SPOOK KIDNAP PLEA
THE owner of a haunted pub is demanding the return of its kidnapped ghost.
Richard Greenwood wants the spirit of the Earl of Derby brought home after it was taken by a Chinese artist. Lu Pingyuan travelled 6,000 miles after seeing CCTV film allegedly showing the ghost of the seventh earl James Stanley.
He claims he caught it in the toilets and trapped it in a metal canister, left, which is now on display at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester.
Happy
But Richard, owner of Ye Olde Man And Scythe in Bolton, said: “I want my ghost back. Apparently the artist is communicating with the earl and he’s said he wants to go to China. But he’s been happy in my pub for hundreds of years.”
It is believed the earl spent his last hours at the pub before being executed over the 1644 Bolton massacre.
Richard has written to Lu offering to donate the chair the earl sat on to the exhibition, as long as the seat and the spirit are returned to the pub when it ends.