Charlie the ghost takes a fancy to fish.
It isn’t safe to leave things lying around in a basement flat in Adamson-road, Hampstead, London. Residents say it is haunted – by a hunchback ghost they call “Little Charlie.” And Little Charlie – he’s supposed to b a dwarf over 100 years old – is light-fingered. Forks, pokers, curling irons, scissors and knives – and a plate of fried fish – are among the objects that have mysteriously vanished. Mrs Gerda Ely, a tenant in the house, said: “Strange things do go on.”
Said another: “I never believed in ghosts though strange marks appeared on the door, books flew through the air, and non of mmy pets would live in the basement. Then one night I returned late to find my little boy hysterical with terror. He had opened a cupboard door and seen the figure of a crippled man standing before him. Once I saw Little Charlie myself. He was so small and ugly I thought he was a monkey. In fact, I was about to ring the Zoo to say an animal had escaped when the apparition vanished.”
The house was requisitioned during the war by the Hempstead Borough Council. Now the basement tenant has been given other accommodation.
“It’s hard to make any comment,” a council officer told the Daily Mirror. “It’s an awkward matter when it’s a question of a ghost. The basement is now being ‘renovated’ and a new council tenant will move in.”
Renovated, yes. But the council just won’t guarantee that Little Charlie has been well and truly laid.
Daily Mirror, 15th July 1948.
Ghost Hunt Lays ‘Old Charlie’.
A new interest has been aroused in the strange tale of Swiss Cottage’s famous post-war poltergeist “Old Charlie” following investigations by Hampstead Local History Society into the folk lore of the borough. The inquiries have also led to the discovery of other ‘haunted houses’. The wide publicity given to the investigation led to Miss Rita Bonacina, who runs an employment bureau at Swiss Cottage, getting in touch with the society and adding her story to the list.
She first encountered Old Charlie when her brother – a Catholic priest – and herself were offered a basement flat at Adamson Road soon after the war. Before taking the flat the authorities warned them of the mischievous spirit that was supposed to haunt it. Furniture had been seen floating about; a plate of fish had completely disappeared; a dog had been seen running, yelping, out of the house – in fact, there had been such a scare, she said, that the borough council had ordered seances to be held there to try to rid the flat of its spectre. During the seances a hunch-back had appeared.
Miss Bonacina then decided that, even though accommodation was so scarce, she would be yet another applicant to refuse to live there – even though her brother exorcised the flat and in doing so promised her it would expel any ghostly spirit. Soon after a young couple with a baby moved in – a Mr and Mrs F. Hurst. Declared Mrs Hurst this week: “I haven’t heard or seen a strange thing since. I don’t believe in it. In fact, my husband says that if we ever see Charlie we should apply for a rebate in rent for having to share the flat with someone else!”
Another haunted house is said to be at Springfield Road, which lies on the borders of Hampstead and St John’s Wood. Miss Joan Percy French, of Alexandra Road, who lived there many years ago, said that the house had a ‘mild haunt.’
Hampstead News, 12th April 1956.