Poltergeist follows me everywhere, says Shirley.
Everywhere that 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings goes – so she said yesterday – a poltergeist goes too. You can tell when the poltergeist is there by the tapping…. The tapping, say Shirley’s parents, began three weeks ago. Mr and Mrs Walter Hitchings thought it was ice thawing in the pipes of their home in Wycliffe-road, Battersea. Shirley said last night that the tapping sometimes came with her in buses and to her work in a West End store. It hasn’t ended with tapping. Said Shirley: “One night I dropped a glove. I bent down to pick it up and it flew into the air, hitting Daddy in the face.” As she got into bed that night the bedclothes were pulled off. Mr Hitchings cut in: “I grabbed one of the sheets and it took all my strength to hold it.” Then Shirley started rising from the bed. “It was as though someone underneath was pushing me,” she said. Her father and an uncle held her until she sank down again.
Daily Express, 20th February 1956.
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.
No… I am not evil, he says. No… I will NOT go away. Yes… I have got your bangle.
Knock, knock! It’s Shirley’s poltergeist…
By Elizabeth Few.
I talked to 15-year-old Shirley Hitching’s poltergeist in knocking language yesterday. I did it in her 79-year-old Grandma Hitching’s upstairs parlour in Wycliffe-road, Battersea. Shirley’s trouble started three weeks ago. A mysterious key arrived on her bed. It fitted nothing, belonged nowhere. Since then mysterious rappings have followed her everywhere – on buses and at work. She has been asked to stay away from her job as a £3-a-week sewing hand in a West End store. The rappings were unnerving her workmates.
Since the week-end, all five members of her family, the next-door neighbour, and the landlord have seen – Shirley’s watch-strap slowly undo and fall to the ground; a chair fly through the air; pencils, clocks, ornaments, and a table lamp leap to the ground. Nothing like that happened while I was there. But I must confess the knocking chair baffled me…
Shirley sat on a table with her slippered feet resting on an old carved chair. I laid my hand on the seat and asked: “Are you evil?” Came two distinct knocks. That, say the best authorities, means “No.” I heard the knocks distinctly and, with my hand, I felt them throb. We giggled… We talked on in this strange way to an empty chair. We learned the poltergeist was probably a boy named Donald, who played with Shirley as a child, had lived in the same road and emigrated to New Zealand three years ago. Shirley remembered Donald. “Every time he answers I get tingles all over,” she said. She asked: “Have you come to do me harm?” No, knocked back the chair. “Will you ever go away?” say I. No.
Did you put the key on the bed? Yes. Did you throw all those things? Yes. Are you compelled to do this? Yes. Will you do it again? Yes. Tonight? Yes. “Oh, dear,” cried Shirley, “No sleep again and more clothes pulled off the beds. Please go away.” No. No. No. She said: “My gold bangle has disappeared. Have you got it Donald?” Yes. “Can I have it back?” No. No.
Shirley’s father, a driver on the Underground, said: “We cannot understand it. We have to keep a sense of humour but our nerves are all on edge.”
I said I was going. The chair rapped: No. No. No. But I went – thankfully.
Daily Express, 21st February 1956.
Eerie! The diary of a girl with a poltergeist following her.
The taps tail her… on TV!
By Elizabeth Few.
Fifteen-year-old Shirley Hitchings may lose “Donald,” her poltergeist, tonight. From her home in Wycliffe-road, Battersea, she leaves for a seance with three mediums who hope to quell the mischievous spirit. The spirit turned up three weeks ago. A mysterious key which fitted nothing landed on Shirley’s bed. Since then mysterious rappings have followed her everywhere. They so unnerved her workmates in a West End store that she was asked to stay away. Seven people have seen a chair in her house fly through the air; clocks and ornaments fall to the ground.
Shirley believes the spirit is Donald De’ath, a boy who played with her as a child and emigrated to Tawa Flat, near Wellington, New Zealand, two years ago.
With Shirley tonight goes her diary. According to it, yesterday went like this… 2am. Go to bed leaving mystery key on sideboard. 2.5 Father notices key back on my bed. Tapping continues. 2.8 Gloves drop. Inside one is my face cream. 8.30 Both sheets on bed begin to pull up. Dad and Aunt Gert come to watch as witnesses. 11. Newly made beds rumpled behind Dad’s back while I am in kitchen. 1pm. Tappings give me message from Donald. Doesn’t make sense. 1.30 Chair overturns upstairs in Grandma’s room. 2.45 Tappings follow me into bedroom. Key still on bed. 4.45 Tappings follow me into Fleet-street shop.
I heard those tappings in the shop. And I am still baffled. The tapping came from near Shirley’s feet. But she was wearing thick, crepe-soled snow boots.
Footnote: Ronald (Shirley called him Donald) De’ath’s grandmother said last night: “I have heard from his family and he is well and happy. I shall ask him to write to Shirley.”
Daily Express, 22nd February 1956.
Police call on ‘Donald’ seance. By Elizabeth Few.
The Flying Squad tried last night to stop a seance intended to get rid of “Donald,” the poltergeist who follows 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings around wherever she goes. The exorcising was taking place at the home of 52-year-old Harry Hanks, who is a London Underground driver and also a medium. At 8 o’clock a patrol car in the Brixton-road received a radio call to go to Grove-way, Stockwell, where, the message said: “Black magic is being practised.” The seance had just begun.
The room in which we were was wallpapered in brown and orange. There was a dull pink light and a dying fire. In a corner was a dartboard, a TV set, a cage of budgerigars and canaries, and two goldfish swimming in a tank. In the psychic circle of seven were Mr and Mrs Hanks, Shirley, Mr Walter Hitchings, her father, still in his working clothes (he is a railwayman), 29-year-old Dorothy Hanks, Mrs Daisy Bennett, a clairvoyant, and Mrs Ada Roden, a spiritualist. They were all holding hands and Mr Hanks was in a trance. Hymns were played on an upright piano to help him get “conditioned.”
Then came the interruption. As the police pounded on the downstairs door the dog, which had been scratching itself before the fire, started to bark, the budgies and the canaries fluffed and squawked. Mrs Hanks broke the circle and went to see what the noise downstairs was about. She could be heard saying: “You can’t come in.” The loud voices of the law replied. Then Mrs Hanks came back to the seance and said to her husband: “Sorry, dear, but the police are here. They insist on coming in. They think it’s black magic.” But Mr Hanks stayed in his trance as two uniformed policemen hurried up the stairs and remained listening outside the cream-painted sitting-room door. There was some discussion and finally Mrs Hanks persuaded them that the seance was an ordinary spiritualist meeting within the meaning of the law.
Mrs Roden said: “We mustn’t lose the power.” Shirley tried not to giggle. The police were still standing outside the door when Mr Hanks stretched his hands out towards Shirley. He shook violently and said: “It is free, my friend. The interference is from you. God bless you all.” Mr Hanks explained that it was his African guide Sambo who had been speaking through him. Mrs Hanks then told her husband about the police. “You should have let them come in, love,” he said, “whether I am in a trance or not. They have a job to do and whether it was two policemen or a thousand it wouldn’t have mattered.”
The meeting closed with cups of tea and the comforting assurance from Scotland Yard that no black magic had been enacted.
Daily Express, 23rd 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.
A spirit interviewed in Battersea.
‘The most fantastic story I have ever written’.
By Ross Werge.
This story is just about the most fantastic I have ever written and I wouldn’t blame anyone from raising a sceptical eyebrow after they have read it. The fact is – on Monday at half-past two in the afternoon in an undistinguished terrace house in Wycliffe Road, Battersea, I had an interview with what, for want of a better word, I can only describe as a poltergeist. It was obtained through the seat of a chair by a system of raps with a 15-year-old girl as a go-between. Crazy? That’s what I can’t help thinking even now. But the fact remains that for close on three hours that afternoon I was in touch with a phenomenon that defied every logical explanation. Call it what you like – deliberate faking, materialisation of thought transference, an illusion – the fact remains that something is happening at No.63 Wycliffe Road that cannot be explained in the normal way.
All the strange happenings centre around 15-year-old stores assistant Shirley Hitchings. While she is in th ehouse, says her parents, clocks fall from mantelpieces, table lamps are levitated, objects disappear and turn up in the next room. On one occasion Shirley’s grandmother was mixing a pudding when a spoon jumped into the bowl. Most startling of all was the night “Spooky Willie” as Shirley has nicknamed the poltergeist, suddenly pulled the bedclothes off her bed. Since then Shirley has slept with her mother.
The trouble began three weeks ago. Strange thumps and raps echoed from the walls and under the bed. Neighbours complained about the noise. Then the ornaments began to fly around. That was bad enough. But it was soon obvious that wherever Shirley went “Spooky Willie” went too. Bus passengers looked oddly at Shirley when the tappings began. At work, some of the girls were frightened when the noises started. Finally, a doctor ordered Shirley home for a fortnight’s rest. And that was the situation when I called at No. 63, on Monday.
To say that I was extremely sceptical would be a gross understatement. And nothing I saw or heard in the first half hour did much to change my mind. True Shirley did succeed in extracting some odd knockings when she rapped on the floor but that could have been a loose floorboard. Moreover Shirley soon began to find things that she said had been missing that morning. Proof of ghostly happenings was sadly lacking.
We went up to the first floor flat to see Grandma Hitchings. Sitting in a comfortable armchair before the fire, a stolid no nonsense look about her, Grandma stoutly affirmed, “It’s a lot of rot.” But further questioning drew out a reluctant admission that slippers had flown over her head and clothes pegs she had secured seconds before had mysteriously detached themselves. Until then I had felt rather superior about the whole affair. Then something happened to change my mind.
[photo] – Fifteen-year-old Shirley Hitchings and our reporter. And, for all we know, the poltergeist, too. While Shirley established contact, reporter Werge asks the questions. ‘Spooky Willie’ answers with thumps, apparently from the chair itself. Cupboard in background was also used to transmit messages. So was a hard wooden chair, the table on which Shirley sits, and also the floor.
Someone brought out a hard wooden chair. Shirley placed her foot on it and I put my hand close by. Faint, but distinct came an irregular thump, apparently from the wood itself. Then Shirley leaned against a wall – the thumping was louder still. Against a cupboard at the other end of the room, with the same result. We worked out a system. We would ask questions and the spirit, the poltergeist or whatever it was, would answer in thumps, one for “No,” two for “Yes,” and three for “Don’t know.” We explained the system to Spooky Willie. He – or it? – said he understood. The seance began.
“Are you evil?” we asked? – No. “Are you happy?” – No. “Can we help you in any way?” – Yes. “Have you a message for us?” – No. “Have you a message for Shirley?” – Yes. “Will you deliver it today?” – No. “Tomorrow?” – No. “On Sunday?” – Yes.
All this time I was watching Shirley’s foot. It didn’t move an inch. Just to make sure there were no hidden springs I asked her to move her foot to the edge of the chair. It made no difference. We ascertained that it could count up to 20, then asked it to rap out Shirley’s age. There followed 15 distinct thumps.
But the poltergeist was contradictory. At first it claimed to be Grandma Hitching’s mother, who died 40 years ago. Later it said it was a boy named Donald, who used to play with Shirley.
The Rev. WE Douthwaite, vicar of St Bartholomew’s, called at the house last week. He could give no explanation. And a doctor told me that there was no possibility that in some way Shirley could control and transmit heart-beats. Perhaps there is a natural explanation, but it has me beat. And I take a lot of convincing.
South Western Star, 24th February 1956.
That poltergeist is back again.
Shirley Hitchings, 15-year-old Battersea girl who thought she had lost the tapping poltergeist that has been following her around for nearly four weeks, said last night: “It has come back.” Shirley – she went to a seance held on Wednesday night to exorcise the mischievous spirit – added at her home in Wycliffe-road: “I’m really frightened now. The tappings are much louder.”
Daily Express, 24th 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.
Shirley’s poltergeist.
I don’t know whether the seance held recently by spiritualists resulted in the disappearance of the poltergeist that is attached to Shirley Hitchings, but I rather doubt whether it will. I’ve never yet heard of a seance disposing of a poltergeist, or indeed a full exorcism by a priest doing so either, though the more prosaic ghost can be often eliminated by this method.
It perhaps proves the point of those who say there is little ghostly about the poltergeist; that it is in fact a projection from the human body, something that science will be able to substantiate one day. Note how poltergeists are usually associated with puberty. It is the same pseudo-psychic force that is responsible I should say for the action of the Ouija board, that little gadget used by Spiritualists to obtain such contradictory answers. The answers of this poltergeist appear also to be contradictory. It is, one must presume, something connected with the subconscious. It should be possible to prove whether or not the poltergeist is a departed spirit by using carefully selected questions to “it”.
I’m afraid poor Shirley will have to put up with her playful “friend” for a little while yet, but it will go as soon as it came.
John Rackham, 3, Branksome Road, London SW2.
South Western Star, 9th 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.
Shirley’s own poltergeist sends a warning, then a fire starts.
By Elizabeth Few.
Detectives went yesterday to the home of 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings, who says that a ghost is haunting her. Four fire engines and an ambulance went, too. For fire had broken out in the house in Wycliffe-road, Battersea. Shirley’s poltergeist – she has had his company for eight weeks – was blamed for the fire. And Scotland Yard said last night: “We were unable to find the cause.” But Shirley, her mother and father, and grandmother sat glumly in the parlour and announced: – “It is the poltergeist without a doubt. He’s getting out of hand and we wish he would go away.”
Mr Walter Hitchings, 47-year-old underground train driver, off work on doctor’s orders because he needs a rest, was badly burned on his left hand. He had to spend two hours in hospital. But he had put the fire out just as the firemen arrived. A pick eiderdown, bedspread, and small rug were burned in a downstairs bedroom. Said Shirley, “haunted” for eight weeks with rappings and mysterious happenings: “He said he would set fire to the place in an alphabet message in the morning. An hour later he did.”
A printed message written by the family in accordance with the “ghost’s” instructions read: – “I set fire today… it is your master…” Another message said: “… I will set house afire.”
The Hitchings tried mediums and spiritualists to rid them of “the unwelcome visitor.” Now they say: “We don’t believe in spiritualism.” Said Shirley’s mother: “A psychiatrist from a big London hospital is going to see Shirley. We will get to the bottom of this somehow. We just don’t know what to think.”
Shirley denied that she had set fire to the bedclothes. “I was in my gran’s room when it happened. I know everybody thinks it’s me. But I don’t do anything. It just happens, and it frightens me.” Mr Hitchings said: “We haven’t slept properly for nights. And now, fire. We’ll never know when it’s going to happen again.”
Daily Express, 13th 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.
Poltergeist Donald getting spiteful.
Attempt to burn Shirley’s home?
Did 16-year-old Shirley Hitchings’ poltergeist attempt to burn down her home in Wycliffe Road, Battersea, on Monday? The Hitchings family is firmly convinced that it did but police are inclined to be sceptical. The latest chapter in the saga of Donald, the ex-school friend turned poltergeist, occurred after it had rapped out a warning that arson was on the way unless… The condition was that Shirley should get in touch with a journalist who had written a somewhat disbelieving article on the spirit world. And the message concluded, “Obey, it is your master.” But Donald apparently gave them little time to carry out his orders. Soon after the warning sparks began to fly – quite literally.
Shirley and her mother were about to go to bed when there were two flashes in quick succession, “like short circuits.” They abandoned the bedroom and slept in the living room. Incident number two involved a lighted match. “It floated over Shirley’s head and fell at her feet,” her grandmother assured me. Late on Monday morning, tired of these preliminary skirmishes, Donald went into action on a big scale. Said 47-year-old Mr Walter Hitchings, his right hand heavily bandaged, “Shirley called out from upstairs that she could smell burning. I dashed into the ground floor bedroom and found the sheets and eiderdown alight. I got this beating out the flames.” Firemen called to the house found only a few scorch marks on the bedding. But Mr Hitchings went off to hospital for treatment. “They asked me why the front of my hand wasn’t burned,” he said. “I explained that a bit of burning material fell on the back.”
South Western Star, 16th March 1956.
Haunted girl leaves home.
Shirley Hitchings, aged 15, the girl who has been dogged by a poltergeist for two months, has been sent away from home on the advice of a doctor. She left London yesterday for an unknown destination. Her family refused to reveal her whereabouts but said she is staying with an aunt in the country. “Shirley was heading for a nervous breakdown,” said her father Mr Walter Hitchings, of Wycliffe Road, Battersea. The family pleaded with the poltergeist to leave the house. It refused, they say. For the past month Shirley has reported to police that she has been pestered by the poltergeist which has thrown scissors at her, whisked the clothes from beds, overturned chairs and tapped out messages to her.
Liverpool Daily Post, 17th 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.
Fire riddle at ‘ghost’ house.
By Elizabeth Few.
A series of mysterious fires broke out yesterday in the home of 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings, the poltergeist girl. It was the second time firemen and detectives have been called to Wycliffe-road, Battersea, and gone away baffled. Last night chiefs of the London Fire Prevention Department questioned Shirley for three quarters of an hour. So did the C.I.D. while neighbours gathered outside “the spooky house” as they call it. Shirley’s mother explained how she tried to put out blazing clothes and brushes. She did not want to call the fire brigade. But a neighbour insisted.
Shirley and her family have been haunted for four months with tappings, noises, and mysterious happenings, said to be caused by a poltergeist or mischievous spirit. Her grandmother and uncle have left their upstairs flat in fear. “We would move too,” said her father, Mr Walter Hitchings. “But we know it would follow us. It’s uncanny and we don’t know what to do. It almost rules us. We’ve even got to the stage of talking to it like a real person.”
Neighbour Charles Baker and his wife Doris were called in to fight the fires which went on spasmodically from two o’clock in the afternoon to 8.45 p.m., when the 999 call was made. In a bucket in the yard were the charred remains of collars, shirts, table cloths, wooden household brushes, and towels. Said Mr Hitchings: “For some time now the electric cooker has been turned on mysteriously. We even cut it off at the main but that gets switched back on. I was called home from work. Apparently the things landed on the cooker and were set on fire.”
“Everyone thinks we are crazy,” said Mrs Hitchings. “And they think Shirley does these things. It’s nonsense. We wish we could get rid of it.” Said Shirley: “It wasn’t me. I wasn’t near the kitchen when it started but I helped to put out some of the fires later.” Said Scotland Yard: “You know as much as we do.” At London Fire Brigade Headquarters they said: “The Fire Prevention Department makes investigations when the cause of the fire is not obvious.”
“The first fire was started with matches seven weeks ago,” said Mrs Hitchings. “So we haven’t had a match in the house since. We keep having tapping messages warning us the fire will come again.” I joined them round a coffee table with an upturned wine glass to try to get another message. Then photographer Ronald Dumont and myself tried alone. The message came: “Fire me do. Me do it again.”
Daily Express, 1st May 1956.