Painted banner, white plinth on wheels, spotlight, long fake eyelashes
Photograph: Maja Kardrum
Photograph: Maja Kardrum
In which stories of ghosts that reside in theatres were superimposed onto the Victoria & Albert Museum: a space that has no ghosts of its own. Stories such as the one below were re-edited, omitting any references to specific locations, but leaving in some of the vaguer and more opaque architectural details that could, or could not, be transferred to the Museum’s architecture.
Mrs Barbara Mansfield, acting manager and secretary, told the Evening Telegraph, on October 3rd 1969:
“I was downstairs locking up the stockroom not long ago when I felt something behind me, and when I looked up there was something going across the balcony in the foyer – it looked like a white face. I called out: ‘who’s there?’ and it disappeared. I was convinced it was a trick… until I saw it again, not long after.”
Maintenance engineer and bingo caller Mick Lamb nearly resigned after he came face to face with the ghost one night, whilst working alone. In the same issue of the Telegraph he reported:
“I went to switch the lights on, then I went up to one of the perches and along the back to do some repairs – all of a sudden I saw it on a perch on the right hand flyer. I thought it was one of the patrons just hanging there. It scared me and I ran down the stairs and out into the street. I threatened to leave. I’ve seen it since then… it was in a brown jacket and possibly white trousers.”
The ghost was seen too by Mrs Sheila LeFevre, a snack bar girl, several times when she worked in an upstairs kitchen – but now the kitchen has been transferred downstairs. Mrs Violet West, a former bank clerk, held a vigil with six others, and saw the ghost.l In the Evening Telegraph, on October 16th 1969, she says:
“It looked like a white shadow or a statue that had been unveiled, and it moved like a jet from one side of the foyer balcony to the other, and then disappeared.”