The bear facts

I was 16 years old working as a general labourer in a teddy bear processing plant. This small factory employed two machine girls called Cath and Carol a driver called Les and the cloth cutter was Ron

The factory owners were two brothers, one who liked to spend his days in his little office fiddling with his books, while the other brother would wander around observing what every one else was up to, always keen to spot a stray eyes or noses on the floor.

My jobs included bagging the bears, packing bagged bears into boxes for transportation, putting eyes in the bears and sometimes fixing their noses on. I also carryed cloth to Ron for cutting Sometimes I would be on this big old machine for cutting felt noses. This job meant being alone in the basement with your back to a large storage space I would place about ten layers of felt on the machine press two buttons at the same time insuring both hands were no where near the felt and kaboom the machine would smash out the little felt nose shapes. I liked the other workers particularly the sewing machine girls Carol and Cathy..

One afternoon Cath told me our factory had a ghost ! The factory evidently had a long history and had started life as a Blacksmith .She told me that the boy who had used to do my job was one day alone in the basement working on the felt cutting machine and having achieved a very good result folded his arms in satisfaction. He stepped back to admire his work .and herd someone behind him clap as if confirming his outstanding skill. Smiling he turns round to see who's there and is shocked to see no one at all.

When Cath told me this story, backed up by Carol, I was not at all sure whether or not I was having my leg pulled and laughed it of in a I ain't afraid of no ghost manner,, but secretly I hated been alone on that machine in that basement ever since.

I continued working in the teddy bear business, but now dreading being asked to cut the noses and indeed often in that basement the hairs on the back of my neck would suddenly stand up and I would feel most uncomfortable for no apparent reason..

Then one late afternoon everyone but Ron and me had gone Ron was up stairs cutting the large fury cloth into bear shapes I was in the basement cutting the little felt noses. Suddenly I got that horrible feeling I was being watched intensely. I broke out in a cold sweat .. my hands were literally trembling and I managed to knock my pile of little felt noses onto the floor, as I bent down to pick up my noses, a pile of stacked empty cardboard boxes came crashing down around me, almost causing me to have a heart attack.

Now consumed by fear I just waited for home time, my eyes darting around the basement and glancing at my watch . At a few minuets before five I bolted for the stairs. The stairs went up about seven steps then turned a blind corner for another few steps and as I reached the forth step out jumped Ron doing the best impression of something from a horror film I've seen,his eyes bulging and , tongue lolling he looked truly evil I fell back down the stairs. "You bastard" I cried !
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Once I regained my composure we had a good laugh about Ron especially crying tears of amusement