Ghostly Goings-On

One evening in 1933, 17 year old Frank Goldsmith took over from a colleague for a night shift alone at Electro Chemical Development Syndicate in one of these old mills. His job during night shift was to charge banks of batteries using the old water wheel, keeping an eye on the dials in the dim glow of the charging-board lights, which allowed him to spend much of the shift reading. He had become used to hearing the mill creak and crack as the wheel turned. But this night he heard footsteps on the wooden floor above. Knowing he should be alone, Frank ran up the stairs shining a light. The noise stopped and there was no one there. The footsteps began again ten minutes later, this time coming from the third floor down to the second. Frightened, he drew on all his courage and rushed up the stairs to the floor above. Again the steps stopped and he turned to walk back down to the ground floor. The steps began again on the floor above and then followed him towards the ground floor. Frank ran down the final stairs and on reaching the bottom, he was able to switch on the light and look around. Nothing . . . . . This was as much as he could stand and Frank ran from the mill, up Charlton Terrace to the safety of the streetlights of Hadlow Road. He continued and turned into East Street where he recovered with a whiskey in The Man Of Kent!

The next day colleagues told him of almost identical experience. During his two years at ECD, Frank suffered more alarming events; an unseen hand tried pushing him into the water wheel, sacks of salt appeared to pass through a locked door and three lathes on a common power supply stopped intermittently even though the lights remained on. And a 15 year old office boy was pushed down the stairs by an unseen hand.