“The Woman in Black”
Family flee “Haunted House.”
A Douglas hawker and his family have been driven out of a 15-roomed house in Douglas by what they describe as: Uncanny noises; Loud thumpings in the night; A little old woman in black who walked through locked doors.
The family consists of Mr Isaac Watson, a hawker, his wife and three children, and his mother-in-law, Mrs Miller; and the adult members are convinced that they have been victims of supernatural manifestations at the house, which has been unoccupied for a considerable time. Mr Watson got the house intending to let off rooms.
On the first night the whole family were disturbed by loud thumping, they say, and the second night the noises continued all through the hours of darkness. For the third night the women and children went to bed in one room, and Mr Watson slept in the next room. Mrs Miller and Mrs Watson say this uncanny row was repeated, and they could hear someone counting money.
Mr Watson states that at one o’clock he woke suddenly and saw a little old woman walk through the locked door to the window, where he could see her distinctly. She wore a black cape and bonnet. She turned round, walked past the bed again, and out through the locked door.
As soon as he could move he ran into the next room, and the following day they left the house.
Liverpool Evening Express, 30th July 1942.