Ghost that took the biscuit.
Things don’t go bump in the night at a Batley art teacher’s house, they just appear. Over the past two years strange gifts have been “materialising” at Mr Arthur Bowring’s Victorian house. Mr Bowring, 48, a teacher at Park Road Adult Education Centre, says that without explanation: A parcel containing French biscuits appeared on his coffee table; An eiderdown, said by an expert to be from the 1950s, was found folded on his bed; An old-fashioned razor blade covered with fresh soap and whiskers was found in the bathroom, despite the bearded Mr Bowring having not shaved for 20 years; An initialled pen, lost at work, amazingly turned up at his home the same day.
There have been many more instances explained Mr Bowring. “So many that I cannot remember them all,” he added. Mr Bowring has contacted several spiritualists who examined the objects and visited his home, but so far they have been unable to come up with any answers. He has not ruled out the possibility someone is playing practical jokes on him, but this seems unlikely as his home is always locked and he has laid “trip wires” across inside doorways.
Despite these odd goings on Mr Bowring says: “My home is a friendly place. People always remark on how warm it is.”
An author and expert on psychic phenomona, Mr Joe Cooper, who also teaches at Park Road said he had seen the objects Mr Bowring had found in his house and concluded that, eventually, if the objects kept appearing, they may form some pattern or message.
Batley News, 23rd January 1986.