Queer happenings at a haunted house in Askam.
“Happy” Harry Hodgson is searching for a spiritualist to rid his four-roomed 90-years-old home at Askam of the “ghosts” which have been plaguing his family for the last five years.
Mr Hodgson (31), mechanic at a Ministry of Supply plant at Eskmeals, said in his living room at 29, John Street, Askam, yesterday morning: “I’m afraid something bad may happen. We used to joke about the things we heard, but now it’s past a joke.”
This is what he, his wife, Hazel (22), and his father, James (72), say has happened: They have heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, loud knocks on the ceiling, a woman’s voice calling “Harry,” the chimes of a clock and the rustling of paper.
They have seen a cup of tea and an empty milk bottle fall over on their own and a turnip jump out of a carrier bag. They have felt people tugging at doors they wished to open. Mr Hodgson has felt ghostly hands take him around the waist, and has had a door banged in his face.
Gas taps mysterious switched themselves off and an alarm clock rang of its own accord. Household articles and toys vanished, a table cloth that disappeared was later found in a cupboard that had been thoroughly searched.
“Our baby, Carol, whose first birthday is on Sunday, has never slept from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. ever since she was brought home by my wife,” said Mr Hodgson. “I’m afraid something may happen on Sunday.”
A few weeks back he consulted spiritualists. They said “mischievous, restless spirits” had hold of the house. The baby was psychic and the spirits came back to play with it.
A friend removed a dog mat bought 47 years ago. The noises ceased, but the baby kept waking up “almost as if timed by a clock. She is always frightened and crying.”
Early yesterday morning came their most terrifying experience, the one that has made Mr Hodgson determined to have his house purged of the spirits. “I was sitting in front of the fire chatting with my wife who was nursing the baby,” he said. “It was about 2.30 a.m. (‘we usually get up when the baby awakes’) when suddenly she and the baby seemed to become paralysed. I started up, but seemed to be struck speechless and paralysed by an unseen force. We seemed to have to fight to rid ourselves of a choking feeling. We recovered about five minutes later.”
Mrs M.A. Davill, of 20, John Street, who lived in the house for six months as a house-keeper, told a “News” reporter that she had clearly heard many of the noises and had experienced the extinguishing of the gas light. “It scares me stiff.”
Barrow News, 23rd January 1954.
Vigil in haunted house at Askam.
The ghosts which Mr Harry Hodgson (31), Ministry of Supply worker, claims have been haunting his house at 29, John Street, Askam, failed to appear on the night a reporter and photographer from the “News” stayed up with him.
Late on Saturday night the Pressmen walked into the house. They left four hours later, after listening and looking in vain for something unusual. Mr Hodgson’s daughter Carol, who, he says has been haunted by the ghosts ever since she came into the house at the age of a few weeks, was quite unaffected. Sunday was her first birthday.
What happened to the ghosts? Mr Hodgson, known to friends as “Happy Harry,” thought Carol’s birthday might have had something to do with it. “Perhaps these things happen in cycles and Sunday morning being the beginning of the baby’s second year marked the end of a cycle,” he said.
On Saturday he had burned a mat made from a dog skin, which a friend suggested might have been haunted by a Yogi spirit. “Perhaps that had something to do with it,” Mr Hodgson said. Other possibilities were the influence of a Dalton spiritualist, Mrs C. Constable, who had tried to reduce the severity of the haunting, and a letter from a Newbarns resident who had written to Mr Hodgson suggesting the burning of incense to rid the house of the spirits.
When the Pressmen arrived about midnight Carol was awake and playing with her toys. Her father says that between 1 and 4 a.m. she is plagued by the spirits, who cause her to scream in terror. But on Sunday morning she looked merely overtired, otherwise normal, and fell asleep at 2.25 a.m.
A few creaks such as are heard in any old house – 29 John Street was built 90 years ago – were heard. There were none of the sounds or occurrences which Mr Hodgson and others claim to have experienced. Barrow spiritualists, who at first said they would try to rid the house of spirits, are now leaving the matter in the hands of Mrs Constable. Should she require any aid they may help, a spokesman said.
Barrow News, 30th January 1954.