Mysterious knocks and a ghostly glow.
A Mobberley woman who lives in a lonely country cottage may ask the Rector of Mobberley, Canon H.S. Randle, to exorcise a “ghost” from her home. Strange knocking sounds have kept the occupants of Graveyard Cottage, Graveyard Lane, on tenterhooks. Mrs Vera Ready, who has lived there for most of her life, has been in touch with the Telephone Samaritans because she has been kept awake until three and four o’clock in the morning by knocking sounds in the rear bedroom.
Her lodger, Mr Joe Bridges, recently moved out of the century-old cottage to sleep in his van for the night after he heard knockings and saw a white figure in the front bedroom. Mrs Ready commented: “The noises started about three months ago, mostly at night but one afternoon I heard them when I was ill in bed with bronchitis.” She said: “The knocking starts slow and steady at first, then it becomes louder and finally fades away.”
Mrs Ready added: “My niece, Mrs Heather McGarel, from Northern Ireland, held a seance here and she thinks that someone is trying to get in touch with us.” Mrs Ready said she had never believed in ghosts but she added: “I cannot think of any other explanation. I have never come across anything like this before.”
An Advertiser reporter discovered Mrs Ready’s plight on Monday, while investigating strange facts about a Quaker graveyard near her home. These were brought to light in an Advertiser article published in Mrach, 1959, and written by a former Advertiser reporter Alan Jay. In his story, Mrs Ready said she had seen a strange light above the graveyard near her home. Mr Sam Jackson, who lives at the nearby Graveyard Farm, gave a detailed account of his experience with the light. Since then, neither he nor Mrs Ready have witnessed it again.
Recently Alan re-wrote the story in a British Columbian newspaper, for which he now works. The articles was seen by Mr Jack Leaf, of 8422, 13th Avenue, Burnaby, B.C., who expressed an interest about it in an international tape club magazine. He called for more information about the phenomenon. His letter was spotted by Mr Jim Bowie of 185 Woodhouse Lane, East Timperley, a member of the Timperley Tape Talkers. Mr Bowie was quick to locate the graveyard and send taperecorded messages from local residents, back to his friend in Canada. Mr Bowie also took two pictures of the graveyard and when these were developed and printed, they showed a “strange light” above the gravestones. He said: “I wrote to the photographic company which supplied and printed the pictures, but they could give no explanation as to why the light was present.”
When Mr Bowie called at the Advertiser offices to see Alan Jay’s article in our files, he was hampered by the fact that he had been given a wrong date regarding its publication. The task was, therefore, like looking for a needle in a haystack until we contacted a former “Advertiser” photographer Keith Pullin, who took pictures at the graveyard 11 years ago. Keith, now a cameraman with Yorkshire Television, had just returned from a Continental holiday and he travelled from Leeds to Wilmslow so that he could trace the article which he finally discovered in our issue of March 20, 1959.
Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser, 24th July 1970.