A very strange place

[rodp]

I worked in this garage many moons ago. it was long after ken Wharton died and was used as a truck garage. Some very strange and sometimes unpleasant happenings went on in there. i was glad to leave.

It's the 100th anniversary of his birth, hence being in the local news.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/ken-w ... -servicing

[some bloke]

Mingle mangle mingle mangle, you are about to enter the twilight zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jCQDVkMY_o

[hairyyoda]

Rod, my fathers brother gave me a A30 in the early 70's, external pins on the door hinges, used to pop the pins out and leave the doors off and go on cross country spins around the local coal tips and a derelict brickworks, hell of a scream the fun would be brilliant
Phil

[pickle]

Rodp your strange garage place interests me. Tell us more if you will.

[rodp]

First you need to know who was working there, and their background. There was me, garage manager / chief mukanic. Alan, another mechanic and Cooky the lad (probably 19ish). Both Cooky and myself came from a council estate in Dudley, the priory estate, notorious for being rough, many outsiders just would not walk through it. it was where they emptied the slums in Dudley when the Government forced the council to do so because of the state of the slum housing.
Alan came from Tipton, slightly better but not the sort of place to walk about at night.

As you see, non of us were "soft lads", non of us frightened easily. Until we worked "there"

When we went in the garage a lot of it was as in the film I linked, still had the tiled pit, the wash area, the large glazed showrooms etc. Part of the showroom had the windows whitewashed and it was a stores, still containing parts and consumables from donkeys years ago, and also some of ken Whartons personal items such as the metal rally plates from his cars etc.
There was always odd noises around the place, you could be having lunch in another one of the showrooms that had been whitewashed out and you would hear scraping noises in the workshop. When you went out nothing was there. You could hear bangs and creaks etc over the other side of the garage while working, turn round and nothing !!
When we decided to remove some of the original partition walls things got worse. Spent one afternoon knocking down part of a wall and came in next morning to the stores being scattered across the floor. All the pigeon holes were emptied out and chucked everywhere, we gave demolition a rest then for a while. A few weeks later we started again, next morning came in to a 45 gallon drum of waste oil being upturned down the pit !! A drum almost full of oil is heavy, quite heavy, but there it was, in the same place but upside down and the pit awash with dirty black waste oil.

Another time we standing by an empty truck, just talking, and it started up on it's own and sat there ticking over. We were standing by the only unlocked entrance (internal locks so we could see) and no one came or left the building when it started up.

The final straw came one day when Cooky (yes, we'd been demolishing again) was working under a truck and he heard "odd voices", next thing is something grabbed his leg and dragged him from under the truck at great speed. This reduced this 19 year old council lad to tears, and it didn't do me much good I'll tell you. You just can't fight this sort of thing, how are you going to punch something you can't see?

There were a few more odd things but these stick in my mind.

Non of us worked there much longer I can tell you, we were all away asap.

[pickle]

Rodp, what became of the garage site - do you recall.

[rodp]

Rodp, what became of the garage site - do you recall.

Became a shopping centre a few years ago, probably for the best. Not a pleasant place to work. When you have 3 ex council estate blokes, all well over 6' and work on trucks all day, scared out their wits something ain't right. One bloke yes, he's a wuss. Two possibly, but not all three. A lot of the drivers never really liked coming in which is unusual, they normally come in the garage and drink the place dry of tea.

Still, no matter now, the place is history.

[pickle]

Looked up your site on google and local historical records/photos going back a bit but no obvious history of death/suicide or destruction unless unrecorded. Police and church records along with newspaper and coroners office might throw some light on events that may have happened to act as a catalyst to link to untoward experiences in that environment. The when of it, and the had it happened before, is important as would be any prehistory if recorded. Just as a matter of interest I knew a well to do chap whose father was a builder. His father had a newish Rover 3500 auto and the damn thing used to start up of its own accord, usually in the early hours and would be found running in the locked garage. I have a personal interest here that goes back a long way. Only you know the circumstances and perhaps they are best laid to rest. I leave it with you.

[rodp]

We always assumed if anything it would be ken Wharton himself, as apparently the garage was his pride and joy, and very modern at the time. It was certainly a well appointed garage with a white tiled service pit, separate indoor wash area and service reception / waiting area.
it seemed that odd things only happened when you took a sledge hammer to the structure of this building, or messed about with some of the old parts in the stores etc.

I suppose the man himself would have a soft spot for the garage as it funded a quite extravagant lifestyle of motor racing and rallying around the world. Not bad for the back streets of Smethwick really.

[pickle]

Umm, Rodp this now gets interesting. Formula 1 lifestyle, where did the funding come from i wonder. Was there a suitable profit margin in the business to fund this lifestyle if not whom were connected. Are there in fact connections here hidden by precedents that were/was never ever exposed to inspection. The interesting thing may well be, was the man and his team successful and whom were the 'sponsors', in a different light.