Armed housewives wait for Gentle George the ghost.
Evening Post Reporter.
Hollow-eyed through lack of sleep, two Leeds housewives told me today how they had spent last night sat up armed with pokers, waiting for a ghost – Gentle George – which has disturbed their home in Roundhay Road for some time past. The house, near the junction of Spencer Place and Roundhay Road, is divided into two flats. The top one is occupied by Mr Trevor Perkins, a member of the staff at Leeds General Infirmary, and his wife, and the bottom one by Mr Arthur Thorne and his wife. Ever since they went into the house, some 12 months ago, mysterious sounds have been heard coming from unoccupied parts of the house, and last week the sounds and disturbances got much worse.
The two wives today told how they had spent the night in Mrs Perkins’s flat, waiting for any sounds. About 11.45 p.m. they heard a distinct rapping on a door dividing the stairs from the rest of the flat. They heard the same noise again in the early hours of the morning. In addition to that, after all the doors had been closed firmly, one of them was found to be open. A gate at the top of the stairs to save children from falling was found to be open every time they went to it, although they locked it every time they passed through. On other nights distinct footsteps have been heard going up and down the stairs, and on Wednesday night, after hearing a noise in a spare room, Mr Thorne went to investigate and found that a clock had been moved from a table to a chair, and that a cloth had been put on a table.
Mrs Thorne said, “I did not believe in anything like this before I experienced it, and now I find it a bit hard to believe. But there it is. So far there has been no throwing of anything about, and we all whatever it is Gentle George, but we are hoping that he will not get violent in the future.”
Mr Perkins intends to stay up on Sunday night with a colleague and watch for the trouble-maker.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 16th January 1953.