‘Sense of evil’ in a baby’s bedroom.
Footsteps and noises in night.
Four priests and a psychic research team have been called in to lay the ghost of Hagley Road. A series of inexplicable events at their newsagents shop led Bob and Wendy Talbot to call in the exorcists. There were noises in the night in rooms that were quite empty. Magazines went mysteriously missing or were scattered across the floor. There were footsteps from the attic… and the sound of a door handle turning.
And in their 20-month-old daughter’s room there was an eerie chill and a strange presence that made the baby wake screaming in the night. Baby Melanie’s screams were the final straw for the Talbots. They contacted a friend of theirs who is a doctor and he put them in touch with a Church of England clergyman. Other churchmen also went to the shop and the flat above it. “Each of them traced a sense of evil to the baby’s room,” 25-year-old Mrs Talbot said. “One found that a strange force was preventing him from opening a bible at a picture of Jesus until he said a prayer. Another’s hair stood on end as he came down some steps to the baby’s room.”
The Talbots have since heard that at least one other family has left the newsagents because of the ghost. “People have told us about the figure of an old woman who has been seen in the shop. She was once seen hanging out of an upstairs window by several people,” Mr Talbot said. “There is talk about two old spinsters who lived here. One is supposed to have committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window.”
Now Dillons, the company who own the shop, have called in the Institute of Psychic Research, to investigate the strange affiar. “I would certainly hate to have to go through these last few days again,” Mr Talbot said. “Both my wife and I are now under treatment from the doctor because of the effect it has had on us.”
Mr Bob Talbot with his wife Wendy in their daughter’s bedroom they claim is haunted.
Birmingham Mail, 17th May 1974.