Family live in fear of a ghost.
Burly ex-pitman Henry Walker doesn’t believe in ghosts. But after the nightly goings-on at his 24-year-old council semi even Mr Walker has to admit he might have been a bit hasty in his conclusion. Since midsummer 57-year-old Mr Walker and his wife Ivy claim to have been plagued by a spirit. It has lifted photographs out of cardboard frames, turned down the bedclothes, drawn the curtains and even thrown coats hung on the back bedroom doors to the floor.
“My wife is terrified. She won’t go to bed on her own and she won’t get up on her own when it is dark. Whatever it is, it’s got her in a terrible state,” said Mr Walker.
Mediums have twice held seances at the Walkers’ house in Poplar Grove, Bedlington, in a bid to solve the mystery. Mr Walker said they had decided the house was haunted by the spirit of a young German girl who was cruelly killed in th elast war and looks very much like their five-year-old granddaughter Susan. Another meeting of spiritualists is being held at the house this week. “But if this fails to find a solution I am thinking of calling in a clergyman to exorcise whatever it is. Something will have to be done. We are happy here and don’t want to leave. But we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives plagued by some spirit,” said Mr Walker.
At present, the Walkers share their home with their married son and their two-year-old grandson. The son and his family are shortly moving to a new home in Ashington and Mr Walker hopes the spirits will then leave. “The mediums say it is me who has brought the spirit into the house. But where can I have picked it up from? I only go out now and again for a game of bingo. I have only been to Germany once and that was seven or eight years ago. I don’t understand it at all. But something is here. The mediums say it comes from the photograph of our grand-daughter Susan who lives at Seaton Delaval. Certainly her picture is always coming out of its frame. Even when I have glued it in it’s come out. It’s a complete mystery to me,” he said.
Newcastle Journal, 5th October 1976.