Strange symbols on computer screens could mean ghosts are using the latest technology. LUCYA SZACHNOWSKI looks at a tale of a modern haunting ...

Author Andrew Green, in his book Haunted Kent Today, shows even ghosts can move with the times.

In the late 1990s, staff working at Heritage House, an 18th-century, four-storey building, in High Street, Gravesend, spoke about their weird experiences.

The building, close to The Three Daws (claimed to be the county's oldest pub) comprises an amalgam of business ventures. In August 1996 Tony Tomkins noticed his computer screen had an altered date setting for no obvious reason.

Then, as he watched, he said: "Weird shapes and symbols which were not even on the keyboard suddenly appeared."

On discussing the incident with a neighbouring tenant, journalist Anne Pass, he learnt she too had experienced similar malfunctions of her computer system, together with other phenomena.

One Saturday morning, when by herself in the building, Anne heard sounds of other people moving around in one of the other offices.

She said: "At one time it sounded like a person using an electric typewriter but there was no one there. The room was completely empty."

On another occasion, having moved to a different part of the building and during the process of erecting shelves and fitted cupboards, the workforce of one company realised despite intense heat outside: "The room felt suddenly like a walk-in deep freeze, or the coldest fridge imaginable".

Shortly after completing the move, "objects started to shift around on their own".

One of the team said: "A missing cheque was found, fresh and undamaged, under a pile of leaves in the garden leading to Hole in the Wall Alley, the electric kettle suddenly turned itself on and off and the lights would flicker inexplicably."

Smells are not unknown with poltergeist activity, according to Mr Green.

In this case the odour of baking bread pervaded the landing, accompanied by the mouth-watering smell of frying bacon.

No explanation could be found for any of these peculiarities. Margaret Goulding, a colleague of Tony Tomkins, said by leaning against the kitchen wall near to where the smell originates, it was possible to feet heat, as if there was a fire there but the kitchen itself was cold.

All three witnesses seem to think the mischievous pranks may, in some way, be associated with the ghost of Pocahontas, the young American Indian girl who came to England in 1616 as the wife of widow, John Rolfe. Within a year she was so homesick she travelled to Gravesend to board a boat back to her homeland but was taken ill and died, aged 22.

Ghost expert Andrew Green has written 17 non-fiction books and is researching for a new publication, Haunted Kent and Surrey. He is looking for: "Genuine modern experiences of ghosts in those counties in the past 25 years."