Joy For Students, Despair For Ghosts

Students have welcomed the new Thistley Hough High School building, currently under construction in Penkhull.

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/Students-stamp-new-high-school-building-Stoke/story-14389931-detail/story.html

The new school building is the latest in a long line of local school refurbishments or new-builds. The good news is improved facilities for students. The bad news is that the current school building is said to be haunted and those ghosts will now have no-one to haunt!

Typical ghost

"It was Stoke City Council policy for many years to build schools on ancient burial grounds of any sort as the land was very cheap," explains local ghost expert Paul Brown, honorary chairman of The Paul Brown Ghost Club. "It meant saving money, but increased ghostly activity, which is the best of both possible worlds as far as I'm concerned. Moving schools to buildings that aren't haunted or built on burial grounds is just political correctness gone mad. And let's face it, none of these students are going to do anything in life anyway, so why waste the money on new buildings?"

Dick Mellor

Local cynic Dick Mellor is in favour of the trend for non-haunted schools. "Ghosts, if they exist, which they probably don't, are vermin, and should be treated as such," wrote Dick in his column in Stoke Skeptic magazine. "If we can't kill these rodents then let's at least move people away from them. They're ghastly creatures. I'd like to go and shoot them all in the face with a big gun. But a gun that kills ghosts."