War Hero flees the house of dancing light bulbs.
By Stuart White.
An ex-RAF Flight Lieutenant and his wife have threatened to quit their Henley council house because they claim the house is occupied by a poltergeist – a poltergeist that shatters bulbs. Now F. Lt. Stan Yarker, who won the Distinguished Flying Cross during World War II as a bomber navigator, says he will refuse to return to his three-bedroomed house in Greys Road, Henley, until the “ghosts” have been exorcised. He and his wife Marcia have been staying with relatives in Emmer Green, Reading.
F. Lt. Yarker is a former Henley borough councillor and on Friday his story “It was the day we buzzed Reading,” which told of a wartime bombing mission – was published in the Evening Post. He said of the decision to leave his house: “My wife and I just cannot spend another night in it. I have been on bombing missions to Germany during the war so I don’t think I am the nervy type, but the events that have gone on here during the past two weeks have really got me down.”
Among the incidents which the couple claim have happened, are light bulbs travelling horizontally and smashing against walls; a light bulb jumping up and down on a chest of drawers; and light bulbs appearing mysteriously in one room when they had been placed in another.
The living room of the Yarker’s home, the hall and one of the bedrooms are littered with smashed glass from light bulbs that have shattered mysteriously.
This is the amazing series of incidents which finally forced the Yarkers to leave the house they have lived in for 20 years. Just over two weeks ago Mr and Mrs Yarker were watching television in the living room when the lights failed at 6.10pm. This happened several nights at exactly the same time. The fault was reported to the council and electricity men completely re-wired the house. In addition they made a separate circuit for upstairs and downstairs so that if one set of lights fused the others would remain on.
Hours after workmen finished the job, the lights again fused – upstairs. Workmen were called and replaced the fuse. At 10.20pm. the next night the downstairs lights fused. The Southern Electricity Board sent a man to check the whole of the electrical system including all appliances. Then came the remarkable climax which finally drove the Yarkers from their home.
“It was last Thursday night,” said Mr Yarker, who suffered a stroke seven years ago, “at about 10.20 I decided to go to bed. I switched on a side light in my bedroom but after about two minutes it went off. I put my hand on the bulb and suddenly every light in the house went off. The only people in the house apart from myself were my wife and young teenage nephew.”
He went on: “My nephew was in the kitchen making coffee when a table lamp bulb exploded. He made the coffee by candlelight but as he brought a cup up to me the light at the bottom of the stairs shattered.” Mrs Yarker continued the story: “A light bulb on the ceiling shattered and the flex was left swinging. This had made us all feel eerie. I decided to take the five remaining bulbs in the house out of their sockets. I did this and wrapped them in a pillow-slip and put them in the bathroom.”
Mr Yarker reported another incident: “In the bedroom on a chest of drawers the electricity workmen had left some bulbs. Suddenly one of them started to jump up and down, bouncing along the surface of the chest. It then lifted into the air, sped across the bedroom and smashed against the wall. About the same time we all heard a muffled explosion from under the flooorboards. Then when my nephew was walking into the room, a light bulb zoomed in through the door and smashed against the wall with a blue flash.”
By this time it was almost 2am. and the family decided to telephone local vicar Rev. John Stephenson Clarke, who came straight to the house. “I was there for about an hour and a half,” said Rev. Clarke. “I have a theory about what could have caused this but I cannot say what it is at the moment, but I shall be going to the house again.” He added: “It is admitted by psychologists that poltergeists, if there are such things, operate when a teenage child, particularly a girl, is present.”
Mr Adrian Paddick, secretary of the Reading Church Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, has been to the house at Mr Yarker’s request. He said: “I have made a report of what I have seen and what Mr Yarker has told me and I shall be sending it to our vice chairman, Canon J D Pearce-Higgins, of the Southwark Diocese. He is an expert on exorcism. I can say nothing more until he receives the report and decides what course of action to take.
Mrs Yarker said: “It’s all very mysterious but I am sure people will try and explain it away. But what they can’t explain is that when I went to the bathroom – which no one had entered – at 10am there were only three light bulbs and the pillow slip was in a heap. On the writing table downstairs were two bulbs – both shattered.”
Reading Evening Post, 25th February 1969.
All Quiet in House of Moving Lights.
Evening Post Reporter.
All is quiet at Henley’s house of dancing light bulbs. Former Flt-Lt Stan Yarker and his wife Marcia moved out of their council house in Grays Road, Henley, after repeated power failures, the mysterious shattering of light bulbs, and even a bulb which “jumped up and down.” But after taking the advice of the Reading Church Fellowship of Psychical and Spiritual Research they moved back in – and have so far spent three uneventful nights.
“We have been told that poltergeist, if they are operating, cease after a couple of days. So far we have had no trouble, ” said Mr Yarker. But since his story appeared in the Evening Post on Tuesday his telephone has not stopped ringing: “Scores of people have rung me to ask about the disturbances. Everyone has been interested and told me of similar happenings.”
Reading Evening Post, 27th February 1969.
Terror – as poltergeist hits house.
Report – Geoffrey Williams
A group of Reading Spiritualists say they have made contact with a poltergeist which has attached itself to a 16-year-old Emmer Green boy, causing a night of terror and leaving a trail of havoc at his family’s home over the Easter holiday. The poltergeist struck on Good Friday evening at East Lynn, the home of Mr and Mrs Leonard Withers in Kiln Road, Emmer Green. And over the next four hours it caused a series of violent explosions and other incidents which left shattered glass strew both inside and outside the detached bungalow.
Present at the time was the couple’s youngest son – the same boy who was staying at his aunt’s home in Henley when it was hit by a series of “mystery” incidents involving electric light bulbs six weeks ago. The incidents at his own home started at 10pm on Good Friday while Mr and Mrs Withers were out visiting the Henley couple – ex-RAF Flight Lieutenant Stan Yarker and his wife Marcia – at their home in Greys Road.
The boy and his married brother John, aged 33, were working on John’s car in the garage when half a dozen light bulbs shattered one after the other. Said their mother, Mrs Frances Withers, yesterday: “John realised it must be the poltergeist again after the Henley incidents and told my boy to start walking down the road towards Henley with his dog, Tammy, to get away from the bungalow.” On the way back from Henley, Mr and Mrs Withers, who had Mrs Yarker with them, met the boy and brought him back to Emmer Green.
“We had only been back about a quarter of an hour when things started happening again,” continued Mrs Withers. And this is how the night went on: First, many of the lights began flickering and then went out. In the dining room the shade fell from the light and the bulb was left swinging in its holder. Soon afterwards it shattered. The bulb from the larder flew out into the kitchen and smashed, having somehow passed through a closed door. A series of “almighty bangs” was heard in the dining room, where glass tumblers exploded into fragments after passing through the front of the case in which they had been standing. And a milk bottle which had been standing on the kitchen draining board flew into the dining room – the connecting hatch was closed – and smashed into the front of the television set. The outer screen was shattered, strewing glass inside the set.
As the night grew more violent, the boy and his dog took refuge in the main bedroom, only to be pursued by the “mischievous earth-bound spirit,” as it has since been described. In the bedroom, glass ashtrays shattered, the bulb from inside a tea-making machine flew out and smashed in the hall, and more tumblers fell into pieces. A pot of face cream shattered against the wall.
Even when the boy fled from the bungalow the violence did not stop. Outside the back door, a row of empty bottles flew several feet into the air, smashing themselves on the roof of an outhouse. Meanwhile, candles, lit by Mrs Withers after the lights failed, went out three times, defying all attempts to re-light them. Telephone calls from Mrs Withers brought a friend with an interest in Spiritualism, Mr Peter Binham, of Hilltop Road, Earley, rushing to the bungalow.
After seeing the havoc Mr Binham summoned a colleague, Mrs E Weedon, of Whiteknights Road, Reading. And after a series of prayers, during which candles were lit, the trouble subsided and the family spent the rest of the night without incident. But as the spirit’s activities ceased, they had more visitors – a police officer checking a report that the bungalow “was being smashed up.”
Said Mrs Withers yesterday as she spoke of the night of terror: “We took him round and showed him everything. I think he was as flabbergasted and bewildered as we were. Unless you see the devastation this thing brought, it is almost impossible to explain it. It’s an experience I wouldn’t like to have to go through a second time. My boy was really frightened towards the end. It seemed to follow him everywhere. You didn’t know what was going off bang next. We spent the whole of Saturday clearing up the mess and went away on Sunday to get away from the place. I had to call in a friend to help clear up – I just couldn’t face it after what happened in the night. It has been costly with all the damage. We are insured, but how could we possibly claim for something like this which you can’t see?”
Said Mrs Yarker, whose own home has been all quiet since: “It was much more frightening at Emmer Green than at Henley. It just seemed to hit everything made of glass.”
Yesterday another incident involving the boy was revealed. A fortnight ago, lights shattered in Mr Binham’s garage at Earley while the boy and his father were working on a car there – a car just bought from Mrs Weedon’s sister. And a week before the night of terror there was a series of faults on the telephone at the Emmer Green bungalow. GPO engineers said it was in perfect order.
Now, the Spiritualists are working to bring good influence on to the poltergeist and divert it away from the boy, whom they say is a link for the spirit of a young Irish student who died recently. Said Mr Bingham: “All this is undoubtedly the work of a poltergeist, an earthbound spirit which attaches itself to someone, usually an adolescent. It is definitely mischievous rather than evil, which is why no one has been injured during the incidents. It is my belief that the boy is psychic. People like this do give off a light apparent to people in the spirit, but not to those on earth. It is a former contact of the boy in a previous incarnation.”
Mrs Weedon says she and her associates are now trying to help the sppirit and “turn darkness into light,” largely through constant prayer. Since Friday, all has been quiet at the Withers’ bungalow. The boy spent much of yesterday in a tent in the back garden with friends and Tammy the cairn terrier. “He is just a normal 16-year-old boy,” said Mrs Withers, “but he has just left school and got himself a job and we don’t want people to get alarmed that this thing is following him around.”
As she spoke of Friday night’s incidents, Mrs Withers remembered she had not checked parts of the bungalow’s loft, where explosions had been heard. I climbed up into the loft to find decorative glass Christmas decorations smashed in pieces on the floor. “They were put away quite safely after Christmas,” she added. “This too must have happened on Friday night.”
Reading Evening Post, 8th April 1969.