Sometimes you hear a story that causes one to cry, as we say up here in Liverpool, "Ah eh!" While members of MARA investigated the Coach and Horses, originally a 17th century coaching house, on Northgate Street, Chester, we were told one such tale.

Tony Eccles and I were told of the usual array of phenomena that occur in haunted properties. Ashtray's sliding across table tops in front of startled regulars, blue flashes of light emerging from the walls, and the compressed gas canisters 'special spanner' vanishing from the cellar and reappearing months later in the attic, to name but a few. However, all that fades in comparison with the story that the management and the barmaids told us at the end of our interview.

In 1988, late on a hot summer evening, an old, stately looking gentleman, dressed in a tweed suit, entered the Inn and sat on his own near the side entrance. He ordered a drink and sat quietly, seemingly in a world of his own, until a barmaid enquired whether he was alright and needed any help. The man assured her that he was quite alright, and gingerly made his way across to the bar where he ordered another drink and began to tell her what troubled him so.

Apparently, his wife had recently died suddenly. Their home was alive with her memories. Everywhere he looked, pictures of her stared back at him evoking memories of all the happy years they had spent together. He wasn't looking forward to going home to an empty house! It was then that he enquired whether they had a room available. The barmaid said that they had, gave the old man his key, who paid cash, before knocking back his drink in one go and announcing that he was going to take a brisk walk around the city walls before retiring for the night. Smiling for the first time since he had entered the Inn, the man vanished through the doors. In fact, vanished is the appropriate word!

When he hadn't returned at midnight the management were concerned. When two o'clock in the morning came and went they feared the worst and phoned the police and told them of their worries. Giving them the mans name and address in Birkenhead, they sat back to await developments.
After searching the city without any luck, the police decided that they would visit his home to see if he had returned there in a confused state. We can only imagine their surprise when they were told by the neighbours that, "yes", the man had lived there, and "yes", the man in question had lost his wife suddenly....but eight years ago! He had passed away shortly after his beloved wife.

Descriptions of the man fitted exactly with those given by members of the bar staff who unwittingly conversed with, and served, this comparatively healthy corpse. It is of little wonder that they now joke, "Make sure all the guests staying at the Inn are alive!"

The Coach and Horses must have something special about it, after all, if it can attract paying customers who are dead... Most unlike my local drinking hole where the regulars are very much alive and only look like they have passed away! Perhaps the Coach and Horses would be better off not serving spirits.