Girl-ghost stalks the typing pool.
By Bruce Maxwell.
Pretty Ellen Doherty, aged 16, is causing havoc in a London office block. She pulls typewriters apart, scatters filing cards, steals money and makes life difficult for young secretaries. The owners of the building, Jel House, in Staines-road, Hounslow, would throw her out – if they could. The snag is that Ellen died in 1830 after killing her young step-brother, Peter. And now, it is claimed, she has turned into a marauding ghost.
“We can’t find any other explanation for the strange things that have been happening,” said company executive Mrs Margaret Goodyear. “It all started late last year when someone – or something – began taking the typewriters to pieces,” Mrs Goodyear explained. “We put a lock on the inner office door. But it still kept happening. The girls would find their typewriters in ruins. Next we put a lock on the outer office door, but it made no difference.”
One of the girls who works at Jel House, Miss Margaret Pache, 22, said: “It was quite strange. I just don’t know how all those things could happen.”
Mr Mark Joseph, a director of the J. E. Lesser group of construction companies, whose headquarters are at Jel House, said: “We had to do something. This was costing us quite a bit of money.” Mrs Goodyear phoned an estate agent whose offices used to be on the site. He told her that one night he and his wife heard footsteps on the stairs. Then they heard the sound of something heavy being dragged across the roof. But next day nothing had been disturbed. On another occasion, a friend who went to dinner saw the blurred image of a girl on the stairs. Mrs Goodyear also found a night worker who had heard strange knocking noises coming from an apparently empty office.
Mrs Goodyear then went to a seance where the spirit “told” those present she was Ellen Doherty and what had happened to her. But they didn’t have much luck discovering what Ellen had against typewriters.
Sunday Mirror, 26th January 1969.
A photo of Jel House: http://www.14november1940.com/names/smith/s1/s1employment/s1lesser/s1jelhouse.html