He explained that in the early hours of the morning all hell had broken out in the residential block we were staying in. Lads running up and down the corridors and out into the yard outside screaming their heads off. (I explained that I had taken a sleeping tab after revising, so as to get a good night’s sleep before the exam)
A number of the lads in different rooms had reported waking up to see ghostly airmen walking through their rooms and into the corridor. We’re talking brickies, scaffolders and crane drivers who reckoned they were tough as,
Others said they had deffo been woken by the sound of a piano and loud singing coming from the direction of the bar which was still in the same place as it always was back in the day.
The residential quarters used to be the officer’s mess and the sighting is apparently well known on the anniversary of an incident which happened there during WW 2 where the returning crew all died after a crash landing.
There was loads of other stuff that was mentioned including that the squash court next to the mess used to be the mortuary where their bodies had been kept and this time, as happened every time a visit was due, that when approaching the squash court the security guy would be dragged off in the opposite direction by his Alsatian with it’s tail between its legs.
The examiner said they were aware of the anniversary date but purposefully hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. The exam start had been delayed for 2 hours to give everyone time to catch up on their sleep….
When the rest eventually came down for the exam there were some hard men there who were clearly shaken by the experience and deffo did now believe. Some who were still shaking asked to leave and reschedule the exam for a later date.
I can only thank the good Dr Stella that I saw nor heard a thing and passed with a distinction, unfortunately my cockney drinking partner was right to have been worried as he completely flunked the exam. He was able to re-sit later though as he too claimed he had been very badly affected by the incident. So, as far as he was concerned, the ghostly visitors were most welcome.
I did catch up with him before we left after the exam, to insist he never mentioned a word about the 2 drunks who rolled back in at silly o’clock and decided to have a proper cockney, roll out the barrel knees up on the joanna, before eventually staggering to bed via the wrong rooms…..
