"BEFORE I bought this pub about two years ago, I was a non believer. I don't believe in God or ghosts - when you're dead you're dead. We're just big bags of water that's all."
 These are the unlikely words of Adam Franklin on a sharp, bright spring morning with the sun dappling the tables of the city centre's oldest pub, The Slaughterhouse in Fenwick Street. A hostelry since 1723, under Adam's management it's become a thriving, vibrant boozer with olde world charm, whopping Ulster fry breakfasts and a popular comedy club down in the cellar. Ah! the cellar. We'll come to that later. Anyway, despite the pub's popularity, tales had reached these ears of strange visitations and a bar staff reluctant to spend time alone there. Especially so late on at locking-up time when a wicked wind, whipping in from the Mersey Bar, is rattling the rafters. Adam understands - he has, as they say, been there. "About three weeks after we arrived, it was two in the morning, I was standing by the bar after everyone else had gone home," said the 32-year-old ex-RAF man from Ellesmere Port. "This bloke appeared and walked across the room right in front of me. As he walked past, he kept glaring at me intently until he disappeared. "I can go into dark cellars on my own because I'm a cynical, pragmatic businessman who doesn't believe in these things, remember, but this had me completely spooked. I just bolted for the door went home - and didn't want to come back. "I've seen the film - the young, good looking, dude always gets it first and I didn't want it to be me." Since then, of course, he has returned many times, as have the rest of the staff who've grown used to the shades that occasionally flick across the corner of the eye. Martyn Jones and Brendan McAleer are two of the barmen who regularly see and hear the spooks. Like Adam, neither is keen to be on their own for lock-up. Says Brendan: "After everyone else has gone I've been here in the bar with a pint of Guinness and you can hear the toilet doors downstairs opening and shutting, opening and shutting, and you know there's no-one down there." Hasn't he ever gone to have a look? Brendan delivers a look that questions the inquirer's sanity. Figures have also been captured on the cellar's security CCTV cameras. Adam, Martyn and Brendan know that they're phantoms. Why? Because they've watched as people walked through them. Many of the comedians have also had strange experiences. | 
