Visitors to a cemetery were left shaken after spotting a body under a shroud waving at them – but all was not as it seemed.
The body under the ‘shroud’
Jim Matthews, 47, was visiting the graveyard when he saw the goulish sight and took a photo.
The father-of-three said: “Everyone was shuddering – you could see it was a body lying still under a blanket which looked just like a shroud.
“Then everyone jumped when it lifted an arm and waved at people.
“It was the middle of the afternoon and at first people thought it had been a burial where they hadn’t got round to putting the body under the ground yet.
“It was just lying on the grass next to a grave and it wasn’t moving so we all thought it was a dead body.
“It was a bit of a spooky sight, with it being a graveyard.”
The shocking sight caused heads to turn in St Mary’s churchyard.
But the mystery was solved by Steve Salter, another local resident, who realised it was a rough sleeper under the blanket and not a dead body as previously thought.
Steve, who took a photo at 3.30pm, said: “It seems it was a rough sleeper taking refuge and having a kip in the churchyard but you should have seen the looks the sight was getting from passers by.
“He was lying parallel with another gravestone and was completely covered by the blanket.
“There were lots of people walking past at that time of day.
“Several people went over to see if he was alright but he just waved his arms at them to go away.
St Mary’s church, where the spooky sighting occured
“At one point some bellringers even came out of the church and walked past him.
“He was there for about an hour but then it started raining so he collected his stuff up and went.”
Categorised in: Bizarre
This post was written by Nadia Vella