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Where Wally was an old friend

Scunthorpe Telegraph production editor Nigel Fisher remembers a spooky experience.


The ghost which so unnerved residents of 56 Wrawby Street, Brigg, in the 1960s was reputed to be able to cross through the adjoining wall into No57 – home to the Lincolnshire Times weekly newspaper.

Veteran news editor Edward Dodd, who spent many thousands of evening hours over the decades working in the upstairs newsroom, used to refer to the ghost affectionately as Wally.

He led trainee reporters – and there were many on attachment from the Hull Daily Mail – to believe the spook was nothing at all to worry about.

It was the practice for some of the editorial staff to return for an evening shift banging away at their typewriters to fill up the wide open pages of what was a huge broadsheet newspaper.

Fortunately, workaholic Edward was usually the last one out – rarely before 9pm – and sometimes later than that.

But some youngsters were decidedly uneasy about working late – for fear of coming face to face with Wally.

During my own tenure in the news-gathering team, I often worked alone in the evenings but put the cold chill in the air down to the ancient window frames, rather than the presence of a poltergeist.

However there was one incident – just a couple of weeks before I left to join the Scunthorpe Telegraph – that even a cynical old journalist and ghost sceptic finds hard to explain.

Returning to the office well after 9pm on Christmas Eve, out came the leftover whisky from the bottle the staff had been sampling a day or two earlier.

A friend and I then toasted the season of goodwill – perhaps rather too freely.

A treasured framed photograph of my beloved Brigg Town Cricket Club, circa 1908 – a great trophy-winning team – used to hang on the wall near the entrance to the newsroom.

It was still there when we left but, on returning to the office after the festive season, the picture was on the floor – the glass smashed into many pieces.

Strangely, no-one else had been on the premises since we left.

Had it just fallen off the wall?

Or was Wally the ghost showing his displeasure at the spirits being consumed on his doorstep?

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