The wall that ticks has them all baffled.
A wall that ticks is baffling 21-year-old housewife Mrs Gloria Didcote, the police and local officials. The wall in the sitting room of Mrs Didcote’s home in St James’s-street, Cheltenham, Glos., began to tick last week.
Last night mother-of-two Mrs Didcote said: “We don’t believe in ghosts but we’d like to know what it is. We stripped off all the wallpaper, but it made no difference. The tick is still there, as strong as ever. It is just like a watch, only twice as fast.”
When Mrs Didcote reported the noise to the police they sent round a constable. He could not help, so Cheltenham Corporation sent a building inspector. Mrs Didcote said: “On his advice we took up part of the skirting board. That did not help. Now I have been told to make a chalk mark where I think the noise is coming from. The Corporation are sending someone to see me again to try to find out what it is.”
Daily Mirror, 6th September 1965.
Viewpoint.
Tick-tick! Who’s there?
Many readers have diagnosed the wall ticking which is baffling Mrs Gloria Didcote at home in Cheltenham (Mirror, Monday). Here is a selection from their letters…
I can assure Mrs Didcote it is a ticking spider which sounds not unlike a watch or clock, but much faster. It will, in time, stop. – Mrs Eileen Meyer, Hove.
It is a ticking spider rubbing its legs together calling for its mate. – L. Rose, Bedford.
It’s a death watch beetle. – Mrs V.A.B., Southampton.
The noise comes from a tiny insect called Sitona Flavescens (Marsh) from the order coleoptera, family Curculionidae. – Mrs M Robinson, Cricklewood.
It’s only a long-legged spider up in a corner. These are good fly catchers and they tick like mad sometimes. – Ethel Legg, Sherbourne.
Most readers favoured the ticking spider diagnosis. Advice to Mrs Didcote included: “Tap back at it,” “Put a watch on the wall,” “Spray the wall with insect killer,” “Quit the house.”
Daily Mirror, 9th September 1965.
Tape may show what makes that wall tick.
A council’s building experts will study a tape recording of a wall today – to find out what makes it tick. The wall is in 21-year-old Mrs Gloria Didcote’s front room. And the room has been “haunted” by the mysterious tick, tick, ticking noise for the past fortnight. At first it was rather amusing. Now it is beginning to get on Mrs Didcote’s nerves.
Her husband, 26-year-old Derek, said yesterday: “The tick has moved from the wall where we first heard it. It has done a complete tour of the room now. And we have even heard it in the next room.”
In an attempt to trace the cause of the ticking, the Didcotes, who live in St James’s-street, Cheltenham, Gloucs, have ripped the wallpaper down. They have also taken up the skirting board in the room – but the ticking still goes on.
Mrs Didcote, mother of two young children, called in the police, but they could not help. Cheltenham Corporation officials were just as baffled by the noise. Now they are hoping that the tape-recording will help to solve the mystery. Yesterday, council officials collected the tape from Mr Didcote, and took a careful note of chalk marks on the walls, showing where the ticking has been coming from.
Daily Mirror, 10th September 1965.
Family plagued by tick.
A Cheltenham family are plagued by a tick. Now Mr and Mrs Derrick Didcote, of St James Street, have been advised to see a spiritualist. For the tick heard in the wall of their house is thought to be a playful ghost.
The tick has been going, on and off, for nearly three weeks. It started in the living room, but early yesterday morning it was heard in the kitchen. “It is really getting on our nerves,” said Mrs Gloria Didcote. “It’s getting me down and I don’t like staying on my own in the house any more. If I am left alone I have to keep going to the door to see if there is anyone around I know. Even the two children are afraid. Paul has been waking up in the night and kept pointing to the window.”
Last week-end Mrs Didcote’s baby Lorraine was asleep in her pram when there was a sudden bag. “I looked up and the pram seemed to jump in the air and the baby started crying. It could be a poltergeist, but I have not been fully convinced yet,” she said.
Mr Didcote has made a tape-recording of the tick and plans to send it to an expert. Skirting boards and wallpaper in the house have been torn off, but nothing has come to light to show what the mysterious tick is.
Several people have said that it is a ticking spider.
Mrs Didcote has asked Cheltenham town council building inspectors to listen to the tape. “But they don’t seem interested,” she said.
And last night as darkness fell Mrs Didcote was praying that the tick would have disappeared.
Bristol Evening Post, 17th September 1965.