GRENADIER

A Guards officer haunts this Belgravia pub, which was once the mess for the Duke of Wellington's officers: the duke's portrait hangs above the fireplace, and there are other paintings and prints in the pub showing guardsmen of many periods. The ghost in question, whose exploits are described in detail in newspaper cuttings in several languages framed on the walls, are as famous as the pub itself, painted a patriotic red, white and blue and standing in a mews that is sealed by a sentry box, bollards and the odd parked Rolls-Royce. The officer was caught cheating at cards in an upstairs room and was given a sound hiding, subsequently falling (or being pushed) downstairs to his death. An investigator of ghosts spoke in the 1950s to the then landlord, Roy Griggs, and his family, who all attested to seeing shapes, shadows and transient blobs, some of which looked like the figure of a man. Later investigators were told by a barman, Tom Westwood, that he was pulling a pint one day when the beer supply was suddenly cut off. He went down to the cellar, where he found the tap in the cask had been turned to cut off the beer. The barman was the only person in the pub at the time who had access to the cellar. Tom Westwood and the landlord's wife described seeing one day a 'wisp of smoke' in mid-air in the bar: the ashtrays had all been emptied, nothing was on fire, and there was nobody else in the bar. A few days later, a brewery inspector (a retired CID officer) was standing near the site of the wisp of smoke when he felt a sudden burning sensation on his wrist, on which there appeared a mark as if he had been burnt with a cigarette. Expert ghost and poltergeist investigators believe that what they call 'hot spots' are caused by a ghost attempting to materialise by means of ectoplasm