Poltergeist in the factory.
After three weeks’ investigation, Mr F.E. George, works manager at Mather and Platt’s works, Bradley Fold, near Bolton, said last night he is “pretty well convinced” that various happenings in the jig and tool design office “can only be attributed to a poltergeist.”
Three weeks ago two designers complained they had been bombarded with brass bushes. they produced five of the bushes, which, they claimed, had been flying about the room. windows were closed and no one was in the room but the three men.
Later, china mugs and a glass vase fell, a heavy metal pencil sharpener and a bottle of ink flew from one end of the room to the other.
Birmingham Daily Post, 12th February 1958.
The factory ghost gets top security.
Britain’s most embarrassing ghost was firmly confined behind the high wire fence of the giant Mather and Platt works at Radcliffe to-day. Uniformed security guards stood behind the 7ft. gates and admitted: “We have orders to say nothing.” For there were red faces after the Manchester Evening News told about the poltergeist in the drawing office. A ghost in the works is not likely to impress customers.
Three men digging in gardens around the works had to face the quips of passers-by. “Burying the ghost?” they were asked. The poltergeist has been blamed for showering the departmental manager with a bottle of red ink and pelting two draughtsmen with brass fittings.
Manchester Evening News, 13th February 1958.
Mr. George Takes Over The Ghost.
Formidable opposition has arisen for the ghost that haunts the Radcliffe engineering works of Mather and Platt. “Works manager Mr. Frank George has got everything in hand,” it was said at the works to-day, where the poltergeist plays havoc in the drawing office, hurling ink, tools, cans, and crockery around.
The firm’s Manchester H.Q. said: “We are definitely not closing the drawing office. The situation at Radcliffe is normal. We are not doing anything at all about this.”
Manchester Evening News, 14th February 1958.