A Ghost in Gateshead

At the moment I am earning my living by selling kitchens and bathrooms in the north of england which does not suggest any potential for psychic phenomena. However, it transires that the people I have been working with for the past few months are convinced that the showroom is being haunted.

As I have had some training in mediumship at the spiritualist association whilst I was living in London a few years ago and am usually curious about the possibility of hauntings or memories being retained by buildings of past events I took it upon myself to open up to images and feelings to see if the building is actually being haunted or not.

What I saw during this process, which lasted about 30 seconds between outgoing calls to sell kitchens, was a woman dressed in some kind of headgear, either a bonnet of scarf of some sort.

Now then, the way I received this image was as a very short flash in my mind so I didn't get the opportunity to look at the historical detail, and probably wouldn't have recognised the clothing worn in the late 19th century anyway but I do remember women wearing headscarves at church on a sunday in the early seventies. That is what I saw in my mind. I cannot claim historical accuracy but prefer to interpret these images as symbols.

At this point in the story I was not aware of the buildings history and one of my collegues introduced some information about the history of the site. We are working in a kitchen showroom which is on an industrial estate developed on the site of a coal mine.

This does not make my second sight particularly plausable until a little bit of digging on a local mining history website produced the information that the mine was owned by a woman.

Many people wwere killed in mining accidents in the 19th century close to the building which is now the showroom and telesales centre all of whom were male.It is plausible to me that I may have seen a grieving widow.

My own theory is that the woman I detected in the showroom is the owner of the mine.