Like others, probably, I can't help but be intrigued by the ghostly goings-on at a certain Frederick Street hair salon in South Shields, as reported in the Gazette on Tuesday, February 17.

No backcombing needed there. The spooky sights and sounds staff have been experiencing are proving hair-raising enough.

Speculation links them to a tragedy involving the old Unionist Club that used to occupy the site.

This is the building in question, seen 45 years ago, shortly before it moved to new premises just round the corner, at the bottom of Laygate.

At the time, the club could boast more than 1,500 members.

This building in Frederick Street dated from 1912, when it was known as South Shields Unionist Workmen's Club.

It would be interesting to know what was there before that date but I've not been able to work that out as yet.

Bizarrely, though, looking up a record of the club in 1939, I find it was a neighbour of a tripe shop owned by Walter Chappel, the subject of a separate inquiry to Cookson Country I've barely got round to dealing with yet.

The Twilight Zone or what?