They will face cold, but not the ghost.
A young couple and the wife’s mother yesterday left the 10-roomed house to wander the streets in the cold and sleep in railway station waiting rooms because, they say, the house is haunted. They are Mr Ronald Bush, aged 26, his wife, Anne, aged 22, and Mrs Babara Basted, aged 48.
Police called to their 60-year-old rented home, Grove House, Byfield Road, Iselworth, Middlesex, spent the week-end pulling up floorboards and examining walls and cupboards. They found nothing unusual.
Mrs Basted says that she has seen the apparition of an old, white-bearded naval man, smelt strong pipe tobacco although no one had been smoking, and heard many strange noises.
Mrs Bush said yesterday: “So many strange things have happened: the sound of a baby crying in an empty room, footsteps on the stairs, and peculiar smells wafting through the house. I refuse to go back.” Mrs Basted said: “My daughter and son-in-law laughed at first when I told them I had seen a ghost, but now they are convinced.”
As she locked up yesterday, Mrs Basted said: “People may think we are mad in leaving a comfortable home and staying out in this cold weather because of a ghost, but we are getting out once and for all.”
Birmingham Daily Post, 28th January 1963.
Family flee from ‘ghost’.
A young couple and the wife’s mother have left their home – because, they say, they cannot live with a ghost. Rather than return to the 60-year-old, ten-roomed house they have been sleeping “rough” in railway waiting rooms. The couple, 26-year-old Ronald Bush, his wife Anne, 22, and her mother, Mrs Barbara Basted, 46, rent Grove House, in Byfield-road, Isleworth, Middlesex.
Mrs Basted says she has seen the figure of an elderly white-bearded naval man, has smelled pipe tobacco in the house – although nobody has been smoking – an dhas heard many strange noises. “My daughter and son-in-law laughed at first when I told them I had seen a ghost, but now they are convinced,” she said.
Mrs Bush, who has left her two-year-old daughter with foster parents, said:”So many strange things have happened – the sound of a baby crying in an empty room, footsteps on the stairs, and peculiar smells wafting through the house – that I refuse to go back.”
At the week-end police called in by Mrs Basted, pulled up floorboards and examined cupboards and walls. They found nothing unusual.
So Mrs Basted returned to the house alone on Saturday. But early yesterday she fled from the house and knocked up neighbours. Later she said: “That’s the last time I shall ever sleep there. I took tablets to knock myself out a bit, but in the middle of the night I heard a loud groaning noise and a sound like crockery smashing. Now we are getting out for once and for all.”
Daily Mirror, 28th January 1963.