Ghostbuster plea follows city ‘contact’.
Jayne Williams is convinced her Swansea home is haunted after ‘making contact’ with the ghost of a girl who was thought to have been found dead in a cupboard at the house 60 years ago. A series of strange happenings in the last week at the house in High View, Mayhill, has followed Jayne’s visit to a clairvoyant a month ago. “I was asked if I believed in spiritualism and I said I did, but that I wanted proof,” she said. “He said I would be having contact on the other side.”
The ‘events’ started last Friday, when single mother Jayne was watching television while her daughters Rebecca, aged six, and 19-month-old Lynsey were asleep upstairs. “I heard an echoey voice at about 9.10 p.m. and went to check if it was one of the girls, but they were fast asleep,” she said. The noise came from the direction of the stairs and the same thing happened the following night when Jayne heard four cries of “Mammy.” On Sunday night, she turned off the gas central heating in the kitchen before going to bed, only to find it fully on in the morning. That night, there were more cries of ‘Mammy’ on the stairs, so she called the clairvoyant round on Tuesday night. His conclusion was that the cries belonged to a girl called Caroline, who died in the cupboard beneath 60 years ago.
“One step was warm,” said Jayne. “He said it was above where the girl was holding a candle.” Jayne made inquiries locally and a neighbour, Mrs Rose Lewis, discovered that a 78-year-old man, no longer living in the area, had recalled the death of a girl in similar circumstances. “It frightens me,” said Jayne, “in case anything might happen. Yesterday, I was hoovering in the lounge by the stairs when I felt something tugging my jumper. I thought it was one of the children, but they were in bed.”
In addition to Mrs Lewis’s firm belief in the ghost, Jayne’s friends Nicola Kane and Andrea Manning have spent a lot of time in the house since the first cry and are convinced the story is true. Assistant city archivist John Maudsley checked his records and found a possible connection. Harry Holmes – the Great Cyclino – was called in to investigate a suspected poltergeist at a house in Rhondda Street, Mount Pleasant, in the 1960s. The incident caused the occupier to move to Shelly Crescent, now named HIgh View. Now the three ghostbusters want more information about the 60-year-old mystery, and those in the know should ring Andrea on Swansea 645218.
South Wales Daily Post, 9th March 1991.