Miners are spooked by ‘ghostly presence’

Reporters sent to investigate strange goings-on

Making headlines in the Observer in April 1929 was a ‘ghostly presence’ – with a swift turn of foot – which manifested itself to groups of miners.

The ‘presence’, described by the paper as a ‘practical joker attired in a white sheet’, had appeared on the road mostly used by pitmen between St Ninians and Millhall Colliery.

Miners claimed the ‘ghost’ could be seen in the area every night between 9pm and midnight.

In the spirit of investigative journalism, the Observer, one evening dispatched two hacks to the road said to have been frequented by the ‘spook’.

After speaking to ‘eyewitnesses’ the reporters set out the ‘true facts’.

‘A fortnight earlier three Banockburn pit firemen – Messrs R Boyle, D Macintosh and M Mcfadyen – were proceeding home from the colliery about 10.30 in the evening when they observed a figure crouching between two small railway huts near the pit.

‘Mr Mcintosh challenged the figure, which was dressed in white but it moved off and doubled back in the St Ninians direction at great speed. The figure was that of a tall, broad shouldered man.’

Nothing was seen of the ‘spook’ until a few evenings later when apprentice electrician Charles Adamson spotted a man when looking out of an electrician’s shop.

‘The man disappeared for a minute or two only to reappear dressed in white,’ added the paper. ‘The alarm was given and a number of workmen formed a search party.’

Lamp cabin attendant Peter Mitchell, strolling round the pithead, spotted a ‘broadshoulder man’ who made off at ‘extraordinary speed’ over ground covered in wires and metal.

Mr Mitchell was view that ‘no ordinary person’ could have run across ground strewn with obstacles, at such speed, without mishap.

In the nights that followed a ‘ghostly head’ was said to have popped up in a night watchman’s cabin near the colliery and two girls took refuge in a passing bus after they were reportedly accosted by the apparition near Clayslap’s Farm.

Search parties, determined to track the ghost, began combing the area at night. Several miners warned ‘their guns would be brought into play at the first opportunity’, should the ‘spook’ put in an appearance.

In a later issue of the

Observer that month, the paper told how the ‘ghost’ had re-surfaced in Shirra Brae, its first appearance in two weeks.

A Stirling man walking his dog came across two miners on the lane between Millhall and St Ninians, near Stirling Royal Infirmary. They told him they had seen the ‘Millhall Ghost’ and it had just disappeared into a clump of trees. A search of the area proved unsuccessful.

At about the same time, police had been asked by Stirling Town Council lighting committee to investigate an interference with street lighting in Shirra Brae. The plot thickened ...