Since writing an earlier article on some bingo Halls that were supposedly haunted, I’ve been looking a bit more into the phenomenon and it seems it is more widespread than I thought! Here are some more creepy tales of Bingo hauntings:
And before I start let’s get all the gags about drinking spirits or being in high spirits in a Bingo Hall out of the way!
In the wilds of Morden, Surrey, South of London, there’s a Bingo Hall at Rosehill. The local Ghost Club (doesn’t every area have a local Ghost Club?) asked for access so that they could host a séance in the hall. Unsurprisingly they wanted to be there at night (why is it ghosts only come out at night??).
The hall was not randomly selected- the place has a dark past... In 1965 a regular patron of the place died in 1965 and Bingo players have complained on and off since then about strange occurrences. The main manifestation of this is a ghostly grey apparition that has been seen by a number of players, and has become part of the hall’s folklore, with Bingo Callers even making reference to him/it. “The Grey Man” they call him/it.
The club attempted to make contact with The Grey Man through the use of a crystal ball, asking him questions. Upon asking these questions, members of the club felt that they heard noises which they put down as being attributable to the man. The building is categorized as a Grade II listed 1930s building and you would expect certain noises to come from an old building like that. However, an expert examined the noises and suggested that the sounds heard by the club would not have been attributable to the general sounds made by an old building.
This was in August 2011, and the Club hasn’t returned there, and there have been no recent sightings of the Grey Man. So did the Ghost Club frighten him away, or is he just waiting for the next Link-Up Super Jackpot event there? And what if he took part? I guess that provided someone from the “Other side” spent some cash to buy Bingo cards, then inability to show a pulse shouldn’t bar you from a claiming a Bingo win! And what if Bingo caught on in the other side? More and more spirits might be coming along to get their fix of our favourite game? That’s a bit bizarre- but let’s all look out when we’re next playing at a live event, and see if we can spot that shadowy furtive figure at the corner of the hall, not eating or drinking, but silently marking the cards...