Phantom of the flats!
Faceless man ‘haunts’ home.
Friends no longer visit Lesley Hughes’ flat in Isleworth – because they do not like her spirits. No, not her gin or scotch, although her situation is an unusual one; for the spirits at her home are the type the Chancellor could never tax. According to Ms Hughes, of Summerwood Road, her flat is being haunted by a faceless man whose outline resembles that of the Sandeman on the bottle of port – though she stresses she had not been supping before seeing him. And this is not the first time things have gone bump in the night at her home. Nearly two years ago there was a similar experience, which was taken care of by a local vicar’s blessing. Unfortunately the mysterious, ethereal man in the black cape seems to have come back.
A council official visited her flat last week but explained that despite her problem she did not have a ghost of a chance of getting a transfer because an apparent misunderstanding some years ago had left her in rent arrears. Ms Hughes – pictured with her children Mark and Michelle – told The Informer she had not made the ghost story up in a bid to jump the transfer queue. In fact she had been dead set on staying in the flat – even going so far as to refurbish her kitchen last year after what had seemed to have been a successful blessing ceremony.
She said: “To be honest I never believed in ghosts before. I expect people will probably think I’m mad when they read this!”
One person, at least, who does not think she is mad is Canon John Halliburton, of All Saints Church, St Margaret’s. He blessed the flat after the first haunting about 18 months ago, and visited Ms Hughes again last week when she complained of the new disturbances. Although he has never seen a ghost, he is convinced that Ms Hughes is not making anything up. He said: “In my book places can have odd ‘place memories’ and some people are sensitive to them. Something may have happened there.”
The most recent haunting, like the first, appears to focus itself around Ms Hughes’ son, Mark, who is eight, although this time round it does not appear to be so strong. She still remembers the first time Mark saw the shadowy spectre: “He came into my room in the middle of the night and said a man had lifted him out of his bed and put him on the floor and then got into his bed. I went in there but no-one was there.”
It did not take long before she, too, had seen the figure although her seven-year-old daughter Kelly did not seem to notice it. And a visitor got quite a turn when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder while using the toilet. There was no one behind him.
But the climax came shortly before the blessing ceremony. Ms Hughes was on the phone to a friend when invisible hands lifted a vase off her coffee table and carried it about six feet to another table next to where she stood.
Now, with strange things happening again Ms Hughes is concerned for her son’s well-being. He finds it very difficult to go to sleep and has to have his bed on the floor so that nothing can get underneath it. Even her two-year-old daughter, Michelle, has begun to point at seemingly empty spaces and cry out: “Look Mum, the man!”
Although the Rev. Halliburton was actively considering blessing the flat again when he spoke to The Informer he explained he was not allowed to perform an exorcism.
Hounslow and Chiswick Informer, 8th April 1988.