Vending machine of the damned
• Spooky Nonsense: Ghosts & Hauntings
The ghost in the fruit machine of a Merton bookmakers has placed it among the most haunted shops of its kind in Britain.
Alan French, manager of the Wimbledon Chase branch of William Hill’s, is convinced a fluttering phantom is keeping a sinister vigil over the bookies.
Phantom-rattled Alan believes the gambling ghost of a prolific punter who lived above the shop has possessed the one-armed bandit in the customer toilets and is making things go kerchunk in the night.
The fortune-hunter, known to him only as Bob, had a clockwork routine where he would descend from his flat and walk through the door of the toilets at precisely 10.15 am. There he would periodically play the fruit machine. “He’d tramp up and down all day and we’d say, ‘Hasn’t he got a toilet in his room?’” said Alan who has not considered exorcism to remove the spirit.
Wimbledon Guardian: Ghost in the machine