True Ghost Tales

This was a ghost story that my late father in law told me nearly twenty years ago, his story goes back some twenty years before that he mentioned his ghostly tale to me. Around 1975 he was working as a bus driver in and around the Durham area, but this story is not about him rather a good friend of his who too was a bus driver for the same bus company.

On a late summers evening around about 10pm my father in laws friend, who was called Peter, was making his way back to the depot down the country lanes of Durham, he was driving a single decker bus the bus had a door for entry and a door further along the bus for passengers to exit the bus. With the bus empty of passengers as it was his last run back towards the bus depot office. As he was driving along he noticed a young lady at a bus stop with her hand out as though she was attempting to flag the bus, Peter duly obliged and opened the bus door for the young lady to step into the bus.

The young girl was approximately 20-24 looking from how Peter described her, she was however in a state of dishevelment and was crying, Peter apparently asked the girl if she was heading back towards Durham city centre, the young woman replied “yes". As she was crying and upset Peter allowed her on the bus for free as he was heading back to the depot anyway. He told the woman that he would drop her off at a particular road in the city centre as he was heading off to the office.

The rest of the journey was uneventful for Peter, he occasionally looked in the mirror to see if the lady was ok, and had stopped crying. Peter was nearing the road where he had told the young girl he would have to drop her off.

As Peter opened the doors for her to leave, there was no sign of her or movement, so Peter believing her to be asleep walked down the whole bus to see if he could awaken her, to his utter horror there was no one else on the bus. In a state of complete shock Peter drove back to the depot, and called for assistance as he could not believe what had happened and he was absolutely shell shocked.

Over the next few days Peters story started to spread and it became apparent that years earlier a young woman of the mysterious passengers description, had been knocked over by a car in the same area that Peter had picked her up. The story went that she had just been to see her boyfriend and they had , had an almighty row, she ended up going home heading for a bus rather than let her boyfriend drive her home. As she walked to the bus stop crying she is alleged to have walked into the road in front of oncoming traffic, and she was sadly killed outright by a car. The actual time of Peter picking up the young lady was her said to be the anniversary of her death, what I do know is that Peter never worked again whatsoever, and as for the young woman she is said to walk the country lanes of Durham searching for a lift towards Durham city centre.

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