A number of years ago I was working on Flatholm Lighthouse on an island in the Bristol Channel. From this lighthouse we kept a watch on an automated Lightship some 5 miles away, we did this by observing her position on a radar screen every hour or so. The radar equipment was sited in an old store cupboard attached to the Engine Room.

Whenever I checked on the radar, especially at night, I felt that I was not alone in that room, there was a presence there of someone full of curiosity and wonder as to what I was doing in that room and what the machine I was looking at was. All this made me feel uncomfortable and discombobulated and a bit chary of going in that shed.

It then occurred to me that there was a presence in that shed that felt as uncomfortable as me.

I was what is called ‘Clairsentient’ I couldn’t hear spirits like someone Clairaudient or see them like a Clairvoyant but I could certainly feel their presence. I did some research and probing around that room and met in a corner of it the Spirit of a man standing there feeling very confused and worried about what was going on. I know he had been dead for a long time from before the Lighthouse was electrified, he may have been a Lighthousekeeper, that I am not sure about, but for some reason he had taken up residence in that shed and avoided the rest of the Lighthouse complex. I suspect he felt safe in there and by staying there could avoid contact with all the modern gizmos around the place, he had been able to do that because the shed had only been used as a glorified broom cupboard for decades and he was in there on his own.

The turmoil and upheaval of putting the radar machine in there caused the old boy much distress and when it was fully installed his solitude was destroyed and he spent his time cooped up with this machine of which he knew nothing and understood less. It was no wonder he cowered in the corner while this bleeping, flashing monster dominated the room and his life.

One night while I was on duty I crossed over to the shed to check the radar. I explained to the room and thereby the man what a radar machine was and how it worked, I told him it was nothing to worry about and wouldn’t hurt him and over that duty period and my next night watch I explained it all again and even told the old guy how to look at the screen and how to identify what he saw there.

I’m not sure of how much of what I said he understood but from then on the disconcerting feeling of fear and confusion that had filled that shed evaporated and I felt no qualms about going in there again.