The Ghost Busters.
Roy the randy poltergeist is frightened off.
Our poltergeist actually tries to get into bed with Margaret and me.
Robin Furman leads Britain’s only amateur spook squad. Today, in the first of a three-part serialisation of a new book, written with Moira Martingale, he meets a sexy poltergeist from Birmingham.
Having a poltergeist as an uninvited houseguest is no joke. Birmingham couple Keith and Margaret Smith have found out the hard way. For a start, you can never find anything. There was the time that a key went missing and no search could turn it up. It was discovered later – hidden in a bowl of sugar. Then there was the money which vanished from his wallet. That appeared again – after the poltergeist had been asked politely to return it.
The Smiths, who live in a suburban semi in Erdington, call their ghost Roy – after mysterious messages were left in various places around their home. “One time Roy spent hours opening and closing all the doors,” said printer Keith. “He kept turning the lights on and off – and making the radio start and stop.” But a relieved Margaret added: “At least he’s been leaving me alone recently. Maybe he’s gone off me…”
Keith felt even more angry with Roy when he thought how the poltergeist had even made its presence felt when he was in bed with his wife. Roy would touch her intimately and throw Margaret into a state of panic. This was doing their sex-life no good at all. “How do you know it’s a poltergeist?” I asked. “Well, poltergeists usually throw things around, don’t they?” he said. “It throws things around the bedroom mostly. My wife Margaret had a pot of cold cream thrown at her and I’ve been smacked around the head with a cuddly toy. Objects just appear through the walls – the other day a book fell through the ceiling and landed at my feet.”
“It hides objects and then we find them in daft places. Sometimes we don’t find them at all. It turns the lights on and off and it’s even broken a window. This morning I looked down the stairs and saw my bunch of keys flying up through the air on their own,” he said. “One day I found the words ‘Help Roy’ smeared in face cream on the bathroom door. Another time he wrote ‘Help Roy Now’ in powder and toothpaste on the bathroom mirror. Keith has never seen Roy – but Margaret has. She saw a figure at the top of the stairs – and both have seen a dark figure in the garden.
As the Ghostbusters looked round the house, Keith turned on the hot taps of the washbasin and bath to build up steam, an dthe words ‘Help Roy Now’ stood out clearly on the mirror. Our equipment picked up several responses in the bedroom – which was clearly a focal point. “Not only does it keep trying to pull the duvet off the bed, but it actually tries to get into bed with Margaret and me,” said Keith. “We tried to make a joke of it at first. We called him Randy Roy and told him to go away. But he won’t – he stops us making love!” Margaret had felt strange touches. She even felt it clamber on top of her, trying to make love to her – and she screamed.
One hot summer’s day, the mirror in the hall steamed up for no apparent reason, and a face could be seen, as if pressed against the glass. “Another day,” said Keith, “we were sitting up in bed reading the paper when, one by one, all the drawers in the room began opening and the clothes cascaded out.”
As we looked round, our temperature monitor changed for no reason – one of the things frequently associated with poltergeists. The word poltergeist means ‘noisy or mischievous ghost’. It is thought they focus on emotional turmoil. How do you stop a poltergeist? The answer is very similar: you don’t. Frequently, the effects do decrease after investigators put in an appearance. We came to Birmingham to study the poltergeist and our appearance seemed to defuse the atmosphere. We explained to Keith how these things work – by feeding on powerful emotions – and told him there was nothing to be frightened of.
Roy did not write on the mirror again. He seemed to fade away. We spoke to Keith later and he said it had settled down greatly. We told Keith Smith we believed him. We do not ask people to prove things – we observe for ourselves. There was no reason for Keith Smith to make things up. He simply had something going on that could not be explained and he had the courage not to hide the weird thing that was happening to his family.
Roy is still occasionally making his presence felt at the Smiths’ Erdington home. Recently he locked Keith in the bedroom for 10 minutes. Last Christmas he gave Keith and Margaret a present – little round, foil covered chocolates were left on their pillows. “We have heard his voice, too,” says Margaret. “Sometimes we hear him laugh. If ever we leave a paper and pen hanging around, he leaves messages. He did a self-portrait once – he only looked young – and we have learned that he died of pneumonia.”
Life in turmoil – printer Keith Smith has had the unwanted attention of a poltergeist.
Sandwell Evening Mail, 25th September 1991.
That even when anyone listens to them, it helps? The story has some rather atypical features that make you think it’s actually Margaret deliberately.