Candles vanish – one “floated around the room”.
Strange happenings at a Madeley house.
Because of strange occurrences for which they are unable to account a 65-year-old widow, her granddaughter and the granddaughter’s husband have temporarily vacated their home at Madeley to stay with relatives. The widow is Mrs E Murray, whose husband died about three months ago, and her granddaughter is 20-year-old Mrs Valerie Pritchard, and all three have been living at No. 87, Wrekin View, Madeley – that is until the middle of last week.
It appears that about a month ago something peculiar began to happen in th ehouse when a candle was needed to go outside for coal. On each occasion it was found that the candlestick, kept on a shelf in the scullery, was empty. Little attention was paid to this at first as it was thought that another member of the family must have taken the candle away, but soon it became apparent that no-one else had been using the candlestick. When fresh candles placed in the candlestick just mysteriously disappeared Mrs Murray and her daughter could not understand it. Suspecting mice or rats they placed some food alongside the candlestick but it was only the candle that disappeared. Then they tried putting candles in different parts of the house but they too just vanished.
Things reached a climax on Wednesday afternoon of last week when three candles were missed in the space of two hours, and being unable to stand it any longer Mrs Murray and her granddaughter left the house and went to stay with her daughter, Mrs G. Harris, at 55, Upper Road Madeley.
As the late Mr Murray was a Roman Catholic the family got in touch with Father Lyons, of Shifnal, and he came over on the following day to offer special prayers in the house. Before he came, however, Mrs Harris and Mrs Pritchard went to 87 Wrekin View, to have a look round and noticing that two candles which had been left the previous day were still there, they were not perturbed. But when Mrs Pritchard went upstairs Mrs Harris had a queer experience. She told a Journal reporter: “One of the candles was on the table at the side of the wireless. I turned my back to get a match and when I looked round again the candle had gone. I would not have believed it possible,” she added.
Talking of the earlier events Mrs Harris said: “At first we used to treat it as a joke when one or two candles began to disappear but now I have seen one go myself it’s a different matter.” She added that they had made a search of the house but could find no trace of the missing candles. Father Lyons had “blessed the house” that evening and had told them he did not think there would be any further trouble. He had brought with him six holy candles which were placed around the candlestick.
On the following day (Dec. 19) Mrs Pritchard paid a further visit to the house with another granddaughter, 15-year-old Norma Harris, and in the words of Mrs Pritchard they had a frightening experience. She told a Journal reporter: “Everything was all right when I got there, the candles were as they were left on the table. I went upstairs to get some things and when I came down Norma was just picking up a parcel off the table when one of the candles rose out of the candlestick, floated around the room and then dropped on the floor. We were both too frightened to say anything and we just stood there. After a while I picked up the candle and put it back on the table. Just as we were leaving I looked back at the table and saw one of the holy candles had gone. Then a candle which had lain across the candlestick began to move and rolled along the table. We were both too frightened to stop any longer,” she added.
Mrs Pritchard referred to another occasion when 4 candles were wrapped in paper and placed in a drawer and they just vanished like the others. The strange part of it, she said, was that the candles only disappeared when there was a relative in the house. While the house had been empty nothing was disturbed.
Mrs Murray vouched for the statements made. “It has been worrying me to death,” she said. “I could not stay there while there are such things happening. If it is a spirit it might become more violent.”
On Monday three members of the family consulted a spiritualist and Mrs Harris informed the Journal reporter afterwards that they were told the occurrences were due to the presence in the house of her father’s spirit which, for some unknown reason, was not resting. The spirit wished to give them a message, something which her father wanted to tell them before he died. They were invited to attend a spiritualist meeting when it was possible the message would be conveyed to them.
All the candles at 87, Wrekin View have now been burned and the candlestick lies in the dustbin. Needless to say there are no candles in the house at 55, Upper Road.
Wellington Journal, 27th December 1952.
Family Flee From ‘Floating Ghost’
40 candles vanish at Midland house
Fear of a “ghost” which is blamed for the disappearance of 40 candles during the past month, has caused a Midland family to desert the council house where they have lived for seven years. The house is 87, Wrekin View, Madeley (Shropshire), where Mrs Elizabeth Murray (65), a widow, has been living with her married grand-daughter, Mrs Valerie Pritchard (20), and Mrs Pritchard’s husband.
Mrs Pritchard claims that she saw a candle rise out of a candlestick, “float round the room,” then fall to the floor. When candles were first missed from the candlestick, which always stood on a shelf in the scullery, it was thought other members of the family had taken them.
Later, mice were blamed, but scraps of food left beside the candlestick were not touched, and the candles continued to vanish. When three candles vanished in two hours the family decided to quit.
A Roman Catholic priest was called to bless the house and he placed six holy candles round the candlestick. The following day Mrs Pritchard visited the house with another of Mrs Murray’s grand-daughters, 15-year-old Norma Harris. “The candles were exactly as they were left on the table,” said Mrs Pritchard. “I went upstairs to get some things and when I came down Norma was just picking up a parcel off the table when one of the candles rose out of the candlestick, floated round the room and then dropped to the floor. We were both too frightened to say anything. After a while I picked up the candle and put it back on the table. Just as we were leaving I looked back at the table and saw one of the holy candles had gone.”
The family is arranging to attend a spiritualist meeting. Mrs Murray was told by a spiritualist she consulted that the occurrences were due to her husband’s spirit trying to convey a message.
Birmingham Daily Gazette, 29th December 1952.
The House From Which Candles Disappear.
Candles disappearing in ones and twos to the number of 40, tapping on walls, and lights that went on and off for no apparent reason so distracted the occupiers of a semi-detached modern house in Wrekin View, Madeley, Shropshire, that they went to stay with relatives a mile away. They are Mrs Elizabeth Murray (65), her granddaughter, Mrs Valerie Pritchard (20), and the latter’s husband.
The occurrences began a few weeks after the death of Mr Murray three months ago. After a seance last Saturday night attended by the family, a Worcester medium and psychic research workers from Birmingham and Dawley, Mrs Murray was told that whatever was causing the phenomena it was inoffensive. She decided to go back home on New Year’s Day. But last night Mrs Pritchard and a cousin visited the house and found that eight candles they had left on Saturday night on the kitchen shelf from which others had disappeared had also gone. So the family will not return on Thursday.
Access to the house is through two stout doors. All windows have inside locking fasteners: and there has never been anything forced. At the seance on Saturday, Mr A E Vincent, of Birmingham, took seven candles and asked that six should be lit and one left unlit. After the usual form of introduction, the medium from Worcester described two spirits and said one named William had a personal message for one of the sitters.
But then, Mr Vincent told a reporter of The Birmingham Post, “he described a man who did not fit in with the late William Murray; he gave the wrong build and type, and spoke of his hair, whereas Murray was bald. The only thing that was evidential was a reference to the pains which Murray suffered before his death. The medium asked why the candles had been taken and nothing else, but there was no answer. The medium said he would deal with the whole matter in his own seance rooms at Worcester and try to get through to the Mr Murray concerned.”
To a suggestion that Mr Vincent and another man interested in psychic research should spend Friday night in the house to see if anything happens, Mr Vincent said last night, “I am willing to do so.”
Birmingham Daily Post, 30th December 1952.
Old soldiers never die.
When he was dying 79-year-old William Murray, ex-regimental sergeant-major in the South Wales Borderers, told his family: “Bury me in a Catholic cemetery. If you don’t I’ll come back and haunt you.” Somehow his family never managed to bury old William in a Catholic cemetery. And William was a man of his word. He went back to haunt the house in Wrekin View, Madeley, Shropshire, says the family.
William made candles disappear, produced ghost rappings and stampings, whisked other articles into thin air – and finally drove his family from the house in terror. Among them were his wife, 65-year-old Mrs Elizabeth Murray, his granddaughters, Norma and Valerie, and Valerie’s husband, Gordon. Altogether 50 candles went from the council house where old William died in September.
The local parish priest, Father John Lyons, blessed articles in the house and candlesticks but they disappeared, too. “One of the candles rose into the air out of the candlestick when I went back to the empty house for more clothes,” said 14-year-old Norma. “It came towards me, circled my waist and dropped at my feet.” Now the whole family is staying with relatives. Said the grandmother last night: “I am scared to death and can never return. All my neighbours in Wrekin-view are terrified.”
But 20-year-old Valerie said she would return to the house today, with her husband and sister, and ignore her grandfather’s ghost. Four spiritualists had held a seance at the house to try to dispel old William.
Daily Herald, 31st December 1952.
Vanishing candles still a mystery.
But Madeley family may return home this week-end.
Attempts to solve the mystery of the vanishing candles at 87, Wrekin View, Madeley, have been unsuccessful and as yet, no one outside the family has been present when the candles have disappeared. This week fresh candles were placed in the house, the key of which was given to two separate newspaper reporters, who returned with members of the family on Wednesday and Thursday but found nothing amiss. This course was adopted after candles were reported missing on Monday for the first time while the house was locked up. The family are certain that there is some strange force at work and it was with a view to obtaining independent evidence that they allowed the reporters to take possession of the key temporarily.
As reported in last week’s ‘Journal’ the occupants of the house, Mrs E. Murray, 65-year-old widow of Mr William Murray, a Roman Catholic who died three months ago, her 20-year-old granddaughter, Mrs Valerie Pritchard and her husband Mr Gordon Pritchard, vacated their home just before Christmas after enduring a month’s strange happenings in the house during which time some 40 candles just disappeared and one candle was seen “floating round the room” before dropping at the feet of the granddaughter.
On Saturday Mr Montgomery, a spiritualist medium from Worcester, and Mr Hollis, The Chalet, Dawley, another spiritualist, held a seance in the front room of No. 87 Wrekin View, to investigate the mystery. Among the ten people present were two members of the Institute of Psychic Research, Birmingham, and four members of the family, Mr and Mrs Gordon Pritchard, Mrs O. Harris (a daughter of Mrs Murray), and Mrs B. Pritchard, Ketley (Mr Gordon Pritchard’s mother). On the table on a plate seven lighted candles were placed, six large ones and an ordinary one in th ecentre; otherwise the room was in darkness. The company were asked to watch the candles as one of them might move but nothing happened. The medium said there were two spirits in the room and he assured the company that there was nothing to be afraid of in the house as the spirit was “trying to get a message to one of you, but I can’t get it as there is a nervousness in the company which is holding back contact.” He felt there were too many visitors there.
While nothing happened at the meeting, which lasted about an hour, two members of the family had a further alarming experience two days later. During Saturday night the two visitors from the Institute of Psychic Research had permission to sleep in the house to observe any unusual happenings and on Sunday morning they returned the key to 55, Upper Road, the home of Mrs Harris, saying that everything was all right and they had left eight large candles on the shelf in the scullery from where the first candles disappeared.
On Monday afternoon Mrs Valerie Pritchard and Miss Norma Harris (15) went to 87, Wrekin View. “As soon as I got through the door,” she told a “Journal” reporter afterwards, “I noticed immediately that there were no candles on the shelf but there were eight pieces of grease on which the candles had evidently been placed to stand up. There was no sign of the candles anywhere so I telephoned Mr Vincent, one of the two persons who had slept in the house on Saturday night, and he assured me that before they left they had placed the candles on the shelf. He could not understand it. No-one else had been in the house as the key had been in our possession since Sunday,” she added.
As this was the first time candles had disappeared while the house was unoccupied, five more candles were obtained on Tuesday, two being placed on the scullery shelf, two on a plate on the table and one in the window. The house was securely locked and the key was handed to a reporter, who returned the next day but nothing had been disturbed. Two members of the family again went to 87, Wrekin View at midnight on New Year’s Eve and the candles were still there. They had not disappeared by Thursday afternoon when a “Journal” reporter visited the house with Mrs G. Harris and Mrs Valerie Pritchard.
Mrs Harris told a “Journal” reporter that on the previous night a thorough search had been made of the house but no trace of any of the missing candles could be found. “We even looked at the back of the fire-grate” she said. Referring to a report in a daily newspaper that the late Mr Murray had not been given a Catholic funeral, Mrs Harris said this was completely untrue. Her father had been given a Catholic funeral in accordance with his last wishes and he was buried in Catholic ground.
The family were informed on Thursday that the two persons from the Institute of Psychic Research were coming back to Madeley on the following evening to hold a further investigation into the mysterious happenings and they were hoping to bring a woman medium from Birmingham. After this investigation has been completed Mrs Murray and Mr and Mrs Pritchard will be moving back to their home this week-end.
Wellington Journal, 3rd January 1953.
Man tells of ghostly figure at Madeley house.
“It disappeared behind the curtain.”
After again being reassured by a spiritualist medium that there was nothing in the house to harm them, Mrs E. Murray, 65-year-old widow of Mr William Murray, her granddaughter, Mrs Valerie Pritchard and the granddaughter’s husband, Mr Gordon Pritchard, have this week returned to live at 87, Wrekin View, Madeley, the house they vacated a week before Christmas due to the persistent and mysterious disappearance of candles. Mr and Mrs Pritchard went back on Sunday and Mrs Murray followed on Wednesday.
An extraordinary story was told this week by a neighbour, Mr J Farlow, who lives opposite at No. 40, Wrekin View, and this lends support to what the family have been told that the spirit of the late Mr Murray, who died three months ago, is still in the house. “On returning from work on New Year’s Eve,” Mr Farlow, who is employed at the Court Works, told a Journal reporter on Wednesday. “I was just closing the gate and happened to glance across the road in the direction of No. 87. In the bedroom window between the partly-drawn curtains I saw a figure standing close to the window and I definitely recognised the face, in the light of street lamp, as that of Mr Murray whom I knew very well. I could see his long moustache quite plainly and over his head was a hood of light khaki colour. To convince myself I was not seeing things I turned away and then looked back and the figure was still there standing quite motionless. It gave me quite a shock. I went to get a large torch from the house and as I turned round before reaching the door I saw the figure move across the window and disappear behind the curtain. I then went back to the gate and stayed there several minutes watching, but the figure did not re-appear. It knocked me back for a bit and I did not have any tea that night.”
He added that he knew the house was locked up and there was no one in it. Asked if he had seen the figure since, Mr Farlow replied that he had not looked up at the window.
Last week-end the two members of the Institute of Psychic Research, Birmingham, again slept in the house but nothing untoward happened. On Saturday evening another seance was held with members of the family present and was conducted by a woman medium from Birmingham. Two candles were lit and others were placed in different parts of the house but none of them disappeared. The medium gave the family the same advice as they had received from the Worcester spiritualist the previous week to return to the house as there was nothing to harm them. She did say however, that in the absence of candles other things in the house might be moved, as for some reason the spirit did not wish to leave the house.
As reported last week five candles were placed in the empty house and on two occasions newspaper reporters returned with the key to find they had not been disturbed. That was on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. On Friday afternoon, however, when Mrs Pritchard and her cousin. Miss Norma Harris (15) went to the house to tidy up for the seance the following day two of the five candles were missed while they were in the house for about two hours. Miss Norma Harris told a Journal reporter: “I was polishing the floor and Val was doing up the hearth when she asked me to look if the candles were still there. I looked towards the sideboard and one of the candles, which was there a few minutes before, had gone. Val took the two candles off the table and put them in the back kitchen. A little later we were washing up in the kitchen when Val exclaimed that one of the candles had vanished.”
Wellington Journal, 10th January 1953.
Crockery smashed – objects fly through the air.
More strange happenings reported from Madeley house.
The suggestion made by the spiritualist medium that strange things might happen at 87, Wrekin View, Madeley, when there were no candles in the house has, it is claimed, been substantiated. The occupants, 65-year-old Mrs Elizabeth Murray, Mr and Mrs Gordon Pritchard (her grand-daughter and the grand-daughter’s husband) and Miss Norma Harris (another grand-daughter), returned to live in the house last week after vacating their home before Christmas due to the continual disappearance of candles.
Two members of the Institute of Psychic Research examining articles connected with the strange happenings described in our report. (Left to right) Miss Norma Harris, Mr D Blockley, Mr A E Vincent, Mrs Valerie Pritchard and Mrs E Murray.
The medium who had held a seance in the house to try to discover the cause for the strange happenings, had told members of the family that the spirit of the late Mr William Murray (who died some five months ago) was still there, but advised them to return because no harm could come to them. At the same time the medium gave a warning that other objects in the home might be disturbed.
This was soon borne out, for last week-end, it was reported brought some extraordinary happening in the house, occurrences which support the amazing stories told by members of the family of candles vanishing into the air. A “Journal” reporter who visited 87, Wrekin View, on Sunday morning, saw under the kitchen table a quantity of smashed crockery and was told a remarkable story of how pieces of crockery and other objects had unaccountably fallen from their resting places and even been hurled through the air from one room to another.
The first occurrence was on Friday afternoon (Jan 9), when a “Wellington Journal” calendar in the living room was said to have detached itself from the wall and “flew” across the room before the astonished eyes of Mrs Murray and her granddaugher Norma. But that was only one of many uncanny incidents that were to follow. At about 8.30 that evening, while Mrs Murray, Mrs Valerie Pritchard and Norma were in the room, a stool began to roll across the floor and finished up with a clatter underneath the table. Although they had been used to the disappearing of the candles, these latest occurrences so unnerved them that they all stayed downstairs that night and were thankful nothing further happened.
The next reported occurrence was at 7 o’clock on Saturday morning when a vase standing on a small table by the window dropped to the floor but did not break. A little later the family were to experience something even worse – an object flying through the air as though hurled by some unseen hand. The object was a small ashtray which was in the hearth in the living room. It suddenly became airborne and landed with a clatter behind Miss Norma Harris, who was in the kitchen. Later, a cup on the kitchen table “flew through the air” and smashed against the kitchen boiler, a picture lying flat on the table did the same thing and a brass candlestick on the mantelpiece in the living room toppled over and finished up by the settee. All these happenings took place at intervals.
A brass two-handled cup on the mantelpiece was the next thing to be disturbed, and this struck the kitchen stove with some force, just missing Miss Norma Harris (who was in the kitchen) in its flight. The strange part about this incident was that the cup could not have travelled in a direct line to the kitchen stove owing to the intervening doorway. An indentation on the base of the cup was shown to the “Journal” reporter and Mr D Blockley, chief research officer of the Institute of Psychic Research Birmingham, who with Mr A E Vincent of the same Institute has been staying at the house again since Saturday night to investigate the occurrences confirmed that traces of enamel from the stove had been found on the cup base. A clock also fell off the mantelpiece, not into the hearth as it would if it just toppled over with heavy vibration, but on to the rug.
A little later a milk jug crashed to pieces on the floor, a lamp shade fell off the shelf as did two bottles later, a freshly-made pot of tea was scattered across the kitchen when the teapot fell off the table, a flower pot toppled off the kitchen window sill, and the brass cup off the mantelpiece was again found in the kitchen.
In one of the bedrooms on Saturday night a box fell from the dresser while Mrs Pritchard was in the room and a plastic fruit bowl on the landing went rolling down the stairs. After Mrs Murray and Miss N Harris had retired on Saturday night a green stone image (brought from India) fell across the floor off the dresser and on hearing the clatter above Mr Blockley and Mr Vincent, who were sleeping downstairs, immediately rushed up the stairs and recovered the image from by the bedroom door. “It was quite cold when I picked it up and put it back on the dresser,” Mr Blockley told the “Journal” reporter. “I stayed in the room for about a quarter of an hour, but nothing else happened.” He added that he and Mr Vincent had spent five nights in the house and that was their “first experience” of anything unusual although they did not see it.
Sunday morning was normal until 1 p.m. Mr Blockley and Mr Vincent were sitting in the living room, when the sound of an “explosion” came from the kitchen, where Mrs Pritchard was washing up. The kitchen door was closed at the time, and as Mrs Pritchard shouted Mr Blockley opened the kitchen door to find a tumbler which had been on the draining board, smashed to fragments on the floor. There was a mark on the door where the tumbler had struck it. The kitchen door was then opened wide for observation to be kept from the living room and shortly afterwards during the few seconds that Mr Blockley had stepped outside the house, a cup of water by the sink fell on the kitchen floor, but only the spray of the water was witnessed from the living room by Mr Vincent.
On Wednesday morning Mr Shirley Edmonds, of Wellington National Spiritualist Church, took Mr Frank Spencer, a minister of the National Union, to Madeley to assist as far as possible in the investigation into the strange manifestations at 87, Wrekin View, Madeley.
After spending some time in the house, says Mr Edmonds, Mr Spencer said that he felt no evil influence around him. Indeed he was impressed by the pleasant homely atmosphere of the room. Mr Edmonds told the “Journal” that attempts to contact the spirit proved only partially successful owing to the absence of the young influence which was attracting it. But Mr Spencer siad he felt strongly that the unquiet spirit of Mrs Murray’s late husband was trying to attract attention. He described the spirit he had contacted in detail and Mrs Murray agreed that the description fitted her late husband exactly. Mr Spencer felt that the manifestation would soon cease, and in any case they need not be feared in any way as they were not in the least harmful in intent or origin.
Wellington Journal, 17th January 1953.
“All Quiet” This Week At Madeley House.
Psychic research officer issues statement.
There is quietness this week at 87, Wrekin View, Madeley, where recently strange happenings have been reported, where candles have been said to disappear, crockery to have been smashed and objects seen flying through the air. The occupants of the house are Mrs E Murray, 65-years-old widow of Mr W Murray, who died last September, and her granddaughter and her granddaughter’s husband, Mr and Mrs Gordon Pritchard. The other granddaughter, Miss Norma Harris, aged 15, has gone back to live at 55, Upper Road, Madeley, the home of her parents.
Mr D Blockley, chief research officer of the Institute of Psychic Research, Birmingham, and Mr A E Vincent, of the same Institute, who have spent some time in the house investigating the mysterious happenings, issued the following statement to the Journal on Thursday: –
“Although our investigation has not been as lengthy as we could have wished, we consider that in view of the frailty of Mrs Murray’s general health and the mental disturbance occasioned in all the occupants of 87, Wrekin View, by the recent happenings, we should attempt to conclude the case now. We should, however, not wish to make any binding and final pronouncements after such a short period and considering the paucity of evidence presented. We have, before leaving, made certain recommendations to the family which, if acted upon, we feel will cause a cessation of these happenings.
“It is common knowledge that in many of these cases adolescents, often quite unconsciously, are the focal centre of such disturbances. Bearing in mind that further shocks of a personal nature such as the one she received on the night of Wednesday, January 14, might prove disastrous for Mrs Murray, we have suggested that her granddaughter, Norma Harris, should return to her mother’s house in Upper Road and remain there without even visiting Wrekin View for at least a week, if not longer. Mrs Pritchard will sleep with Mrs Murray each night.
“We wish to make it clear that this does not necessariy mean that Norma, either consciously or unconsciously, is the cause of this trouble, but that we consider that some immediate remedial measures are vitally necessary and this seems, at the moment, the most suitable. We should not, of course, consider the case as closed until several trouble-free months have passed.”
Referring to rumours which she said she had heard in the district that she was in some way connected with the occurrences, Mrs Valerie Pritchard asked that a contradiction be issued through the Journal. She said quite definitely that she had nothing at all to do with what had happened in the house, though she had witnessed some of the things that had taken place there.
The family refuted any idea that Miss Norma Harris could be responsible unless a spirit was working through her, which could not be proved. Her mother told a Journal reporter on Thursday that on at least two occasions things had happened when Norma was not there. She (Mrs Harris) had been the sole occupant of the room when one of the candles had disappeared and on another occasion she saw a jug “floating in the air” before it crashed to the floor, when Norma was not there. “It is still a mystery to us,” she said.
Wellington Journal, 24th January 1953.