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Old Lady Ghost Still Shopping For Her Dinner?

psychomania1973

Junior Acolyte
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
71
Location
Cornwall
Apologies in advance for the long post.

I work on counters in a large supermarket. I haven’t been there long. Due to it being a bit short staffed at the moment I’m often working them by myself. At the rear of the counters are the sinks for washing chopping boards, knives etc. Whilst doing this I have my back to the counters but can see vague reflections on some stainless steel shelving of any customers waiting to be served.
Frequently I will be using one of the sinks and I will see either a reflection, or in my peripheral vision a person stood behind me at the butchers counter. I turn around to serve them and there is no one there.
I didn’t think much about it, but happened to mention it to a colleague who has worked the counters since the store was built ten years ago (in the context of me wondering if we needed a mirror on the shelf to properly see waiting customers)
He told me that it had been happening for a few years and that many people believed that the store was haunted. I just chuckled at this. I think that everywhere I have ever worked that has a large amount of staff there has been someone claiming it to be haunted, and I’ve had a few jobs over the years!
But he continued, telling me that there was a regular customer to the counters. An elderly lady who came in almost every day to purchase meat or fish for her dinner. She was on first name terms with all of the counter staff.
Sadly she arrived one day to do her shopping but before she got into the store she collapsed. First aid was administered and an ambulance called, but paramedics were not able to revive her and she died in the store car park.
I actually remember this happening as it was big news in the town at the time.
Since then people working on the counters have frequently reported seeing a customer waiting to be served, but they turn around and no one is there.
In addition, two members of staff on the twilight restocking shift on two separate occasions have reported seeing an elderly woman in one of the aisles who has then vanished before they can question her as to why she is in a closed store. Another twilight member of staff, a young girl reported being tapped in the shoulder. When she turned around there was nobody there.
Items are often moved around on the shop floor overnight when the only people there are restock staff and security. Things taken off shelves and stacked neatly on the floor. Vague shadows are seen darting around the end of aisles.

The store was built ten years ago. Before that the land it was built in was fields.
The store does have comprehensive cctv coverage so I’m wondering if anything has ever been caught on that.
I’m usually quite the sceptic when it comes to stuff like this. Once the word gets out that somewhere is supposed to be haunted people tend to attribute the most mundane things to “the ghost” but apparently quite a lot of the things that have happened, happened to people that didn’t know about the rumours.
Maybe there really is some poor lost spirit who doesn’t know she has passed, and just wants to get into the store and pick something for her dinner.

I think some more subtle digging may be in order.
 
It would be a compassionate act for someone to go in there and help her cross over to the other side. That grocery store (and its staff) was probably the only place with which the poor woman had any type of human bond; now it's the place she haunts in order to maintain that sense of connectedness. She needs a little shove.
 
Apologies in advance for the long post.

I work on counters in a large supermarket. I haven’t been there long. Due to it being a bit short staffed at the moment I’m often working them by myself. At the rear of the counters are the sinks for washing chopping boards, knives etc. Whilst doing this I have my back to the counters but can see vague reflections on some stainless steel shelving of any customers waiting to be served.
Frequently I will be using one of the sinks and I will see either a reflection, or in my peripheral vision a person stood behind me at the butchers counter. I turn around to serve them and there is no one there.
I didn’t think much about it, but happened to mention it to a colleague who has worked the counters since the store was built ten years ago (in the context of me wondering if we needed a mirror on the shelf to properly see waiting customers)
He told me that it had been happening for a few years and that many people believed that the store was haunted. I just chuckled at this. I think that everywhere I have ever worked that has a large amount of staff there has been someone claiming it to be haunted, and I’ve had a few jobs over the years!
But he continued, telling me that there was a regular customer to the counters. An elderly lady who came in almost every day to purchase meat or fish for her dinner. She was on first name terms with all of the counter staff.
Sadly she arrived one day to do her shopping but before she got into the store she collapsed. First aid was administered and an ambulance called, but paramedics were not able to revive her and she died in the store car park.
I actually remember this happening as it was big news in the town at the time.
Since then people working on the counters have frequently reported seeing a customer waiting to be served, but they turn around and no one is there.
In addition, two members of staff on the twilight restocking shift on two separate occasions have reported seeing an elderly woman in one of the aisles who has then vanished before they can question her as to why she is in a closed store. Another twilight member of staff, a young girl reported being tapped in the shoulder. When she turned around there was nobody there.
Items are often moved around on the shop floor overnight when the only people there are restock staff and security. Things taken off shelves and stacked neatly on the floor. Vague shadows are seen darting around the end of aisles.


The store was built ten years ago. Before that the land it was built in was fields.
The store does have comprehensive cctv coverage so I’m wondering if anything has ever been caught on that.
I’m usually quite the sceptic when it comes to stuff like this. Once the word gets out that somewhere is supposed to be haunted people tend to attribute the most mundane things to “the ghost” but apparently quite a lot of the things that have happened, happened to people that didn’t know about the rumours.
Maybe there really is some poor lost spirit who doesn’t know she has passed, and just wants to get into the store and pick something for her dinner.


I think some more subtle digging may be in order.

Can you get access to the in-store cctv footage? If things are moving overnight that'd be interesting to look at. You could have a good few hours to sift through though..
 
Can you get access to the in-store cctv footage? If things are moving overnight that'd be interesting to look at. You could have a good few hours to sift through though..
Unfortunately I don’t think I’d be allowed access to the cctv. Only certain people have access to it (managers, security etc) due to privacy protocols set by the supermarket chain.
 
Unfortunately I don’t think I’d be allowed access to the cctv. Only certain people have access to it (managers, security etc) due to privacy protocols set by the supermarket chain.

Fair point. Is anyone there looking into it do you think? If I were manager I'd want to.
 
Fair point. Is anyone there looking into it do you think? If I were manager I'd want to.
I’m not sure. I was only told about this a few days ago so I need to do some subtle investigation. It doesn’t seem like it’s “big news” in the store or anything like that. I’ve been working here a few months and have only just heard about it. It’s like the staff that have been here for a long time all know about it and to them it’s just something that happens in store, and the newer staff members don’t know about it till something happens and then the subject is brought up, almost matter-of-fact.
If I do find out any more about it I’ll post it here.
 
Apologies in advance for the long post.

I work on counters in a large supermarket. I haven’t been there long. Due to it being a bit short staffed at the moment I’m often working them by myself. At the rear of the counters are the sinks for washing chopping boards, knives etc. Whilst doing this I have my back to the counters but can see vague reflections on some stainless steel shelving of any customers waiting to be served.
Frequently I will be using one of the sinks and I will see either a reflection, or in my peripheral vision a person stood behind me at the butchers counter. I turn around to serve them and there is no one there.
I didn’t think much about it, but happened to mention it to a colleague who has worked the counters since the store was built ten years ago (in the context of me wondering if we needed a mirror on the shelf to properly see waiting customers)
He told me that it had been happening for a few years and that many people believed that the store was haunted. I just chuckled at this. I think that everywhere I have ever worked that has a large amount of staff there has been someone claiming it to be haunted, and I’ve had a few jobs over the years!
But he continued, telling me that there was a regular customer to the counters. An elderly lady who came in almost every day to purchase meat or fish for her dinner. She was on first name terms with all of the counter staff.
Sadly she arrived one day to do her shopping but before she got into the store she collapsed. First aid was administered and an ambulance called, but paramedics were not able to revive her and she died in the store car park.
I actually remember this happening as it was big news in the town at the time.
Since then people working on the counters have frequently reported seeing a customer waiting to be served, but they turn around and no one is there.
In addition, two members of staff on the twilight restocking shift on two separate occasions have reported seeing an elderly woman in one of the aisles who has then vanished before they can question her as to why she is in a closed store. Another twilight member of staff, a young girl reported being tapped in the shoulder. When she turned around there was nobody there.
Items are often moved around on the shop floor overnight when the only people there are restock staff and security. Things taken off shelves and stacked neatly on the floor. Vague shadows are seen darting around the end of aisles.


The store was built ten years ago. Before that the land it was built in was fields.
The store does have comprehensive cctv coverage so I’m wondering if anything has ever been caught on that.
I’m usually quite the sceptic when it comes to stuff like this. Once the word gets out that somewhere is supposed to be haunted people tend to attribute the most mundane things to “the ghost” but apparently quite a lot of the things that have happened, happened to people that didn’t know about the rumours.
Maybe there really is some poor lost spirit who doesn’t know she has passed, and just wants to get into the store and pick something for her dinner.


I think some more subtle digging may be in order.

Great post! Welcome to the FMB :)
 
psychomania1973:

I'd suggest this ... Start by researching the death of the original old lady in the store's parking lot. See if you can locate any photos or descriptions of her. If you can link the spectral forms people allege seeing to a known death on the property it would add a lot of weight to the notion it's her ghost.

Seeing a transient phantom that looks like "any" old lady doesn't exactly contribute to making the case for its being a ghost of someone departed.
 
I would speak to a leading "Ghosthunter".
Others on here will be better placed to advise whom that may be.
Perhaps too a nearby university.
Then together with them, and with a union rep, I would approach management to as to see CCTV.
As a member of staff, you should not be seeing anything in the footage that you would not ordinarily see, so privacy laws may well not be so constraining as you think.
 
On my way to work each day I pass some kind of power box on a short metal pillar. I have to cross a street before I go by it, and as I turn my head, I see it out of the corner of my eye while my head is moving. Even though I know it is there, each time I look around before crossing the street, I think there is someone standing on the sidewalk, but it's only the power box on its pillar. Maybe the phantom at the counter is something like that.

It would be great to see what the CCTV would reveal about the moving objects. Do the twilight shift employees agree on which objects have moved and when? Rule out the possibility they may be shifting things around independently of each other and so without each other knowing. That can be easy to do when you're tired and working with others.

Great post! Not too long at all. Interesting, and also a bit poignant. It sounds like the staff had a nice relationship with the lady in her last days.
 
On my way to work each day I pass some kind of power box on a short metal pillar. I have to cross a street before I go by it, and as I turn my head, I see it out of the corner of my eye while my head is moving. Even though I know it is there, each time I look around before crossing the street, I think there is someone standing on the sidewalk, but it's only the power box on its pillar. Maybe the phantom at the counter is something like that.

A couple of days ago someone told me about a well-know 'ghost' that's seen in a lane a few miles away.

It's actually a tall pale cross outside a church that vehicle headlights pick up on the bend. From a distance at night it briefly resembles someone in a white coat standing beside the road. When the driver comes close they can't pick it out.

I'll be trying this out ASAP.
 
Also, there was a FT letter about a pillar box in a street which in certain lights looked like a woman in a red blazer standing at the bus stop. New bus drivers on route learning would slow down for the 'passenger' only to find nobody there and the trainer would laugh at them.

The trainers must have approved though as it showed observation.

While on the general subject, does anyone remember the monster that used to walk out of a concrete fence?
 
It would be a compassionate act for someone to go in there and help her cross over to the other side. That grocery store (and its staff) was probably the only place with which the poor woman had any type of human bond; now it's the place she haunts in order to maintain that sense of connectedness. She needs a little shove.

Of course she may simply like it there and revisits the shop when she feels like it. Might get stroppy if she can't return :). An alternative view might be that employees are seeing an image of the lady in their mind's eye as they saw her when she was alive. (I've still not come to any firm conclusion about the nature of "ghosts"- no doubt I'll find out eventually.....)
 
While on the general subject, does anyone remember the monster that used to walk out of a concrete fence?

No, but I've been attacked by many concrete fences. Darn things leap out at me in a similar manner to door jambs and wardrobes...

Was the original story a metaphor? @escargot
 
Something I have considered with my own experience.
I know there are studies that have been done on both EMF and infrasound and the physical effect they can have. Where I stand at the sinks I have two large and noisy blast chillers either side. This is the only place that I experience the “phantom” customer.
I do have an emf meter kicking around somewhere I could try to sneak into work to check the levels (I’m not supposed to have anything in my pockets on the shop floor apart from my locker key so I’m risking a telling off)
That doesn’t explain other people’s experiences though.
At the moment I am just trying to subtly find out more about it all. So far I have only heard about it from two people - the long term counter staff member and a shop floor worker who hasn’t actually experienced anything herself, and there is the chance that, as usually happens with these things, over time it gets exaggerated with every telling. I’d like to speak to someone other than counter staff that has actually experienced something whilst at work. I was told that at least one of those people have since left the company. Don’t know about others.
I will keep you posted on any developments.
 
psychomania1973:

I'd suggest this ... Start by researching the death of the original old lady in the store's parking lot. See if you can locate any photos or descriptions of her. If you can link the spectral forms people allege seeing to a known death on the property it would add a lot of weight to the notion it's her ghost.

Seeing a transient phantom that looks like "any" old lady doesn't exactly contribute to making the case for its being a ghost of someone departed.
What else could it be if it's not the old departed lady as I often try and work out what are ghosts as someone says could be same person but from a different multi verse but if tapping someone on the shoulder then could be a earth bound spirit ?
 
While on the general subject, does anyone remember the monster that used to walk out of a concrete fence?

Oddly enough I thought of that as I read a couple of posts above yours...
It was a letter to FT sometime in the early 90s. IIRC kids would dare each other to stand looking along an alleyway that ended (or turned a sharp corner) at a concrete panel fence with a lamp-post above. Something about the arrangement of the lighting and location (or may some other factor) meant that there appeared to be a figure walking or running out of the fence, its legs and arms moving but never getting closer.
Is that the one?
It's always a bit irritating that nobody ever seems to go and investigate even in cases where it probably is an optical illusion, when the exact location could be easily identified and nowadays a clip uploaded to the net.
 
Oddly enough I thought of that as I read a couple of posts above yours...
It was a letter to FT sometime in the early 90s. IIRC kids would dare each other to stand looking along an alleyway that ended (or turned a sharp corner) at a concrete panel fence with a lamp-post above. Something about the arrangement of the lighting and location (or may some other factor) meant that there appeared to be a figure walking or running out of the fence, its legs and arms moving but never getting closer.
Is that the one?
It's always a bit irritating that nobody ever seems to go and investigate even in cases where it probably is an optical illusion, when the exact location could be easily identified and nowadays a clip uploaded to the net.

Yup, that's roughly what happened. As I recall though it wasn't considered alarming and the person who wrote the letter had been taken to see the effect by local kids when he moved to the area.

We need @JamesWhitehead with his knowledge of the pages of archived FT letters.
 
It's always a bit irritating that nobody ever seems to go and investigate even in cases where it probably is an optical illusion, when the exact location could be easily identified and nowadays a clip uploaded to the net.

One of the things I'm interested in is where the view of the camera and the eye differ - we see twinkling stars for example.

I agree wholeheartedly that this is /so/ frustrating!
 
Grocery stores, like pubs, are frequently haunted by a number of disincarnate entities. The practitioner going in to relieve them of their attachment – or to disabuse them of the notion that they are still, themselves, among the living – should focus resolutely on the task at hand, however:

We knew one lady who specialised in clearing ghosts - that was her hobby. So she once spent a whole week in a supermarket, with her chair, sandwiches and coffee, chatting to the ghosts all evening. Needless to say, she found it very difficult to move them on because they had found someone interesting to talk to. She did eventually manage to move them on to the light, but it became quite a performance.
(from my archive)
 
Quick update. I have now spoken to three people that work the evening shift (till midnight. Store shuts at ten)
Two knew nothing about it.
The third person told me exactly the same things as I was told before. Exactly the same story with the same events. I asked him how he knew about it and it turned out he was told by the person who told me all about it. I also asked him if he’d ever experienced anything strange and he said no.
That means that so far I’ve only heard from one person about the supposed spooky happenings, and two other people that were just repeating what they had been told by him.
I still have to speak to someone who has actually experienced anything. I’ve been given one name but have yet to see that person at work.
Getting access to the cctv is a big no. Company rules. Only certain people are permitted access unless there is a suitable reason. “Possible ghost investigation” is not a suitable reason.
Still trying to find a newspaper article about the death that happened in the store car park. I know it happened because I remember it, but strangely I can’t find any mention of it. I live in a rural area so you’d think something like that would have made local news.
I don’t think there will be any updates to this for at least a week as I’m on annual leave
 
These sorts of things are the stuff I find most intriguing.

I can see some of my customers hanging around after death. Some of them may already BE dead, in fact, just addicted to coming into our tiny local supermarket for a copy of 'People's Friend' and a packet of Tic Tacs...

Essential shopping - ha!
 
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