A pensioner will re-turn to The Royal Oak Hotel, 40 years on from when she had a ghostly encounter there.

Nancy Bealing will visit Ledbury on May 27, when the best-selling author Jennifer Davies, of Parkway, will take her to the hotel for a spectral walk down memory lane.

Miss Davies, who wrote the televised books, the Victorian Kitchen Garden and the Wartime Kitchen Garden, was contacted by Mrs Bealing after the octogenarian read and enjoyed Miss Davies's recent publication, Say-ing It With Flowers - The Story of the Flower Shop.

Mrs Bealing, of South-ampton, is a member by marriage of the famous family of florists who decorated ocean-going liners, including the Titanic.

In passing, Mrs Bealing mentioned her encounter in the Royal Oak, in the early 1960s.

She said: "We had not been in bed very long when there was a gentle tap on the door and a voice said 'are you in?'"

Mrs Bealing's husband did not hear the voice and asked his wife "who are you talking to?"

Mrs Bealing later awoke to see a figure leaning over the bed. She felt a shaking at her shoulder and heard a voice saying "you'll be alright?".

In the morning, the management of the hotel insisted that no one had entered the room. A chair wedging the door handle due to a broken lock was still in place when the Bealings awoke.