Who goes there?!?! .. Elephants on the Roof! .. or something else? ..
The time came when the electricity supply main-box that provided the building became so unreliable, it had to be replaced.
Knowing that the job was going to have to be done when there were no customers about and there were going to be electricians left to their own devices amidst millions of pounds-worth of musical instruments, hi-fi, televisions etc .. it was decided that three lucky bods .. er .. members of staff .. should 'keep guard' and make sure there were no 'security issues'.
With duvets bedded down on the hi fi floor, armed with copious amounts of canned-beer and pizza (plus one of those new-fangled dvd players for film-watching), we were all set-up.
In the interests of protecting identities, there was (lets call him) Haymar and .. er .. Ardean and myself. Shropshire folk will get the joke behind Ardean's name :)
None of us could sleep that night, between the coming and goings of the electricians and the excitement of being left to our own devices with beer, pizza and Robocop (the film and not another assumed identity).
Eventually the electricians finished their work and left the premises. A deathly quiet descended over the building, except for strange creaks and taps every now and again.
As an aside, we had a professional ghost-team come in a few years later to do a full-on paranormal investigation, but that's another story for another day, suffice to say that that was a hell of a night too.
Salop Music Centre ran parallel to railway tracks coming in to Shrewsbury and a train crash happened in the early 1900's (several post office workers lost their lives in the crash).
Morbidly, part of the back-side of SMC was used as a morgue in the 1940's (oddly enough, manned by Peter Owen's dad). It always remained forever cold, no-one liked going in there (oddly enough, it was Ron Bowen's (assumed identity) workshop for many years. Go figure) .. so .. the building definitely had history.
Anyway, about 4am, we all heard what sounded like a herd of elephants running across the roof .. huge noise .. plenty of footfall.
All three of us split-up and ran outside to different points to try and catch the would-be breakers in, who had obviously got onto the roof from the railway lines, despite having to negotiate a steep-drop, a sharp, pointed metal fence that ran along the embankment, plenty of thistles etc and a 20' hike up to the roof.
We saw nothing .. not a soul. .. and we were out there pretty damn fast, we should have seen at least somebody .. but there was no-one.
Still no explanation to this day. One day I'll cover the paranormal investigation :)
Knowing that the job was going to have to be done when there were no customers about and there were going to be electricians left to their own devices amidst millions of pounds-worth of musical instruments, hi-fi, televisions etc .. it was decided that three lucky bods .. er .. members of staff .. should 'keep guard' and make sure there were no 'security issues'.
With duvets bedded down on the hi fi floor, armed with copious amounts of canned-beer and pizza (plus one of those new-fangled dvd players for film-watching), we were all set-up.
In the interests of protecting identities, there was (lets call him) Haymar and .. er .. Ardean and myself. Shropshire folk will get the joke behind Ardean's name :)
None of us could sleep that night, between the coming and goings of the electricians and the excitement of being left to our own devices with beer, pizza and Robocop (the film and not another assumed identity).
Eventually the electricians finished their work and left the premises. A deathly quiet descended over the building, except for strange creaks and taps every now and again.
As an aside, we had a professional ghost-team come in a few years later to do a full-on paranormal investigation, but that's another story for another day, suffice to say that that was a hell of a night too.
Salop Music Centre ran parallel to railway tracks coming in to Shrewsbury and a train crash happened in the early 1900's (several post office workers lost their lives in the crash).
Morbidly, part of the back-side of SMC was used as a morgue in the 1940's (oddly enough, manned by Peter Owen's dad). It always remained forever cold, no-one liked going in there (oddly enough, it was Ron Bowen's (assumed identity) workshop for many years. Go figure) .. so .. the building definitely had history.
Anyway, about 4am, we all heard what sounded like a herd of elephants running across the roof .. huge noise .. plenty of footfall.
All three of us split-up and ran outside to different points to try and catch the would-be breakers in, who had obviously got onto the roof from the railway lines, despite having to negotiate a steep-drop, a sharp, pointed metal fence that ran along the embankment, plenty of thistles etc and a 20' hike up to the roof.
We saw nothing .. not a soul. .. and we were out there pretty damn fast, we should have seen at least somebody .. but there was no-one.
Still no explanation to this day. One day I'll cover the paranormal investigation :)
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