IF YOU'RE a lover of ghost stories, you’ll be familiar with a handful of tales concerning spooks and phantoms cropping up in Dorset.

But if you thought you’d heard the whole story, think again.

When Roger Guttridge decided to write his 15th book on Dorset, he favoured the subject of the supernatural – but wanted to produce something that was “more than just another county ghost book”.

So he decided to not only re-examine and update those well-known stories, but introduce many lesser-known tales too.

The result is Paranormal Dorset, a book crammed with seven chapters of ghostly goings-on in this neck of the woods.

Of course he notes traditional haunts for phantoms, such as inns, hotels and manor houses, but there is much more.

Roger, a former chief reporter and deputy news editor at the Echo, said: “I have broadened the scope to embrace examples of other phenomena besides ghosts and poltergeists, such as UFOs, visions, remote viewing, out-of-body experiences and even fairies or nature spirits.”

While some of the tales will be familiar to readers of Dorset books, many others will be unfamiliar, and for most of these Roger has been able to draw on his “day job” as a journalist in the county for the last 40 years and the memories of some of his colleagues.

Take, for example, a UFO which hovered for 22 minutes over the Dorset countryside... or the ghost of a mother forever seeking the child she lost in a swamp.

Then there’s the poltergeist activity in a Bournemouth family home.

The first sign that not all was well in that house at Abbott Road, Winton, was the eerie howling of the family’s pet Labrador.

Living at the house was a window cleaner, his wife, 17-year-old adopted daughter and foster son, eight.

After ornaments and furniture began moving of their own accord, police were called in – only to witness a kitchen cabinet falling to the ground.

They advised that a priest be sent for, but when he sprinkled holy water in the house, it was thrown back in his face.

Eventually, the family was forced to move house.

Some of the stories in Paranormal Dorset go back a few years, such as the terrifying apparition seen on a train travelling between Wareham and Wool one evening in 1947.

Or earlier still, there were the strange noises and disturbances in Durweston near Blandford, reported in the Western Gazette more than 100 years ago in 1895.

These “sparked considerable excitement in consequence of the supposition that one of its cottages is haunted”.

People who have lived in the area for a number of years may recall the Griffin Hotel in Wimborne.

It was demolished in 1979 but in its heyday was a popular watering hole for those using the nearby railway station and livestock market on the corner of New Borough Road and Station Road. A gypsy woman called Mrs Whitely once warned the landlady that if she pulled down the old coaching stables, they would be plagued by spirits.

She was right. The stable block was demolished and ghostly activity soon followed.

This included a phantom voice which spoke to the owners’ puppy; a woman seen walking to and from room number four; and a ghost who cried at Christmas.

Roger said: “I am aware there are many more tales of paranormal Dorset that have yet to be told, and would welcome contact from readers who have their own stories to tell, for a possible second volume of the book, or revised version of the first.”

Anyone with any information is invited to email roger.guttridge@btinternet.com

• Paranormal Dorset: Strange Tales But True by Roger Guttridge is published by Amberley (£12.99, paperback).