Troubled by Spirits.
Crumlin wife’s story of ghosts.
Ghostly tappings and scratchings in the stilly night, caperings indulged in by crockeryware, and mysterious writings on envelopes – these are some of the manifestations which have upset the even tenour of a Crumlin family’s life recently, according to Mrs Day, the wife of Mr Samuel Day, an engineman, who lives in Rectory-road, Crumlin.
“I am convinced that spirits are at the root of the whole thing,” she told a Western Mail representative who visited her on Monday. She described some of the antics of the “band of spirits” which she averred inhabited her house. Even that day, she said, the things on the dinner-table had been shaking, and the table itself had tilted gently, but quite perceptibly.
She regarded her twelve-year-old daughter Doris as the “medium” through whom the spirits were attracted, and in support of her contention said that a house in the Aberystwyth district in which she had been staying had been subjected to the same visitations, with all their accompanying signs and portents. That state of affairs had been reported in a West Wales newspaper under the heading “Rheidol Valley Mystery.” At that time Doris was not suspected as the unconscious cause of the spooks’ unwelcome attentions.
Lately, added Mrs Day, there had been frequent rappings, and furniture had been moved by an unseen force. Messsages in pencil had appeared mysteriously on envelopes, and once an envelope left on the table had vanished into thin air.
One message foretold the receipt of money, and others were “Doris is a good girl” and “Doris is a sweet girl and I love her so much,” followed by three crosses such as are usually used to denote kisses.
Mrs Day produced a sample of the ghostly writing. This was an envelope, which was covered with a scrawl which resembled nothing so much as the first caligraphic attempts of an infant, surrounding what might have been a capital “R.”
“The guide of the band of spirits is gone,” said Mrs Day, “and it is an evil spirit that has been doing the rapping and so on, probably because we allowed a friend to take away one of the messages.”
“If this keeps on,” she added, “I shall be a nervous wreck.”
Doris, a pleasant-faced little girl, had no such fears.
Western Mail, 17th February 1925.
Dancing crockery.
Family upset by midnight tappings.
Strange tapping and scratchings and mysterious writing on envelopes by an unseen hand are seriously exercising the minds of a family at Hafodyrynys, near Crumlin, Monmouthshire. It is during the quiet hours of the night that these mysterious happenings inflict discomfort upon occupants of the house, although occasionally crockery, knives and forks at dinner time have danced merrily, and the table itself has tilted perceptibly more than once. One of the children, says the “Daily News,” recently spent her holidays at Aberystwyth, when the house at which she stayed was, it is stated, the centre of similar phenomena.
Evening Despatch, 18th February 1925.
A night with a “spirit.”
Unseen gives his name.
Furniture moved.
Sceptic and Crumlin cottage mystery.
An eerie night spent in the “haunted” house of Mr and Mrs John Day, Rectory-road, Crumlin, is described by a special correspondent of the Western Mail. He was accompanied by two Pontypool Spiritualists who have undertaken the task of exorcising the spirit – or, as they say, the band of spirits – which for the past five weeks has disturbed the household, indulging night and day in nerve-racking antics – scratching and tapping at beds in the stilly night, and moving chairs and tables about the rooms.
According to one of the Spritualists, communication was set up with one of the spirits, during which the name of a relative of Mrs Day “came through.” The name was that of a brother who died eight years ago, and of whom, Mrs Day said, the Spiritualists can have had no earthly information. The Spiritualists failed to induce the spirit to “come through” a medium. “He is earth-bound so far,” said one of them, “but by holding seances in the house, we hope to uplift and educate him, and to make him undersatnd that he is upsetting his sister and her family. We hope the troublesome attentions of the band of spirits will then cease. This is my first experience of a case of this kind and I am glad to have had it. I have never encountered such clear, unmistakable, and persistent phenomena as these; nor have I even been able to establish communication by means of raps so easily.”
Doris Day, a twelve-year-old daughter, is believed to be the attracting agent. The phenomena started on her twelfth birthday in November last year, when she was staying at Aberffrwd. The people she was staying with had eventually to leave the house in order to get rest, and Doris returned to Crumlin. The ghostly disturbances followed her and have been present ever since, never occurring except in her presence. Mr and Mrs Day now sleep downstairs every night. Mrs Day declares she will be a nervous wreck if the visitations do not cease soon.
Strangely enough, Doris is the least concerned member of the household and says that she has no fear.
I confess (proceeds the Western Mail reporter) that it was in a highly sceptical frame of mind that I visited the Day’s house at ten o’clock on Saturday night but after a thorough investigation of the phenomena I left at four a.m. very much more awed and wondering than sceptical. Mr and Mrs Day were accompanied in the house by two neighbours, father and son, who, like Mr Day work at the Crumlin Valley colliery, and the two Spiritualists, Mr Albert Phillips and Mr Idwal R Morgan, president and secretary respectively of the Nicholas street Spiritualists Society, Pontypool. Mr Morgan acts as medium for Mr Phillips.
Mrs Day told me of chairs thrown across rooms, sofas overturned, ornaments up-tilted from mantelpieces, and crockery-ware moved by an unseen force before her eyes. Doris’s plate had been removed from before her at the tea-table and her chair lifted bodily and turned round with the child still sitting in it.
It was decided that Doris should go upstairs and lie down in her clothes, while Mr Phillips remained with her for company. They had been upstairs hardly ten minutes when loud raps were plainly audible from the bedroom, and I rushed upstairs in stockinged feet and approached the open door of the room. Peeping through, I could see that both were lying quite still, while the raps continued at intervals.
As I entered, they ceased, and, at Mr Phillips’ suggestion I, too, lay on the bed. Another ten minutes and the raps, which shook the bed, re-commenced to give place soon afterwards to scratchings.
Mr Morgan now took a turn in the room and came downstairs to announce that the spirit had communicated to him his earthly name. Mrs Day excitedly exclaimed that the name mentioned was that of her brother, who had been dead eight years. On the night he died, in a Carmarthen hospital, she said, she heard three raps on her bedroom door in Crumlin.
Going upstairs again Mr Phillips addressed the spirit by name, which caused an increase in the scratching. A number of questions were put, each of which was answered with one, two or three distinct scratches – signifying (so Mr Phillips said), no, doubtful, and yes. When the spiritualist asked how many spirits were present in the house, the unseen hand scratched 25 times!
Further questions elicited the information that the spirit was prepared to take possession of the medium in the downstairs room. The little girl was now asleep and she was left with the lamp still burning, while preparations were made for the seance. We had not been in the kitchen long when rappings re-commenced, and I was on my way upstairs when a tremendous clatter announced that something had fallen. As I entered the little girl was sitting up on the bed, frightened, eyes wide open, while a bedroom chair lay on the floor a couple of yards from where it had been when we left! The little girl could not possibly have reached it from where she was, and she could not have had time to jump off the bed and on again between the noise of the falling chair and my arrival in the room.
The young miner was now left in the room with Doris, and in a few minutes another noise of falling furniture shattered the silence. When I reached the bedroom the young man had replaced the chair which he said had propelled itself a couple of yards before his eyes. He had felt a force opposing him in his effort to replace it, he said. We returned to the seance, and, in dimmed light, Mr Morgan went into a trance, accompanied by the usual spasmodic shiverings and heavy nasal breathing. What he said, however, was unintelligible – to me, at any rate – but Mr. Phillips said the spirit was asking for the singing of a Welsh hymn, which he was finding difficult to pronounce, owing to the intervention of his (Mr Phillips’) guide – a Hindu. The spirit which he wanted to take possession of the medium, he said, was not conversant with the method of control.
Our repertoire of Welsh hymns was not very extensive, I am afraid, and the one we tried had no effect in inducing the troublesome spirit to “come through.” With a convulsive start, the medium threw off the trance without having delivered the eagerly awaited message.
All of us now returned to the bedroom, where nothing untoward had happened. Here, before the full company, in a well-lighted room, with the little girl lying quietly on the bed, Mr Phillips again got into communication with the unknown, the replies coming through clearly and without hesitation by means of the uncanny [?ings] on the bed.
Another attempt at a seance was made in the bedroom, but it was unsuccessful. Further attempts are to be made to give the spirit an opportunity to deliver himself of his message – if any – and the Spiritualists are confident that they will be able to bring peace to the harassed family.
Western Mail, 24th February 1925.
Ghostly rappings:
Attracted by a young girl of twelve years of age, it is stated, spirits have made their presence felt at the home of her parents, Mr and Mrs John Day, of Rectory Road, Crumlin. The phenomena started on her 12th birthday in November last year, when she was staying at Aberffrwyd. The people she was staying with had eventually to leave th ehouse in order to get rest, and the girl, Doris Day, returned to Crumlin. The ghostly disturbances followed her and have been present ever since, never occurring except in her presence.
Mr and Mrs Day now sleep downstairs every night. Apparently the unseen visitor, or visitors – for it is believed by some that there are quite a large number – are desirous of conveying a message, but up to the time of writing, efforts to establish communications have met with no intelligible results.
There appears no doubt, however, that something unusual is happening in the house, usually taking the form of the moving of furniture, and of ghostly rappings and tappings on the beds in the middle of the night. Recently a party of spiritualists visited the house, and one of them stated that he had interpreted the rappings, though what they meant he has not disclosed, except to state that the chief spirit present had sent a message to state that there were 25 spirits present.
February 27th, 1925.
South Wales Gazette, 24th September 1965.