“Haunted House.”
Family mystified by knockings.
For five weeks members of an East London family, together with some of their neighbours, have been unable to sleep at night for what they describe as loud knockings and visions of a man who has been dead for three years. The family consists of Mr and Mrs Spicer, of Rivett-street, who have lived at Tidal Basin for 20 years, and their five children.
On Monday three of the children were sent to a relative’s house, and, it is stated, that for the first time since it started there was very little knocking. In fact, the family heard only two taps, like a walking-stick hitting a hollow floor.
Police officers have been in the house, and also the house next door trying to trace the trouble, and while they were there the k nocking is said to have lasted for nearly five hours. Spiritualists have attended, but were unable to get any messages from the “dead.”
“The vision is that of my dead father,” Mrs Spicer told a reporter. “When my son Bobby comes into the room the vision will appear to me and last Monday night my father appeared to go into a faint. We have tried to get him to tell us what is wrong, so that this business will end.”
A man who was present last night says that the knocking is like someone breaking coal on concrete.
Gloucester Citizen, 19th July 1933.
Family driven from home by weird happenings.
Strange tappings and a dim form in the dark.
Special to “Thomson’s Weekly News.”
Weird happenings have driven a family of eight people, a mother and father, five boys and one girl, from their house in Revitt Street, Tidal Basin, East London. Now they are in a pitiable plight. They have lived happily in Revitt Street for twenty years, but, driven away by strange disorders which made sleep at night impossible and life terrifying, they have had to herd themselves into one room, which has been put at their disposal by a neighbour. Such terrors have they experienced during the last five weeks that they will never go back in their home.
The mother and father of this unfortunate family are Mr and Mrs Robert Spicer. They have seven children, six of whom are at home. The eldest is a boy, Bobby, aged [1-?] and next is a daughter, Maisie, aged [1-?]. Of the four other sons, three are under 15. Mr Spicer is the only one of the four oldest members of the family who has not seen the apparition that has haunted the house – and Mr Spicer is blind. They have all, however, heard strange tappings, the source of which even police officers have been unable to explain. Fifteen people outside the family claim to have seen the vision, and many more have heard the tappings.
Vivid descriptions of both manifestations were given me by Mrs Spicer and her son Robert. They tell of it in frightened hushed tones. Both look ill and worn from the ordeal they have suffered. They describe it as a dark shadowy form which walks around the room in a gentle, floating way. It can be seen in the light of a gas lamp and stands out like a shade of deeper hue in the darkness of the night. In it, Mrs Spicer says, she once saw the face of her dead father who died in the room three years ago.
Robert described it as having something in its dim form resembling arms. One night, when he was sitting on the bed with his father and mother, it came towards him with arms outstretched. It approached him and seemed to be going to touch him. Before it did so he fainted and was carried out of the room.
The tappings are very loud and seem to come from one of the walls. They are very rapid, and finish with three louder [..?] knocks.. Once when Bobby Spicer was demonstrating to me how the knocks sounded with his knuckles on the table his sister Maisie came running into the room looking very scared and asked, “What was that, Bobby?” She begged him not to make the noise again.
The nerves of the whole family seem to have been completely wrecked. When I saw Mrs Spicer at a relative’s house she said, “Last night was the first time we had slept at night for five weeks. We were so tired we did not wake up till [?] o’clock in the morning and then my [?] had to wake us.”
“Five weeks ago we moved from the downstairs rooms at our house in Revitt Street upstairs, to where the rooms were [?]. My son was sitting up with his cousin after we had gone to bed when [Bobby?] heard sounds apparently coming from the yard. They thought it was an intruder and ran out hoping to catch him. They found nobody. The next night they heard the sounds again. They finally arrived at the conclusion that they were not in the yard at all but somewhere in the house. On the third night they were sitting up together waiting for the sounds again when my nephew said to Bobby, ‘Look, Bob, can you see anything in the corner there?” Bobby did look and he saw something that stood out of the darkness like a dense black cloud. It moved round the room and pointed to the wall where the tappings where heard. They did not tell me or anybody else about what they had seen, but the next night I too saw the vision. I recognised in it very clearly the face of my father. He died as the result of a fall in the yard. He passed away in the room where the vision was first seen.”
“Every night we heard the tappings. They were so loud it was impossible to sleep. Outside people began to hear of the strange happenings going on, and each night crowds gathered outside the house. Many of them forced their way in to hear the tappings and see the ghost for themselves. Some of them claim to have seen it.
“After five weeks the whole family of us had had enough of it. We decided to move. The difficulty was finding other accommodation. My niece very kindly offered us one of her rooms until we could get another house, and so here we are. The cost of moving has put us in a very serious plight, for our only income is my husband’s pension and my son’s unemployment benefit. We had lived in Revitt Street for 20 years, and had always been comfortable and happy there. But after our experiences we shall never go back again.”
Robert Spicer said to me, “The ghost seemed to haunt me more than anybody else in the house. After I saw it for the first time it came into the room every time I entered. Sometimes as soon as I opened the door it would be there waiting for me. Once, when I was sitting on the bed with mother and father and Maisie, waiting for it to come, it made straight for me and stretched out its arms. I thought it was going to touch me and it was more than I could stand. I fainted just before it actually reached me. Sometimes it was clearer than others and then I could distinctly see grandfather’s form and face. Why he should want to come and haunt us I do not know. The whole thing is a mystery to me, as much as it must be unbelievable to others.”
The house in Revitt Street is now boarded up and the door securely fastened.
Thomson’s Weekly News, 29th July 1933.