Shirley’s private spook gets rough.
Everywhere that Shirley goes that tapping is sure to follow. And lately it has been getting more violent. It began with a creak three weeks ago as 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings walked into her home. Then the tapping started and grew so loud that neighbours in Wycliffe-road, Battersea, complained. But Shirley could do nothing about it. The tapping just followed her from room to room… then to the street… and to work. Now it’s everywhere.
And other things happen. Said Shirley last night: “I dropped a glove today and when I bent down to pick it up it flew into the air, hitting Daddy in the face.” While the Hitchings watched TV afterwards, the tapping intensified. Shirley got into bed, the blankets were pulled off. Dad – Mr Walter Hitchings – rushed in: “I grabbed one of the sheets which was being pulled from under her and it took all my strength to hold it,” he said.
Shirley has tried staying with neighbours to get away from the haunting. But the tapping follows. Said one neighbour, Mrs Lily Love: “She spent a night with us but none of us got any sleep because of the noise. We were all scared.”
The tapping has even followed Shirley in buses and to her work at a West End store. Scissors were thrown there and some vanished. Tired from lack of sleep, Shirley was seen by the firm’s doctor who did not believe her story – until he, too, heard the tapping. Now she has a leave of absence. And a spiritualist has been called in to investigate.
Daily Herald, 20th February 1956.
Police called to the seance.
Police broke up a seance in London last night after a 999 call. Two Herald reporters were there. This was the scene: Diana Narracott was sitting in a circle of eight people with 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings, who was being freed from a poltergeist. Sidney Williams was among eight people watching. Shirley, who lives in Wycliffe-road, Battersea, had complained that weird tappings followed her everywhere. That a chair flew up. That ornaments crashed down. She put it all down to a boy she knew as a child. So she named the poltergeist Ronald after him.
Williams was introduced to the poltergeist at Shirley’s home. He knelt and shouted into the carpet: “How old are you, Ronald?” Fifteen thumps was the loud reply. A friend of Shirley’s father, Mr Harry Hanks, offered to exorcise Ronald. Mr Hanks is an “independent” medium when he is not working as an underground train driver. So last night he and Shirley sat in the circle at his home in Grove-way, Stockwell. Overhead an orange-coloured lamp glowed.
Diana Narracott was called in after Mr Hanks told her: “You have a sympathetic aura. I will use it.” Let Diana put you in the picture: “I held hands with Shirley’s father and Mr Hanks’ daughter. But all I could feel was the cold. There was a prayer, a hymn. Mr Hanks went into a trance. He shook violently. Then BANG! BANG! BANG!”
Let Williams take over: “The noise came from downstairs. I followed Mr Hanks’ wife down. She opened the door and found – the police. ‘We have been told there is some form of witchcraft,’ said an officer. ‘We would like to see what is going on.’ They came in. They went upstairs. ‘Don’t let them in,’ someone said. So they stayed at the door with Mrs Hanks.”
Back to Diana Narracott in the circle: “Suddenly a spirit called Sambo turned up. He spoke through Mr Hanks. ‘It is free. No matter now. Bless you and thank you all.’ The poltergeist went and so did the police. They were satisfied nothing was wrong.”
Shirley was not quite so sure. “I feel better now,” she said, “But I shall miss it.”
Diana Narracott, still shivering, took a dim view of poltergeists who come to town in the winter. And Williams? He was last seen crawling round and asking the carpet confidentially: “Are you there, Ronald?”
Daily Herald, 23rd February 1956.
Heard any good taps lately?
Despite a seance to exorcise it, the tapping poltergeist of 15-year-old Battersea girl Shirley Hitchings has come back again. How much reliance would reputable scientists place in her stories of tappings – heard by others – and objects that fly in her presence? Many would believe every word. Most of the incidents follow a strict pattern.
They are temporary. They generally involve an adolescent girl. Small objects are thrown about, and are sometimes hot when they land. Occasionally, fires are started in rooms. Researchers argue that it’s unlikely that such similar incidents could be reported so widely, so often, for so long, if there were not some classifiable cause behind them. But is it a Ghost?
Poltergeist disturbances involving noise and movement are the easiest of all “manifestations” to fake. But when an emotional adolescent is responsible for them, he does not always know what he is doing. And some people believe that the operator is temporarily able to use extraordinary physical powers – like the alleged “levitation” of Shirley Hitchings, six inches above her bed.
Even if a case is authenticated, it should not encourage us to believe in the supernatural. But we may be forced to admit the possibility of super normal power – potential abilities in all human beings.
A.A.
Daily Herald, 25th February 1956.
‘Poltergeist’ raid – an M.P. protests.
An M.P is to protest in Parliament about the action of police who, he says, “burst into a respectable seance by a genuine spiritualist,” to see if black magic or witchcraft was being practised.
Lieutenant-Colonel Marcus Lipton, Labour Member for Brixton, is to ask the Home Secretary for an explanation in the Commons on Thursday. The seance was at the home of Mr Harry Hanks, in Grove-way, Brixton (London). Mr Hanks, a spiritualist, was trying to free fifteen-year-old Shirley Hitchins, of Wycliffe-road, Battersea, from the influence of a poltergeist – a noisy mischievous spirit, which spiritualists believed responsible for the mysterious tapping sounds which followed Shirley around.
Daily Mirror, 27th February 1956.
‘What is black magic?’
The practice of Black Magic is against the Common law. That is why police took action on a “999” call reporting “a Black Magic circle,” Major Lloyd-George, Home Secretary, told M.P.s yesterday. He was explaining why police called at the home of Mr Harry Hanks, of Grove-way, Brixton, London, while a seance was being held. Mr Hanks was trying to free fifteen year old Shirley Hitchins from a “poltergeist” – noisy, mischievous spirit.
What is Black Magic? asked an M.P.
Major Lloyd-George said: “It is the opposite of White Magic, which is magic performed without the aid of the devil.” He assumed, therefore, that Black Magic “is with his aid.” Major Lloyd-George said that the police left the seance being satisfied that nothing wrong was going on.
Daily Mirror, 2nd March 1956.
They can’t sleep for Spookie Willie.
Spookie Willie, the poltergeist that has been plaguing 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings since early last month, is still up to his tricks. He is now so active, in fact, that for four nights Shirley and her family have not dared go to bed. On Wednesday, Shirley woke up and found her wrist watch crushed on a table beside her. Since then the family have slept on cushions in the living room of their home in Wycliffe-rd, Battersea – taking it in turns to listen for the dreaded tap… tap… tap… that heralds the presence of Spookie Willie.
Shirley’s father, Walter Hitchings, 44, a London Underground driver, has worked out a method of taking down messages from Willie. “Sometimes he insists on talking to us until dawn, and if we take no notice he starts throwing things at us,” Shirley’s mother said yesterday. Recently a milk bottle whizzed past the head of Grandma Hitchings, 73, and Mr Hitchings had to duck as a framed picture of himself hurtled from the mantelpiece. He has lost half a stone in weight in the last six months and his nerves are now so bad that his doctor has ordered him a fortnight’s sick leave.
Shirley’s mother and grandmother are also under treatment for nerves.
The People, 11th March 1956.
The Ghost Starts a Fire.
George the Ghost seems to be getting fed up with tapping messages on the walls of the Hitchings home – so he started a fire there yesterday. And he even had the nerve to warn the Hitchings family what he intended to do. But he might have been a bit more explicit in the warnings he tapped out to 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings and 25-year-old brother John at their home in Wycliffe-road, Battersea. He forgot to tell them he was going to start the fire in a downstairs bedroom.
Mr Walter Hitchings, 47-year-old London Transport worker, got his hands and arms burnt beating out the blazing eiderdown. While detectives examined the charred bed covers last night, Shirley said: “The poltergeist tapped out warning messages to me last night and this morning and I couldn’t get to sleep. Later I smelt burning and from the upstairs landing I saw a green flash and then flames coming from the bedroom. Daddy ran from the kitchen to put out the flames.”
Police have been called to the house several times recently because of complaints about that fiery spirit.
Daily Herald, 13th March 1956.
Exit a Ghost.
Shirley Hitchings, 15-year-old Battersea (London) girl who has been pursued by a poltergeist, has left home – and so has Spookie Willie. Shirley’s father, Mr Alfred Hitchings, said yesterday: “She is in need of rest and quiet. I am not saying where she has gone. We are not now being troubled by the poltergeist.”
The People, 18th March 1956.