Shoes that walk alone.
A shop of odd fear.
In a very ordinary street in Kilburn, London, is a shoemaker’s shop where shoes walk – without feet in them. That’s not the only strange thing that happens there. Bolted doors open. Candles light up when no-one is near. Chisels fly through the air. Today, only one pair of shoes stand in the shoemaker’s shop. They are nailed to the work bench and coated with white powder. They are a trap to catch the “fingerprints” of a poltergeist – a mischievous spirit that torments shoemakers and other men.
For 20 years shoemaker Jim Best, thirty-eight-years old cripple, has worked contentedly in the little shop in Dyne-rd. Three weeks ago things happened. First, there were tappings on the wall. In the shop next door are two young girl assistants. “It’s Ann and Betty larking about,” Jim said. Then brown shoes were dyed black. Shoes were found in the street. Hammers, chisels and rubber heels took flight. The bench was smashed.
Jim told the manager, Mr Charles Fishburn. “You’re mad,” said Mr Fishburn, but as he listened a chisel whizzed past his ear and stuck quivering in the wall.
Ann Dopson, seventeen, and Betty Bowler, eighteen, the shop assistants went to investigate – and a shower of tin tacks fell on them. Locked doors clicked open, candles were moved and lighted.
Jim moved out. “It’s too dangerous,” he said. “We’re all convinced a poltergeist is at work. But those nailed down shoes will puzzle him.
Yesterday the Psychical Society took a hand in the investigations.
The People, 27th February 1949.
If you’ve a ghost in the house try this.
How do you get rid of a poltergeist, one of those noisy spirits which throw things about? Take one slab of concrete three feet square and four inches thick and – with luck you may have laid your ghost.
In a tiny shoe repair shop in Dyne-rd., Kilburn, cobblers are hoping they will have no more trouble from a mischievous poltergeist which for a year has been causing havoc. The “polto” introduced itself when Mr James Best, thirty nine, who has repaired shoes in the tiny shop for 20 years, was bending over his last. The door of the shop opened with a click: no one entered, so Mr Best closed it. It opened again and again that morning.
Shoes without feet in them began to walk. A pile of shoes was often found in the middle of the road. Electric light bulbs fell from their sockets.
Mediums and psychical research societies were baffled. Then paper and pencils were left on a shelf at night. “We got three messages,” said Mr Best. They said, ‘Dig stone floor four feet,’ and on the floor of the shop was a circle marked with chalk. I dug four feet down with a pick and came to a drain-pipe. A medium advised us to lay a solid block over the hole and then the earthbound polto would go. So we laid down the concrete slab and so far everything is quiet.”
The People, 5th February 1950.