Haunted Pub's 'Resident Ghosts'

Walk into the Jolly Sailor in Whitburn and you'll receive a warm welcome from mine host, the ever-smiling Vic Hanson.

An ancient coaching inn on the northern edge of Sunderland, the pub has been at the centre of village life for over 300 years.

But this is no normal pub, oh no. It's haunted. Extremely haunted.

Legend has it that there is a Green Lady walking the passages.

A lovelorn girl who had been dumped by a visiting coachman, she pined herself away and haunts the upstairs of the pub in her fine green dress, bought to impress her would-be suitor.

There is also a Grey Lady resident in the pub though not much is known about her.

Moving smoke

Although, it seems the Grey Lady might be an old lady as, catering manager, Sue Hanson explains: "I was cleaning upstairs when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a grey figure going into one of the bedrooms.

"It looked like a pall of smoke moving about and seemed to be an old lady."

There is also a further rumoured ghost of a Pink Lady.

A team from the Phenomenon Paranormal organisation held a midnight investigation into the pub's ghostly goings on.

They reported a plethora of paranormal activity including a nurse called Rachael and the spirit of a man who apparently died of unnatural causes in the pub.

A further sighting was of the spectre of a World War I soldier apparently called Thomas Yewitson.

Door slammed shut

The landlord's brother Charlie has a tale to tell about an evening spent in the pub.

He says he and a few friends were in the back-room (called the cabin) one night when the room suddenly went cold and the door slammed shut.

Nothing out of the ordinary there, you might say.

But the door has a hydraulic spring on it which Geoff Capes couldn't have pushed shut.

Charlie swears he hadn't had too much to drink that evening!

Vic himself, who has had two separate stints as live-in landlord, maintains the only spirits are in the optics behind the bar and he has not encountered any of the many ghosts reputed to have made the Jolly Sailor their home.

"However, they are as welcome as all customers to the pub" he says.