Whilst working on the wards in Plymouth in 1975 I became very adept at "laying out" the deceased. No idea why - just didn't seem to bother me that much. I was often called upon to help on other wards when I was on night duty.......

One Saturday night I was called upon to help on one of the surgical wards. So of I trot to do my stuff. In this case the patient had died from gas gangrene and had unpleasant, bubbling lesions along his spine - yuk!

Now this meant taking precautions. So my colleague and I gowned up, complete with masks and theatre hats - all in white. We prepared the body and then placed it in the bier (a metal box on wheels - used to transport the patient to the morgue).

I set off - just me and the body to the morgue. It was around 0100 on a dark night. The morgue was behind the hospital, close to the officers ward block and near to the staff quarters.

As I rounded a corner, pushing the body ahead of me I saw three staff members, obviously returning from a good night out at the other end of the hospital block, hove into view. I was some distance away but managed to have quite an effect on these 'drunken sailors'. They yelled as one and ran as fast as their boozy legs would take them to the staff quarters and disappeared from view. Hells teeth! What rattled their cages?

Ah!! Of course!. Picture the scene. You are returning from a good Saturday night filled with beer, you round the corner of a building and what do you see in the distance? A shadowy all white figure alone in the dark. The dark of an old military hospital reputed to have a good few un-departed souls. Well, you don't believe in this sort of rubbish, but, there it is, right in front of your eyes! Your first ghost! Of course, you run as fast as you, bloody well can!

Probably, the first and last time I will ever have such a 'spirited' effect on people!

Extract from  the navy lark! - memoirs of a navy medic