I don’t often talk about this and very rarely feel the need to share but as this has caught me, I’ll go.

Many years ago I began working life as a porter/domestic in a local community hospital. It was previously a workhouse with many of the workhouse buildings still in situ but of course used for admin etc. Weekends were for deep cleaning of admin and midweek outpatient areas and it just so happened this was my first weekend working solo. I’d been in the role for a couple of weeks and knew the rest of the ward based porters and other staff.

On my rota on this particular Sunday morning was one of the old workhouse era buildings which was used as an admin block for social services. Small, 2 offices, a massive kitchen area and a toilet .

I’d collected all the stuff I needed to give the place a clean and entered through the double doors.

As I walked in I just felt uneasy, not anxious but a bit off. I can’t say I presumed I felt that way because it was a quiet day and I was in a spooky building but in hindsight that’s the only thing I could’ve put it down to. Though a creeping feeling of running out of the building did come. As I was trying to shake it off, a smell really hit me, much like the smell of old tube televisions when you’d get the static and if you were close enough to the screen you’d get that sort of static smell.

I remember as my senses registered this , there was a massive bang from the toilet area. This was enough to make 20 year old me run out of the building.

As I stood there in a bit of a panic, wondering how I’m going to go back in to get the gear and thinking of what excuse I might make to not do the clean, one of the ward porters came into view about 30@ yards away. This guy was a hard but militant unionist and I called him over thinking I might ask him to help finish the job and in return I’d help him on the ward.

I didn’t say anything about me being freaked out.

Sure enough he came in with me and … like a dream he just burst into tears. I can’t convey enough how odd I felt seeing this 30 year old hard nut just break down. He looked at me with utter bafflement as if I’d shot him.

We both went outside again and he grabbed me by the collar and said ‘ not a f**kin word to anyone ok’ and he stayed with me while I locked up and we both returned to our stations.

This was a Sunday and I was off on the Monday and my supervisor was due on shift Monday morning.

I left a note in the handover book that I had run out of time and that I was really sorry but this place didn’t get done.

On Tuesday I came in for the late shift and my supervisor who had been on early Tuesday as well as the Monday told me not to worry about the Sunday and that he managed to do it Monday morning.

I thanked him and apologised.

What he said next had never left me.

He asked me if I had even gone in on the Sunday and I admitted I had and he said ‘ that explains why some cleaning product was on the floor’

He then asked why I really didn’t get to clean it and I told him about the sort of uneasy feeling, the smell and the bang.

His expression as I said this grew more concerned and he told me that he had gone in first thing Monday and as he was mopping the tiles corridor where the toilet was, there was a patch that wasn’t getting wet, he went over it a few times but it was bone dry. When he inspected it further it was two foot prints of what he said were child’s feet.

At this point we are both in a bit of a frenzy and decided there and then to change the schedule for this block so it became two person job.

Some weeks later we mentioned it to one of the long standing estates team and he told us that the building in question was the workhouse maternity section for baby’s born with disabilities and from records it had a murky past.

I’ll never forget that and it still has me wondering what it was if not for something paranormal .