The Ghost in Room 9

Some might say that a third blog post is too early to take a break from writing about construction and planning to write about something else that’s happened this week. Nonsense, I say.

This week has been a very exciting week for me and I want to write about it. Yes, ok, we’ve been in the Court of Appeal dealing with a very interesting complex planning dispute, and yes Court of Appeal judges really are as formidable as you might imagine. But it’s not that case that I’ve chosen to write about.

No, this week I am back in my old office, having worked in different rooms for a few years. Not very exciting, I hear you say. I’m closing this down and will never read again, I hear you further say. Perhaps even not sure why you ever read this in the first place. And up to this point, that would be fair. But what if I told you that my new office is… a Ghost Room! Quite a twist, eh? Let me explain.

Rewind to 1997 (you’re going to have to bear with me a little on the dates, as I’m working from memory here). Rewind specifically to 1997 in Room 9. Room 9 is on a mezzanine floor, sandwiched in between the top floor (where Dispute Resolution sit) and the first floor (where Regulatory sit). I like to think of it a bit like Floor 7 and a half in the 1999 film Being John Malkovich (if anyone gets to visit this room, I should give a bit of a disclaimer that it is in fact nothing like Floor 7 and a half in the 1999 film Being John Malkovich, but it is a mezzanine, and strange things do happen there).

Back in 1997, there was a ghost in Room 9. My understanding (I was not employed by Leathes Prior when all of this happened) is that it was not a particularly aggressive or intimidating ghost. It moved files around, opened and closed filing cabinet drawers, turned on taps and gave a faint whiff of French cigarettes.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that these occurrences were caused by an apparition from beyond the grave. The ghoulish goings-on continued for so long, and to such an extent, that after a while several members of staff refused to go into Room 9, which was somewhat inconvenient as it was a fully functioning office. I am told that secretaries would refuse to go into the room and that even going near it would cause chills in even the bravest of souls. Obviously there would have been a chain of argument that might have said that the best way to deal with these events would have been, perhaps, to ask the senior partner to stop smoking French cigars in the office below, and to ask the secretaries in question to get on with the filing (for the avoidance of any doubt, by the way, that is a joke, and the secretaries at Leathes Prior, in 1997 and now, are very hard working). But that argument was silenced quickly by the very sinister interferences from the underworld seeping through into the aforementioned trans-dimensional rift otherwise known as Room 9. The firm simply could not function with such a continued presence disturbing the living. So they got an exorcist in (apparently the “deliverance team”, as they like to be called in these more enlightened times, are called upon fairly frequently).

This exorcist (as it was reported in the EDP at the time) came in and… did whatever exorcists do. I guess they threw holy water on the room and shouted “the power of Christ compels you” repeatedly until the demon Pazuzu leaves poor old Linda Blair alone (or something like that). Anyway, apparently it was hailed as a big success, and everyone was able to get on with their work. Billable hours resumed, and the firm continued as usual. The story passed into legend, the legend passed into myth, and now the Norwich ghost walk (which is very good, by the way) will tell you that the ghost is in the Leathes Prior basement following the uncovering of a gravestone. That may very well be the case, but my ghost was living happily on the mezzanine floor in the dreaded Room 9. Anyway, flash forward to 2009. I, a fresh faced and newly qualified solicitor keen to do my part for the firm, am told that I am to move into a brand spanking new office, which has been refurbished especially for me, which is really quite sizeable and conveniently next to the kitchen. Great, thinks I.

Obviously that must be for my hard work and dedication to the law throughout my training contract and during the months after qualification. It was probably the fourth time that a colleague stood outside that room, wiggled their arms just past the open door for me and screamed “wooooooo” in a wobbly voice that the joke got old. It might have been a bit sooner. Anyway, I carried on and was later joined by Polly Langford (another solicitor in the Dispute Resolution team), and we continued happily in Room 9, confident that the frequent tap malfunctions and filing cabinet mishaps could be safely attributed to secular causes. It was only in 2011, a couple of years later, that a colleague of mine in our Commercial Team was taking a client past Room 9. This particular client was involved in what can only be described as the “spiritual sector”.

I guess they wanted to franchise their spiritual business, or arrange more enforceable spiritual terms and conditions or intellectual property, or something like that (it wasn’t my client, and the details would, of course, be confidential in any event). Anyway, this particular client walked past Room 9 and developed goose bumps on their arm. My colleague asked the client what was wrong. The client said that there was a ghostly presence. My colleague asked whether the client knew about the history of the room, the client said no, and my colleague proceeded to tell the story as set out above (though probably with more factual accuracy and less elaboration). She ended her story at the point at which the exorcist came in and did their thing. Something along the lines of “luckily, the exorcist came in, and now everything’s ok again”.

To which the spiritual client replied, in all sincerity and with a look of horror on their face and fire in their eyes… “it didn’t work”. And this week, several years on from the events above, I’m back in the room, fighting the powers that be and (I like to think) winning. Some litigators at Leathes Prior like to say, just before going off to court, that they’re fighting the forces of evil. In my case, I get to do that every day just by sitting at my desk and not letting the demons of underworld get their way. Makes me very proud. I like this story a lot. Some of it may have been elaborated a bit, and any direct or indirect reference to persons, living or dead (apart from John Malkovich and Linda Blair), without permission is unintentional. To add some authenticity to my ramblings, please see the below articles from the EDP in 1997 about the ghostly presence. Enjoy!

David Richards 04/02/16