Things Not Always What They Seem

This article has been submitted by a GrownUps member. GrownUps accepts no liability for its content and the views and information contained within are not necessarily those of the GrownUps website.

It was around 1956, we were in the port of Stettin, Poland, from memory to unload coal. A busy port, lots of ships, loading and unloading cargo, mostly from the Soviet bloc, it was Iron Curtain days.

Normal practice was on arrival at a port to draw money from due wages in the local currency, this allowed you to purchase things you needed, from toothpaste to beer. This is where the Iron Curtain got in the way, the exchange rate offered was silly, 11 zlotys to the UK pound. To offset this exchange rate there was a huge demand for non Iron Curtain goods, so instead of drawing money you sold goods, I sold an old suit with a London label for 700 zlotys, £63, it cost about £10 new.

The snag was it had to be spent, no other country wanted the zloty.

My memory of the town was an attractive square, I remember stalls that sold beer for 2 ½ zlotys per pint, outside the square the reminders of war, bombed buildings everywhere, this surprised me, the war had been over for a dozen years.

Sorry this is long winded, I am getting to the point, I had enough money to buy heaps of beer, and only a few days to use it up. On the night in question along with another shipmate we are heading back to the ship, at a crossroad we argue about the correct way and the upshot being we go in different directions (we were both wrong). It was dark, no streetlights, a breeze had come up and I was feeling cold, as I walked there was a wall on my right, a good spot to get out of the wind. So the thought turned to action and I was over and quickly asleep.
I awoke to a crunching noise, it was dawn, as my eyes came into focus I could see I was laid on top of a grave, as you might expect this gave me a shock, I jumped up and said something, I don’t remember what. At that point I could see I was in a cemetery and beside a stony path, a man on the path screamed, he looked at me for a moment, then ran, I shouted to him it was OK, I just slept there, but the more I shouted the more he ran.

So if a man from Stettin ever tells you about a ghost in a cemetery you can tell him you have spoken to the ghost.

print