Palm Street poltergeist
[Dream target date - 27 June 1990]

This event took place one stormy summer afternoon whilst working as a designer for a local advertising agency. It was about four o'clock and I was hanging around the graphics studio waiting for a couple of work colleagues to show up as we were due to travel to Liverpool for a video-shoot.

The graphics studio was located inside an old mill that had been built at the turn of the century. The building had benefitted from the ad agency boom of the early 80's, its spacious interior partitioned to create an ultra-modern workspace. Computer monitors glowed in-between cast iron columns, providing a clue to the building's previous history.

It was very dark outside and the rain was so heavy that everyone stopped work to look out of the windows - except for those working in the darkroom of course. Then all of a sudden, there was a commotion upstairs as a series of loud thunderclaps shook the building. I half expected the monitors to explode and for a second I guessed the mill must have been hit by lightening. There was alot of shouting and I could hear screams coming from the top floor, so I ran up the stone staircase to investigate.

When I reached the studio on the top floor, I met Adam the agency's studio manager. He looked quite shaken and I could see two people sat at the desk in his office: Lee, a sixteen year old youth who had just joined us on work experience and Michelle, a young designer in her twenties who appeared to be crying.

Adam took me aside and whispered in hushed tones. Lee and Michelle had been in the darkroom operating one of the large copy-cameras when it appeared to move slightly. It was enough to make both of them step back from the machine. Michelle turned to Lee and said 'did you see that?' and when they looked back the copy-camera started to move again, it appeared to hover and rotate, shifting about five inches. The two artworkers didn't wait to see what would happen next and bolted out of the darkroom like their arses were on fire.

More people came upstairs and congregated around the doorway to the darkroom. Adam inspected the floor and found a set of deep grooves carved by the feet of the camera base. He was completely baffled as it took four people to lift the copy-camera into position when it was installed.

Both witnesses were so disturbed by the incident that they needed counselling and left the agency soon after. Enroute to Liverpool, one of the art directors explained how the mill was once owned by a printing company and that one of their workers had hung himself in that part of the building. Even more chilling was the discovery that Lee's father had taken his own life by the same method just weeks prior to the darkroom event.