Vicar fed up with ghosts.
News Chronicle Reporter.
The vicar of Ham, the Thames-side village near Richmond, Rev. Ernest Beard, B.A. is fed up with poltergeists, he told me yesterday. He was uncertain which was worse to be saddled with, a ghost or the publicity which goes with a ghost story. Thanks to a report that one of these “noisy, mischievous spirits” as the dictionary defines them, was visiting the vicarage, his telephone had been ringing all day with enquiries. People came from quite a distance just to glance at the house they believed was haunted. It adjoins St. Andrew’s Church, off the tree-bordered village green. They strolled past the vicarage and peered over the wall in the hope of catching a fleeting glimpse of the alleged ghost.
In the church Mr Beard, vicar of Ham since 1932, was conducting a crowded children’s service. During the service I spoke to a number of parishioners. “It is quite true,” I was told. “There is something very queer in the vicarage. It has been going on for some time now. Prayer is what this evil spirit most dislikes and we are helping the vicar with our prayers. But you must speak to the vicar yourself.”
The queerest thing of all happened when I went back to my waiting car. The driver had never left it. He had stood beside the car the whole time and no one could have tampered with it. But one back tyre was flat. Now was that the poltergeist, or just my bad luck?
Daily News (London), 26th January 1948.
Strange Happenings.
Supernatural visitor at the vicarage.
Supernatural happenings in Ham hit the headlines of one of the Sunday papers last week-end, telling of the strange happenings at the Vicarage. To many outside the village this may have seemed to be something new, but to the older residents of the village it was old stuff. It is one of those stories which is revived periodically, and some years ago now this particular poltergeist had the honour of having his antics described in “The Times.”
This impish creature had been causing annoyance for quite a number of years, and some people have even linked this supernatural being with a well-known local character who has long gone to his rest.
It has also been stated that the Vicarage is not the only house in the village which has its ghost. Others have been mentioned, and the story is told of a former vicar having exorcised an evil spirit from one of the houses in his parish years ago.
Richmond Herald, 31st January 1948.