Family are hosts to a ghost!
By Allan Guy.
Things go bump in the night and in the daytime too at 33 Woodfield Road, Cam, near Dursley. But they don’t worry the Cornford family who are coming to the conclusion they are hosts to a ghost. Mrs Sheila Cornford, her husband Henry, son Garfield and Mrs Cornford’s mother have all heard the strange bumps, bangs and rustlings that have become an accepted part of their home life during the past three years.
“It seems as if people are knocking on the front door but there is no-one there,” said Mrs Cornford. “It’s not heard by just one person, we all hear it including my two dogs. They go frantic.” There was a “terrific bang” once when Mrs Cornford’s mother was upstairs. Mrs Cornford had thought she had fallen downstairs and her mother thought the gas cooker had exploded. The cause is still a mystery.
A visiting brother was shocked when the peace of the house was shattered by the sound of smashing crockery. But every cup and plate in the house was intact.
The people who occupied the modern semi before the Cornfords often thought the noises were caused by the neighbours. But when they asked the family next door had been sitting quietly. “But it doesn’t worry me,” said Mrs Cornford. “I don’t believe in these things although I must admit the most easily accepted explanation is that we have got a ghost of some sort.”
“I’m a nervous type but this doesn’t worry me one iota,” she added.
Mr Henry Cornford and his wife Sheila pictured on the stairway of the haunted house at Woodfield Road, Cam, near Dursley.
Bristol Evening Post, 12th October 1972.
Ghost laid to rest – by remote control.
By Allan Guy.
Mr Gordon Davis (40) claimed today that he had laid a ghost at Cam – by remote control. He offered to help when life at the Woodfield Road home of Sheila and Henry Cornford, near Dursley, became unbearable. For three years the Cornford family had accepted the strange unexplained noises which bcame a feature of their home both day and night.
Their son Garfield, Mrs Cornford’s mother, their pet dogs and visitors to their home have all heard the bumps and bangs. It did not worry them until their ghost became much noisier one week-end after a discussion in the family about the supernatural, and a mock seance. Then Mrs Cornford considered calling in the church to rid her home of the now unwelcome guest. But she first agreed to let spare-time medium Gordon Davis have a go at restoring the house to normality.
From his home in Glenfall Street, Cheltenham, Mr Davis, a British Rail employee, said: “There is a spirit of a man who lived in that area about 600 years ago and who delved in black magic – that’s what it is that is happening. I will put in a force from here which will counteract it. Within 11 days it will be gone.”
Now, more than 11 days after Mr Davis’s claim, Mrs Cornford said: “It has been quiet ever since and the general feeling and atmosphere in th ehouse is much more relaxed. I hope it has gone. We have the feeling that it is no longer here – it seems to have worked.”
Mr Davis claims an Indian woman taught him how to use his psychic powers.
Bristol Evening Post, 13th November 1972.