A STRANGE BUT TRUE TALE INVOLVING THE SALE OF A BOND BUG 

The tale set out below is a odd one and unlike my article on a Bugs life its all true. Its sets out the sale of my 2nd Bond Bug- UCE 26K.

The story starts while I was still at school-It was Dec 3rd 1973 and I was studying Art for my O levels. The school used to organize 2 day trips away and it was on one of these visits I saw something I have never been able to explain. On recounting the tale years later I still get the hairs standing up on the back on my neck. The trip was to Hitchin Priory in Hertfordshire, a very old building set in its own grounds and supposedly haunted by a number of Ghosts. My class mates were all sharing a room on the 2nd floor which was reached by one of those old oak staircases. It was during the evening when Myself and a good school friend (David) walked up the stairs and then along a long corridor to our dormitory. About half way along we both stopped and looked as a strange mist like figure appeared from the wall on the right, crossed the corridor and then proceeded to float back across the floor into the wall. I looked at David and he looked at me and we both turned and fled back down the corridor/stairs as fast as our legs would carry us. The experience was recounted to the rest of the group with various suggestions put forward as to what it was but to this day I am convinced it was a ghost.

     Hitchin Priory as it is today

Its now 22 years later in 1995 and having finished the restoration of my 2nd Bond Bug I advertised the vehicle in the Classic Car Press /Bug Club Mag etc. During March of that year I received a phone call from a potential buyer who sounded interested but lived miles away. I don't normally work weekends but on this particular Saturday I did. It was April 1st (April fools day) when a work mate came into the kitchen to tell me my Mum was on the phone saying some guy had come to look at my Bug. Bearing in mind the colleague ( like me) was a bit of a practical joker I laughed it off but she was insistent so I answered the phone and sure enough this guy had driven South from Stockton on Tees-(well over 250 miles) to see my Bug, (he had agreed to turn up the previous Thursday). What made it strange was he had given me no notice he was coming and had made the journey in a clapped out Mini. After explaining to my Mum that it would be lucky if I could get away from work by 1 o'clock she said they would show him the Bug that was locked in the garage. Sometime later a phone call to my Mum was made to see how things were going. She had offered the chap some breakfast but he seemed to be acting in a very odd manner and kept asking my Dad about an RAF base in Oxfordshire. Before he had even looked at the Bug he got back into his Mini saying he was going to move it and promptly drove off and that was the last My parents saw of him.

Feeling slightly concerned for this chap I rung the number he had previously given me and spoke to his Sister. She said he sometimes did strange things so I thought no more of it. A couple of days later He rung back to say that he hadn't felt well and then kept going on about an occurrence at an RAF base years earlier. Despite asking him what had happened he didn't want to talk about it so I didn't press him on the matter. The arrangement was then made he would come and look at the Bug the next weekend. A few days passed when I received another phone call, he said that as it was a long way he wouldn't be looking at the Bug after all. He then mentioned the RAF Base again and after pressing him on the matter this was his story.--

While stationed at the base as an Airman in the RAF he had attended a briefing along with his comrades in a large hanger. As he stood listening to the senior officer going through his speech he saw something that transfixed him to the spot. On the wall in front was a ring of fire burning and through the flames he could see faces of his fellow airman. He felt that something terrible was going to happen to these men. At the end of the briefing the rest of the group were leaving but he was so distressed he had to be helped from the building. I'm not 100% sure on the time scale after but I think it was within a few days, an aircraft carrying all the airman he had seen in the ring of fire crashed killing all those on board. He described events that happened in such a manner I'm convinced this chap had seen what he said. After recounting to him the occurrence that had happened to me in 1973 he explained in greater detail the events of the time After the phone call I felt that by talking to me a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders  it was as if the events had played on his mind for years and he needed someone to recount the tale to.

Six years after selling the Bug and the events described above I have pondered on the story and although I'm no psycho analyst I figured what could have happened. I believe there's a lot the human race know little about so I've no doubt this guy saw what he did. He may have then suppressed the experience in his subconscious preferring to forget about it. Returning South years later to view my Bug he may have seen signs for the area thus triggering these memories causing him to feel unwell.

I know the above is not what you would expect to read about on a car site but if you would like to express your views I would like to hear them. Have you or your family ever seen/heard anything you can't explain????

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