Steve recalls a gruesome encounter from his days on the police force. Warning – some may find this dairy upsetting.

Back in the late sixties I was driving a police panda car in the Withington area of Manchester.
Princess road meets with another road called Nell lane and at that time one of the biggest hospitals in the country Withington hospital, often called Nell lane hospital stood at this junction.
As I was driving I was aware that a huge brown Hessian screen had been erected on the corner inside the hospital grounds and on the corner at princess road and Nell lane.
The screen was about twenty feet high and there didn’t seem to be any reason for it.
The screen stayed erected for weeks so one day I drove into the works access to find out more.
I was met by a man wearing a safety helmet .
I asked him what The Hessian screen was for.
What he told was very worryng, yet interesting.
This corner of the hospital was full of grave stones, and he and his team had to excavate The site and ‘re inter the remains into Southern cemetery which was on the other side of Princess road.
He told me The site here had once been a workhouse, but all the residents had contracted The plague.
That was the reason for the screen.
But there was more, he went away for a minute asking me to stay were I was.
He returned holding a skull.
He then said that they had excavated dozens of graves and every single one had been murdered.
He showed me The skull he was holding with a huge trauma hole in its top.

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I was amazed, obviously there was no crime to be recorded these offences having occurred in the 1800’s.
All in all, well over one hundred murdered victims, all residents in a long gone workhouse, and all infected with The plague.
After a few months all The victims were ‘re interred into a mass grave in the huge cemetery over the road.
The Hessian screen was taken down and no one was any The wiser what had gone on in this small corner of the hospital, and what’s more no one knew about all the residents of the workhouse had had their brains bashed out.
A secret never to be told!
And I am the only person to know this so that is why this story needs recording.