Simon Cooke, a member of Torbay lifeboat crew, unearths an unusual explanation for an unusual service...

Lifeboat crews up and down the coast spend many hours searching for people reported missing , but not many get called out to look for a missing ghost! At 1749 on New Year's Day this year Brixham Coastguard activated Torbay Lifeboat crews' pagers after two anglers reported seeing an elderly lady staring out to see near Goodrington Beach, Paignton.

The anglers spotted her as they were preparing their tackle, and when they next looked in her direction she had literally vanished into thin air. They thought they could see something floating in the water, so they alerted the Coastguard on their mobile phone and a major search sprang into action.

Torbay'sall-weatherand inshore lifeboats sped to the scene and were soon joined by the Portlandbased helicopter Whisky Bravo as well as numerous shore-based Coastguard and Police teams. Despite a thorough search of the area no traces of the woman were found and the search was eventually called off.

Now some light has been shed on the mystery thanks to John Wallis, a Goodrington resident and proprietor of a local electrical shop.

John is convinced that the anglers had seen the apparition of 'Sister Mary', as she has been dubbed, a French nun who worked at a hospital tending soldiers from the Napoleonic wars.

The buildings that now form the 'Inn on the Quay, a popular tourist pub on the seaf ront at Goodrington, used to serve as a hospital for servicemen during the Napoleonic wars. Two French nuns worked there until it closed in 1817 and when they died their remains were buried in a cemetery in the hospital grounds. Eventually the land was developed and the graves were relocated to another part of town - and ever since sightings of 'Sister Mary' have been reported.

John reckons she comes to this part of the seawall to gaze across the sea to her home - or perhaps to look for her old grave amongst the trappings of tourism.

This isn't the first time this lady has been spotted,' John said, 'one of my neighbours had a very similar experience one night. He spotted a lone elderly woman staring out to sea - and when he looked again she had vanished into the night air.' As for Torbay lifeboat crew they remain ready to any calls for assistance - whether from this side of the hereafter or the other. But perhaps the next time they launch to the report of a missing woman in the area ectoplasmic meters and spectral gauges would prove more useful than the usual nightsights and searchlights!.