Doris has refrained from telling anyone about it until now, but has kindly agreed to let me write it up in this column.

For just under two years, Doris attended a private school near Nottingham.

"I was quite happy there", she told me, "even though the building was old and dark.

"I honestly didn't pay any attention to some of the stories I'd heard from the other pupils, although they insisted that the place was haunted.

"One night there was a netball match on. I wasn't playing, but the custom was for everyone to attend and cheer the girls on the court on.

"I couldn't be bothered, so I told my teacher that I had a bad stomach and just stayed in the dormitory.

"The toilets were at the end of the corridor, and at about 7pm I walked along to spend a penny, as they say.

"Everything was fine as I walked through the door, but as I approached the cubicle I felt an icy chill on my back.

"I turned around and at first I couldn't see anything. I was just about to go inside the cubicle when something caught my eye on the mirror on the wall.

"Standing behind me on the opposite wall was the figure of a girl. I can remember staring at her.

"I noticed that she had a long dress on and a bow in her hair. Her skin was deathly white and she looked both sad and annoyed.

"Of course, at first I thought someone had sneaked in behind me and was playing a practical joke.

"I turned around again and was just about to give her a piece of my mind when I noticed that she wasn't there. I looked in the mirror again, but there was no sign of her. She'd completely disappeared.

"I ran out of those toilets as fast as I could and sat shaking on my bed till the others came back from the game.

"When I told them what had happened I thought they'd all laugh, but they didn't. My friend Fay said, 'Oh, you've seen Bathroom Anne!'

"Later I was told that years earlier a girl had drunk a half bottle of gin.

"She staggered into the 'bathroom', but because she was drunk she slipped on the wet floor and hit her head on one of the wash basins. She died two days later in hospital."

There is no doubt that Doris was genuinely scared by her encounter, even though there is no objective evidence that the apparition she saw was Bathroom Anne at all.

Still, it seems too much of a coincidence that the ghost should have appeared in exactly the same WC that Anne had seemingly died in.

I know of numerous cases in which ghosts have been visible only in a mirror and not with the naked eye. Why? I haven't a clue, but its strange.

Doris was given the opportunity to go back to the school for a reunion just before it closed, but declined the offer.

"I'd have loved to have gone back really, but at the back of my mind I was worried that I might bump into Bathroom Anne again...and I didn't want that!"

Indeed. There is really no way to explain to someone who has never seen a ghost what the experience is like.

Although there is nothing to suggest that Bathroom Anne wanted to hurt Doris, one can understand why, on the night of the old girls' reunion, she preferred to stay at home...