THINGS that go bump in the night, strange sightings at the dinner table and mystery passengers on the road to who-knows-where....

These are just a few of the strange goings-on described in a new book which could influence where you go for your next holiday... or where you avoid!

Haunted Holidays is the ninth collection of paranormal stories collected by Redditch author Anne Bradford, who teamed with David Taylor, chairman of Parasearch, in a bid to find rational explanations for the strange events and sightings.

The stories have been collected locally but come from as far afield as Bali, Peru and East Africa.

Closer to home, however, is the Angel Inn and Posting House in Pershore which unwittingly plays host to a mystery seaman in the dining room.

One former guest described the apparition as "wearing an old naval, square rig uniform (of the type seen in old films)" and said that it made three short appearance in front of the fireplace before fading away in front of his eyes.

In the village of Barford, between Stratford and Warwick, the resident ghost has been known to get a little too close for comfort.

One guest, the leader of a visiting drama group, described a presence in his room shortly after he went to bed.

"I thought for a moment it was a student. Then I felt something grab the sheet and blanket which was covering me up to the neck and in one sudden pull they were whisked off my bed and shot across the room.

"Quickly I switched on the light but no-one was there. I felt icy cold and terrified and went along the corridor to my friend's room where, thankfully, there was a spare single bed.

"The next morning, at breakfast, I overheard the house warden say 'Did anyone see the ghost last night?'"

Every county has at least one version of the phantom hitch-hiker tale, and one of Gloucestershire's happened in Tewkesbury where a Birmingham man stopped to pick up a young woman standing at a bus stop on the A38.

He took her to a cottage about 17 miles away and when he drove away found the driveway blocked by a fence.

"I thought: "This is ridiculous" so I went back to the cottage and knocked on the door. Although I had just dropped her off, no-one seemed to be at home although I could see a coal fire burning. I knocked several times, then I gave up and went back to the fence and drove slowly along it until I eventually found a gap opposite an ELF garage.

A few weeks later he was in the area again and decided to call at the cottage to check on the young girl, and, as you can guess, there was no young girl living there!

Another phantom of the road appears regularly near Coughton Court, a woman in a light coloured mac is sometimes seen riding a bike, at other times on foot. She has been blamed for causing accidents on the busy main road.

l Haunted Holidays, by Anne Bradford and David Taylor, is published by Hunt End Books and is available from bookshops at £5.95.