Sir - The Rev, Diane Cooksey says she wants to be a "visible presence" as the new vicar at St Nicholas Church, Warndon (November 7th).

Well, some fifty years ago this newspaper reported another "visible presence" at the same church - of the ghostly kind!

Local farmer's son Jeff was tasked with weeding the graveyard and asked my big brother Eddie to help. It was a hot summer's day and tired and hungry they crept into the church to cool down and fill their stomachs.

And then they saw it - a headless, ghostly figure floating towards them down the aisle. These two strapping teenagers were reduced to quivering wrecks, threw down their jam butties and ran.

For weeks after, gangs of kids marched past our house en route to the church armed with kitchen knives, broom sticks and even axes.

They would often block the narrow road impeding motorists, including one day local MP Peter Walker who lived near the church.

To clear a path he blasted his horn and was met with heckles and the rattling of household utensils as the intrepid ghost hunters grudgingly stepped aside.

All these years on need Rev. Cooksey concern herself with ghostly goings on? Probably not.

Eddie and Jeff cooked up the story so that they could ditch the weeding and go skinny dipping in the local canal instead.

Mrs Louise Rumford

Worcester