I’ve been working at Armley Mills Industrial Museum twenty two years.

One evening, May 2007, at about quarter to five in the afternoon I was going around with the keys to close up. A couple were coming towards me, an old lady and a young chap, tall. They didn’t make eye contact, but looked beyond me and I thought that’s strange! At that time of night any visitors going round would say “is this the way out?”, or “I am going the right way?” but they said nothing. The chap made a brushing movement with his hand against his temple, as if brushing away fibres from the machine. They pass me and go round to the door by the shop. I go downstairs and ask “Who’s that couple that are in Colin?” And he says “what couple?” I tell him I’ve just seen a couple on the top floor and he says nobody’s been in for the last hour.

I continue locking up and then meet my boss and four other colleagues. “Has that couple gone?” I ask. No one’s been in for an hour, they answer. “Come on, stop playing tricks!” I say, but they all swear there have been no visitors that last hour.

Then one of them asks “What were they like?”

And that’s when it hit me. There was a little old lady, who came up to my chest and a young chap, about 6ft 2. He had a frock coat, waistcoat, winkle picker shoes. All in black. The woman, she had a bodice style jacket and dress on, also black. And she was wearing a cameo on her chest. I started sweating; I nearly fell to the floor.

When I go home my wife asks if I’m alright, says I look as if I’ve seen a ghost. I say “I have!” I tell her what I saw and she makes me a cup of tea and puts the bath on. I get in the bath and settle down.

Within a month my wife had died, within a month of my seeing this.