When Golding was a lad he spent his early years at The Sloop where his father was the landlord. "Our dog refused to go into an upstairs room over the public bar. He would go absolutely nuts if we tried to put him in there," he recalled.

Local folk told stories about the old mill next to the Sloop, one of just six or seven tidal mills on the island which were worked by penning the water at high tide. The mill ceased working in the early 90s and was later demolished. Part of the old machinery is now stored at Bambridge windmill.

In the years the old mill stood empty and derelict, voices and the sound of footsteps would be heard in the deserted building. Ghostly footprints appeared in the dust, and one night Golding saw the tall dark figure of a man standing on the quay outside the the mill, which vanished as he watched. From his bedroom window he observed the same unearthly figure on two other occasions. Dressed in a mill worker's clothes from the 18th century the spectra stood motionless in the same place for a few seconds before disappearing.