Well, here was a golden opportunity for me; investigating one of my favorite 'haunts', although the spirits sampled on this occasion were strictly the metaphysical kind. I have been a regular at the Newmarket for more years than one of our team members has been alive and had always wondered if it had any secrets.

So, there I am one night, when not worrying about work and enjoying one too many Kronenburgs, I asked the landlord Paul 1, if he was amenable to the idea of an investigation and he readily said 'yes'. He then relayed some of the experiences he and other staff members have had in the relatively short time he had been in charge. I also relayed to him the story that Pete (previous landlord) had told me about the 'health and safety' conscious spirit that interfered with his welding in the cellar.
It was shortly after the exchange of stories relating to the place that I decided that I would keep these stories to myself and on the night I asked that they remained that way.

This would allow Wayne, Ros and Ben an opportunity to experience and sense anything paranormal without any preconceived ideas about what might be there. This is a tactic that I think we should continue with in other investigations.
So we set up and had a roam around. Upstairs was swathed in EMF making the meters redundant - true elsewhere in the pub. This was disappointing as I wanted to give Ben some hands on experience in their use. We had some interesting results from Wayne down in the cellar - coming up with name Jacob - but little else that could help us find him in local records.

Scanning the kitchen for EMF

For me, as for the rest of the team I think, the most interesting event was the moving of the empty beer barrel. I have tried and tried to rationalise that one and I'm left with nothing. In fact, much to my embarrassment, at the time it happened I was trying to rationalise it even as Ben collapsed and Bron freaked out.
Was it genuine activity of a spirit? Was it poltergeist activity centered on Ben? I don't know, I think the main concern is Ben's safety and he will be taking a back seat for a while until we can be confident that he is mature enough to be comfortable in his abilities and has had some training from people with more experience.