A few years ago, I was in the pub trade. I took over a pub in the center of Brighton (South-East England), and ran the place quite successfully two weeks.

One Saturday night, a few friends came over for a lock-in, and we had a few drinks after-hours. All was well, and we left that night with the place all locked up and tidy.

I arrived the next morning to find the place in a horrific state. There were glasses everywhere, beer all over the floor, plenty of shot glasses - the place looked like it does after a riotous Saturday night. I was confused. I had, at that point, the only set of keys, and the place was perfect when I left.

Confused, I phoned the ex-landlord, thinking he must have come in with a copy of the key with a few mates after hours, or a friend of his had been in, and he laughed, and told me that he's had the locks changed about a week before I took over and that I had the only key.

I asked why he laughed, and he told me about the ghost.

This pub, it appears is haunted. This was not the first time strange things have happened there, though fortunately nobody has ever been hurt or seen anything themselves. Since finding out about the resident ghost, however, we have become completely accustomed to it. Often, when working (and nobody being downstairs in the cellar), we hear the rolling of barrels, or the rare crashing of cases. The pub is often a mess in the morning, despite the tidying, though fortunately, stock never seems to go missing.

Now, 3 years on, I find myself completely comfortable working in a haunted pub, and have proved to even my most skeptical of friends the existence of the ghost - and I'm thankful to our most celebrated regular - he's made my pub more profitable than I ever thought it could be....