IS there a Grey Lady of Prior's Court, Callow End? asked the Gazette 50 years ago.

The story appeared under the sensational headline "Staff Won't Stay Because of The Ghosts".

This was not a typical haunted-house story, because the occupier of the property was trying to get the rates reduced because of the spooky manifestations.

She told a valuations tribunal in Upton that because of the ghosts, she was having difficulty getting domestic staff.

The paper reported: "She said that about Christmas, she was about to engage a very nice couple. Unfortunately, they went into the village, heard about the ghosts and would not stay.

"Even now, local people would not stay in the house after dark.

"She said that apparently there were two ghosts. The one was laid in 1906, but not the other. Although she had not actually seen the ghost, she had felt its presence."

Sadly, the story gave no indication of whose ghosts, they might have been or why they were haunting; no tales of murder most foul were told.

All it said was that the house was "very old and built for the monks of Malvern Priory".

The tenant was successful is getting the house's rateable value reduced from £113 to £105.

But the reduction seemed based on problems with the water supply to the house - there was no mains and water came from a well that an analyst has deemed "full of germs" - rather than the supernatural intrusion.