Pounds, shivers and suspence!
Pete the poltergeist conjures up pennies from Heaven.
Poltergeist Pete is a nightmare turned into a dream – he actually produces money from thin air. The ghost with the Midas touch has spooked Welsh couple Fred and Gerry Cook for several years. And while he hasn’t turned them into millionaires overnight, he has left them quids in.
Pete became a family friend after haunting Fred’s place of work in Cardiff. But after settling in the family home he has vanished into thin air. Retired plumber Fred and wife Gerry, whose Cardiff home Pete had moved in to three years ago, is baffled. “He left about two months ago,” said Fred. “Since then we’ve had no money thrown at us and no oranges pinched – they became his trade marks when he moved in here. It was a couple of months ago when I was doing the washing-up: I’d just done the last item and there was a splash in the washing-up bowl. I put my hand in and there was an orange. That was the last we saw of him.”
The police, of course, have not been called. The only time they were was to investigate a break-in at the engineering firm on Crwys Road, Cardiff, where Pete first started haunting – throwing stones and pinning carburettor floats to the ceiling back in 1988. “He pelted the police with stones,” said Fred. “But they had heard of him and knew what to expect. The men who came to replace the broken window weren’t too happy though. He pelted them too and they rushed the job and left in a hurry.”
It was at the engineering shop that Fred first met Pete. “The boys who worked there used to say to him ‘give me a penny’, and he’d make a penny appear out of thin air and fall at their feet. Then he started giving me pounds and even notes – fivers and tenners stuck to my car in the rain.”
Obviously Pete had a soft spot for Fred and, in time, revealed himself to him. “I’d never been frightened until the first time I saw him,” said Fred. “I was on my own in the workshop and I looked up and there he was, sitting on a shelf. He was a young boy, wearing short trousers and a peaked cap but his head, hands and legs were just outlines, there was nothing there. After that I saw him about five or six times.”
When the business in Crwys Road moved to new premises in Splott, Pete moved in to Fred and Gerry’s home in Llandaff. “He even moved house with us when we moved into a smaller place a couple of years ago,” said Fred. “My grandson Craig saw him here once when I was away. He said ‘He’s sitting in Grampa’s chair’ and the description was of exactly the boy I’d seen. He became part of our life for a few years and we enjoyed his company. You always knew when he was around. I’d feel a very cold draught and the hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end. He’d pull our hair or put pound coins on my shoulder. We did quite well out of him – he must have left us a few hundred pounds in the time he was here – it was like having a lodger. It has been a wonderful experience and I feel quite privileged and honoured to have had him around. But we want to get back to our normal life, so in a way, I’m glad he’s gone now. As long as he’s all right.”
The story of Pete and other poltergeists is told in a new book The Poltergeist Phenomenon by John and Anne Spencer, published by Headline books on May 15, priced £6.99.
Wales on Sunday, 11th May 1997.