Ghost makes bed.
A squad of policemen went on a ghost hunt last night. The Greenfield family of 5, Langmead-street, West Norwood, S.E., had complained that they were being terrorised by the phantom, which has kept them sleepless for a week. An apparition has been seen on the stairs, mystic signs have been traced in the dust, lights have been flashed on and off, and groans have been heard. The only item on the credit side of the ghost’s account is that it has started to make the beds. Inspector Sidney Candler, in charge of the “ghost-hunting,” said last night: “We have searched the house and are baffled.”
Sunday Express, 15th July 1951.
Ghost! So police stay with family.
Something snatched quilt.
By Alan Dick.
Nine policemen stayed with the Greenfield family through the night until breakfast yesterday. Some were upstairs, some were down. The unfortunate Greenfields asked for protection against ghosts – and had to ask the police to stay to protect them against neighbours.
Ghostly moanings, weird lights and shifting objects which have kept the family sleepless for a week at their home in Langmead-street, Norwood, are now nothing compared with jeers and catcalls by neighbourhood people. They jostle round the house until the small hours and even rush up the staircase when the front door opens shouting “Ghostie, ghostie!”
“It’s terrible,” Mr. Dennis Greenfield said to me yesterday, eyes red-rimmed from worry and lack of sleep. “I’m taking my wife out of it. And not because of the ghosts. They are bad enough. But because of the neighbours, some of them. Every time one of us goes out some of them shout after us: ‘Have your heads examined… You ought to be in a madhouse… Cowardy, cowardy custard.” There are others who don’t make a noise, but go about whispering that we are making up stories to get a new house. I wish it were true. These ghostly happenings are turning us all into nervous wrecks. We haven’t slept since last Sunday. Dad and Mum have cleared out already. Me and my missus are next.”
The nine policemen spent the first half of the night trying to keep the neighbours in order. One neighbour ran up and down the stairs crying “Ghosties!” The second half the policemen kept ears and notebooks open. They saw and heard nothing. But while they watched, something snatched the quilt off Mr and Mrs Dennis Greenfield’s bed, and a photograph of a friend’s boy, Johnny Darlington, fell off its hook.
The police were there again last night – to keep the neighbourhood crowds, not the poltergeist, in order.
There are eight people in the Greenfield family. All of them have experienced the ghostly manifestations, footsteps in the attic, moans behind the skirtings, apparitions on the stairs, strange lights, moving clothes and furniture. At least the Greenfield ghost is neat and tidy. When it does move garments or bedclothes it folds them as if they had just come back from the cleaners. So that seems to settle the sex of the ghost, if nothing else.
The family, non-Catholics, have asked a local Roman Catholic priest to bless the house, or if necessary exorcise it to cast out spirits. Said Father Alfred Cole, of St Matthew’s: “If we think there is anything to be done, we will do it. But exorcism is a serious matter. We would have to have the bishop’s permission.”
Daily Herald, Monday 16th July 1951
Suburban “ghost”.
Knockings, rattlings and a roving basket.
Police officers at West Norwood, London, are investigating strange happenings at a small house in Langmead Street. Several months ago unaccountable knockings were heard, mostly from an attic which is entered only by climbing through a trap door. The noises gradually became worse.
Teacups were turned upside down and a spoon in a sugar basin in a closed cupboard was heard to rattle. During the week-end a large photograph fell from its frame leaving the glass front and the backing untouched.
Yesterday crowds gathered outside the house and indoors a reporter found members of the household staring at a shopping basket in the corridor. A few moments earlier, they said, it had been in the front sitting-room and while everyone was upstairs it was flung – by no human agency – into the corridor. The police were called, but the “ghost” lay low.
The Manchester Guardian, July 16th 1951.
Ghost is driving this family mad.
From our own correspondent.
Shortly before lunchtime today the Greenfield family walked up the five red-ochred steps of their haunted six-roomed house in Langmead Street, West Norwood, London, refreshed after their first night’s sleep in seven days. To get a peaceful night they had to leave the poltergeist in their attic to its own devices and go round the corner to the home of their married daughter, Mrs Rennie Allaway.
Since the poltergeist made its debut a week yesterday it has transformed the Greenfields from a normal family into six red-eyed, nervy people. The other two tenants who live in No. 5 Langmead Street are just as worried. Said 60-year-old Mrs Kathleen Greenfield, her fingers twitching at her apron, “Pictures on the walls move before our eyes, eerie tappings come from the roof, and sometimes traced in the dust covering the attic floor are strange, mystical symbols.”
The only one in the family who claims to have seen the ghost is 26-year-old Cecil Greenfield. Cecil, pale and worn, leaned against the doorway of No. 5 as he told me his story. “Last Wednesday night as I came out of the living room an icy coldness seemed to come over me,” he said. “I glanced at the stair and saw a white figure nearing the landing. It paused with one foot on the top step and half-turned, with its arms crossed. But I could not make out whether the spectre was that of a man or a woman. I gave up my job because I cannot work without sleep. Last night I stayed in the house until 3 a.m., but I could stand it no longer. I saw a picture moving on the wall before my eyes. It rose up and down.”
Nightly crowds of curious people are now as troublesome to the Greenfields as the ghost. The Greenfields, who have asked a Roman Catholic priest to exorcise the ghost, are pleading for a council house. “We were told that we were high on the list,” said Mrs Greenfield. “Now, maybe, they’ll help us, for we cannot live in this house any more. It is driving us mad.”
Aberdeen Evening Express, Monday 16th July 1951
Police Watch in London House.
Knock knock… “who’s there?” a “ghost”!
Police are being called two or three times a day to a working-class house in Langmead Street, West Norwood, London, S.E. 27, to trap a “ghost.” So far only the three families who live there have seen the “ghost” or any of its manifestations. Police have waited for hours but no ghostly activities ever happen in their presence. Several months ago unaccountable knockings were heard, mostly from a small attic entered only by climbing through a trap door.
Things gradually became worse. Tea cups were mysteriously turned upside down and a spoon in a sugar basin in a closed cupboard was heard to rattle. During the week-end a large photograph fell from its frame leaving the glass front and the backing untouched.
Yesterday crowds of interested ghost seekers waited outside the house. Inside a P.A. reporter found about a dozen members of the household staring at a shopping basket in the corridor. A few moments earlier, they said, it had been in the front sitting-room and while everyone was upstairs it was flung – by no human agency – into the corridor.
Police were called, but the “ghost” lay low. The area surrounding the attic trap door was covered with French chalk but the noises continued, and when the door was opened two lines were found in the chalk-marks that could have been made with a human finger.
The Northern Whig and Belfast Post, Monday 16th July 1951.
Crowds wait to see ghost at No. 5.
News Chronicle Reporter.
A large crowd stood outside No. 5 Langmead Street, West Norwood, last night. They stood in groups discussing the “ghost.” Earlier there had been many children. Stones had been thrown at the door and windows and there were boos and catcalls. But Mr A Greenfield, who claims that his home at No. 5 is haunted, called the police. Squad cars arrived and moved the crowd on.
The haunting took a new turn yesterday, the Greenfields told me. A 6ft. figure, all in white, with its face blurred, appeared on the stairs early in the morning. Later in the day, they claimed, furniture and ornaments were moved and “MPS238” was scratched on the wall of an upstairs room. Mrs Hilda Bussley, a daughter of Mr Greenfield, who visited the house in the afternoon, said: “I walked into my mother’s bedroom and heard heavy breathing coming from the vacant bed.”
Daily News (London), 17th July 1951.
Seven people leave home to a ghost.
Seven people left their London home at midnight last night because, they say, it is haunted. Queer things have been happening for ten days in the house in Langmead-street, West Norwood, said 26-year-old Cecil Greenfield. His brother Denis and 14-year-old sister Pat report that they have seen a 6ft. ghost and the initials “A.T.” in the attic dust. Last night, Cecil added, two mysterious kiss marks were found on the glass of a wardrobe and a crucifix on a dressing table was turned upside down. So the family went to friends.
Daily Express, 18th July 1951.
‘Occupants dare not undress’
Tell of weird happenings and strange noises.
Crashing crockery, mysterious sounds, eerie visitations, flickering lights, and mirrors that turn without a hand to touch them – these and other weird reports have been exciting the attention of the police at a house occupied by the Greenfield family at Langmead-street, West Norwood this week. It was on Friday night that the “ghost” became public property. until then it had been privately annoying the Greenfields until, in desperation, they called in the police. Inspector S. Candler, in charge of investigations, heard how bedding had been mysteriously displaced, crockery moved and mirrors reversed. It was decided that a squad of police officers should keep vigil, and “lay the ghost” if it turned up… but not a sound while they were in occupation.
Two members of the family claimed to have seen the apparition. There have been unaccountable noises from the attic where no access can be had except by a ladder, and initials and signs were seen in the dust. Two neighbours said they saw queer lights in the house which looked weird shining from a top-floor window.
Several nights this week police have been on duty inside and outside the premises. On Friday, two C.I.D. men and a neighbour sat with the Greenfields. At 3a.m. the detectives left. Fifteen minutes later moaning noises were heard by a policeman in a patrol car outside the house. They raced up the stairs, to find four white-faced people on the top floor. They were Robert Green, a 17-years-old neighbour, Cyril Greenfield, aged 26, his 22-years-old brother Dennis, and Gladys, the wife of Dennis. “It was horrible,” said young Green. “We heard moans and a scratching noise. Then, near the skirtingboard we saw what looked like an electric bulb glowing.” Two nights earlier, Mrs Nellie Green, looking from her house opposite, saw a similar light move slowly up and down at a top-floor window. “Neighbours are beginning to think we are mad,” said Dennis Greenfield, a cabinet-maker, “but it’s not madness when five out of six of us have either seen this thing or heard the noises. For months we have heard noises, but it was on Sunday week that they became worse.”
Then Dennis told how brother Cyril was coming down stairs when he saw something white advancing towards him. “He yelled, and when I rushed upstairs I found him sitting on his bed as white as a sheet and trembling. He is so terrified that he will not go upstairs alone – and he is 26 years old.” Then sister Pat comes into the story. Only 14 years of age, she had had an experience she will not forget as long as she lives; she also saw the ghost on the stairs. “She was coming down with my mother-in-law,” said Dennis, “when she stopped and started screaming. Yet my mother-in-law did not see a thing.”
“I was in my room with my wife when when we heard footsteps overhead in the attic. We went up, but found nobody. Yet the dust had been disturbed and there were initials ‘A.T.’ and two circles, as though written by a finger. We went down and stayed in our parents’ room until 5 a.m., but back in our room we discovered beds neatly made which had been untidy when we left them. None of us has had a night’s sleep since Sunday week: we have remained fully dressed.”
Dennis told how, in desperation, he went with brother Cyril to a spiritualist meeting at Camberwell, and there was told that there was a spirit trying to contact us. “It sounds ridiculous, but what else are we to believe?”
Mr. Augustus Greenfield, 69-years-old Lambeth Council employee, said he had been trying to contact former occupants to see if they could give a clue. So far he had not been successful. Mr Greenfield has been along to Lambeth Housing Department to ask them to get them out of the house as soon as possible. “I was sceptical when I received a report of the matter,” said Inspector Candler, “but after interviewing the Greenfields I am convinced that something strange has happened at the house, something which calls for police investigation.”
In the Norwood district children in Sunday School had no time for the normal lesson. All they were prepared to listen to was teacher’s opinion on the ghost story.
Now the Greenfields have another problem. The police have been notified that young people are throwing stones at the “haunted house,” and the prying curiosity of the morbid-minded is making their life a burden.
A sister-in-law, who told our reporter with a smile of relief, “I don’t live here,” said, “these things have happened before; a day or two of peace, and then it starts all over again.”
On evenings this week a Mission Band has been holding services in Langmead-street, close to the house, and there have been frequent inquiries from spiritualists and religious leaders, offering aid in “laying the ghost.”
Norwood News, Friday 20th July 1951
Norwood ghost has been laid. (p1/8)
Prayers offered in house.
The “Ghost of Norwood” has been laid. “We have not heard anything of it since Tuesday of last week,” said a member of the Greenfield family, at their Langmead-street, West Norwood, home, but added: “You never know. These things have been known to go away and then to come back.”
The Rev. John Crouch, minister of the Church of the Nazarene, Auckland-hill, West Norwood, told one of our reporters how on the night before the last manifestations, he took a party of his own congregation and held a service outside the “haunted” house. “It was just before 10 p.m., when one of the young Greenfields came out and invited us into their home to pray,” he said. “Seven of our party went in, and in the front room we knelt with the assembled family and there prayed, finally commanding the Thing to ‘leave this house in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ’. Since then I have made daily calls on the family, and they have heard nothing.” The minister says: “I am satisfied in my own mind that there was something there for two weeks previously. When I first met them the family were in a desperate state of mind.”
Norwood News, Friday 27th July 1951
“Ghost” was heard but not seen.
Invited to open St Matthew’s Church Fete.
When the organisers of St. Matthew’s Church, West Norwood, fete, which attracted crowds on Saturday to the grounds of St Joseph’s Primary School, Crowndale, Upper Norwood, found that Derek Guyler, of the B.B.C, could not be present to open the show, they were not despondent. When Father Cole, priest of St Matthew’s mounted the platform he was able to announce that they had found someone else. “There are plenty of noted people in West Norwood, and clever people as was proved by the successful Festival Week, one of the best in South London,” he said, “but such people are always busy. Then I thought of someone in Norwood who had caused a considerable sensation recently and whose presence in West Norwood had even caused my name to be mentioned in the national press – the Norwood Ghost. I got in touch with the Infernal Regions, but was informed that he never made a personal appearance except at midnight. ‘But I want you to come along and open our fete at 3 p.m.,’ I said, and the Ghost replied, ‘I’ll come along and open it, but the people will not see me.'”
When Father Cole made a suitable introduction a muffled voice took charge of the amplifying equipment and the assembly heard these words: “Here I am, I hope its’ a nice afternoon.” Father Cole then announced, “I now declare the fete opened by the Norwood Ghost.” …
Norwood News, Friday 3rd August 1951.
Norwood ghost came back for bank holiday.
“It did such silly things.”
Norwood’s ghost came back to spend the holiday week-end among its friends, but the Greenfield family, of Langmead-street, West Norwood, where it has persisted in doing its poltergeist tricks for weeks, have adopted it as a friend, and are now laughing at its vagaries.
Mrs Greenfield, senior, told one of our reporters: “It came again on Tuesday and did such silly things. Upstairs it piled the furniture on my son’s bed, and then it put a broken clothes peg in a bottle and put it on the landing.” Then, with a smile which was superior to all “jitters,” Mrs Greenfield added: “I can’t see the sense of things like that, can you?”
Young Pat Greenfield stooped to pick up her retriever puppy, “Sandy,” which she fondled as she said: “As we sit in this room at night- we don’t go to bed any more, but we’re sticking it out – we see the Thing sometimes.”
Mrs Greenfield took up the tale: “We always know when it’s about. The place goes dull and the glass in the pictures goes all misty… and we hear noises, like someone walking overhead. Sure enough, when we got upstairs, there are the things we left, all upset and awry… so we don’t sleep upstairs any more; we just let the Thing get on with it… and we say what we think about it out loud.” Mrs Greenfield continued: “Young Pat (she’s my daughter) speaks to the ghost and often says ‘if you want to be about why don’t you do something useful. Come and help me with this washing up!’ it does not take the hint, but we are not worried about it any more, it can do as it pleases.”
Mrs Greenfield said the Psychical Society had the matter in hand. “As soon as the gentleman comes back from holiday I want him to arrange for a prominent medium to come and ask it what it wants, then, when it has got it, perhaps it will go away.” And young Pat, aged 13, sat by fondling Sandy… and nobody seemed worried any more about what has worried them so long.
Norwood News, Friday 10th August 1951.
Norwood’s faceless phantom.
The world’s strange stories.
By Philip Paul. (Mr Paul is an experienced psychical investigator).
It was a dark night in July, 1951; the first quarter moon obscured by heavy clouds. The streets of West Norwood slumbered in the deep stillness of the early hours, broken only by the clanking of an occasional goods train through the deserted station.
In a first-floor bedroom in one of a row of houses 26-year-old Cecil Greenfield jerked into consciousness and raised his head from his pillow to listen. Seconds ticked by, then it came again – a little sound of movement outside his bedroom door. He thought one of his family must be ill, and went to the landing. To his surprise all was quiet and deserted. Then he noticed a movement below. The breath caught in his throat as he saw, rounding a bend in the stairs, a tall, grey-white shape. He could see no face but gained an impression of arms folded across the breast. Slowly the thing advanced upwards towards him, and he was conscious of an icy coldness creeping nearer. As the shape passed over a loose board there was a creak as would have been made by the passage of weight across the stair. When the strange phantasm was almost within touching distance he shouted. Instantly it vanished. Roused by his cry, his parents found him white and shaken.
So was first seen the Langmead-street ghost, whose exploits in a six-roomed, council-requisitioned home in South London made newspaper headlines in many parts of the world. The sophisticated 20th-century mind does not accept stories of apparitions on stairways without, at least, asking questions. Was it an illusion? Imagination? A practical joke? Or just a story? So far we have heard only Cecil Greenfield’s evidence. Let us pursue the case further.
The Greenfield family, comprising husband and wife, aged 69 and 60; Cecil; a second son, Dennis, aged 22; a daughter, Patricia, aged 14; Dennis’s wife, Gladys, aged 20, and her mother and brother, aged 50 and eight respectively, had, they told me at the time, been puzzled about their home for some years. Mysterious tappings had begun in the empty loft six months after they moved to Langmead-street in November, 1947. Birds or mice were suspected, but repeated examinations failed to reveal such culprits. Gradually the noises grew louder until they sounded “like coal being broken and furniture dragged.” But there was neither coal nor furniture in the loft.
At 2.15 a.m. on July 16 Dennis and Gladys arrived home, opened the front door, and saw the same grey-white, faceless figure standing in the narrow hall. This time it appeared that arms hung at its sides. Being badly frightened they ran to a neighbour’s house. When they returned, en masse, the spectre had gone. It was seen on a third occasion, one afternoon, by Patricia.
In desperation the Greenfields called the police. It was then that the family became a focus for public interest. “Police Keep Midnight Vigil to Arrest a Ghost,” said one headline. “House Where Family Dare Not Go To Bed,” declared another. “Seven People Leave Home to a Ghost,” announced a later one, for when the police were unable to halt or explain the happenings the family sought shelter at night with friends.
Officers maintained vigils under the direction of Inspector Sidney Candler. One night nine of them occupied the house. They heard raps and thumps from the loft. Several squeezed through the trapdoor – the only entrance and exit – but found nothing and no one. An eiderdown was moved from a bed and a picture crashed from a wall, the cord unbroken and the nail still firmly in place. “I was sceptical at first,” said Inspector Candler, “but now I am convinced something strange is happening.”
Once, after the police had left, teacups in the kitchen were unaccountably moved, a spoon in a sugar basin in a closed cupboard was heard rattling, a large photograph fell from its frame leaving the glass front and cardboard backing undisturbed, and a shopping basket was flung from the unoccupied living room.
Friends grew wary about giving the Greenfields accommodation lest the eerie events spread into their homes too. Afraid to go upstairs after dark the family moved beds to a ground-floor room – but did not sleep.
Nor were the ghostly occurrences the total of their sufferings. Crowds gathered outside the house each evening and remained until the early hours, gazing up at the windows or knocking at the door with requests to be allowed to look over the “haunted rooms.” Again police had to be called – this time to prevent sightseers from forcing their way into the house.
Credence cannot be attached to the idea that the strange happenings may have stemmed from some desire for publicity. From my months of inquiry in the case I know that the family longed for escape from the limelight that surrounded them. Afraid to remain in their “infested” home, they were almost equally afraid to leave it, for in the streets they were pursued with catcalls and advice that they should have their heads examined. Said Dennis of these man-made torments: “I wish the things people say about our making up stories were true. These happenings are turning us into nervous wrecks. We haven’t slept for a week.”
The still-unshaken sceptic will be interested in the events of an afternoon when the locked house was unoccupied. Returning from shopping Mrs Greenfield found a married daughter and a newspaperman awaiting her on the doorstep. They told of hearing heavy thumps from within. When they entered furniture had been moved and a hanging mirror turned to the wall.
It is, to say the least, unlikely that an uncomplicated working-class family would have had the resources or ability to contrive effects which would tax the ingenuity of the Magic Circle. “Brilliant luminous flashes” were seen in the living room by all the members of the family, and once Mr Greenfield senior suffered a severe shock when the radio at his elbow began playing without anyone having switched it on. Dennis was the victim of an alarming experience when, entering Patricia’s bedroom (she had then been sent away to stay with an aunt), he saw her mattress “lifting and curling up” as if moved by invisible hands. Exerting all his strength he tried to push it down but could make no impression upon it. In the middle of this strange tussle “something” seemed to seize him from behind, tearing his shirt.
A band of worshippers from the Church of the Nazarene, Auckland-hill, knelt in the house in prayer for the removal of the ghost and Father Alfred Cole, of St Matthew’s, was consulted about exorcism. But the Langmead-street ghost was not subjected to that ceremony.
I spent many nights of observation in the house and carried out numerous tests in efforts to achieve that delight of the psychical investigator, some inexplicable phenomenon under controlled conditions. An example of such a capture would be telekinesis (the paranormal movement of some object) in a locked and sealed room. With cunning typical of his breed the Langmead-street poltergeist would not oblige to this extent. The sceptic will, of course, reach his own conclusions from this fact, but it does not follow that they are the only ones possible in the light of sensible analysis. From my experience I deduce rather the operation of some intelligence like that of a mischievous puppy who knows he is being chased and is determined to elude capture.
Arriving at the house in response to a telephone call from Cecil Greenfield at 12.15 one night I saw a scene of extraordinary disorder. The white-faced family were huddled downstairs, but upstairs a bedroom was littered with shattered books, vegetables and cooking utensils from the kitchen. Beds were disarranged and a table overturned. With this the Langmead-street ghost seemed to shoot its final bolt. As invariably happens in such cases the odd events began to lessen in both frequency and emphasis. By the end of October all was quiet once more.
The Greenfields moved from the house a year ago and were replaced by young Mr and Mrs E. Hewitt and their four small children. “The children treat the ghost as a joke,” Mrs Hewitt told me when I went to see her last week. “I heard about it before we moved in, but we had to leave our old Nissen hut home because they’re going to build there. None of us has ever seen anything strange here, though the children often shout out to ‘Horace’ as they call it.”
So a house of puzzlement and terror has been turned into a home of laughter.
Mr and Mrs A. Greenfield sitting in their own living-room.
The haunted first-floor bedroom.
Evening News (London), 3rd September 1954.