Eerie Chords at Dead of Night.
Curious happenings in house.
Ghosts in the Night?
Strange noises in a Nottingham house.
Piano struck. Chord reminiscent of dead relative.
The piano being played in the middle of the night when all the family were in bed. Furniture being moved about, and a fire being vigorously poked so that a stool in an upstairs room vibrated with the shock. And, a frantically terrified dog whining to escape from the piano room.
These are some mysterious phenomena which have bewildered the inhabitants of 78 Cottesmore-road, a semi-detached house in Lenton Sands, Nottingham, during the past few weeks. A “Journal” reporter who called on Mrs Harriet Easom and her three daughters (Laura, Annie and Alice) to investigate last evening, was told that strange noises have been heard in the house for three years, but since they had done no harm no great attention had been paid to them.
“Lately, however, ” Mrs Easom told our reporter, “they have taken on even more material form. I am 76 and naturally am not taken in very easily by such things at my time of life. You may say that a mouse may have caused the noise in the fireplace, and that the dog banged the furniture about, but you cannot say that a fox-terrier can play chords on a piano. Tony is a clever fellow but not quite as smart as that. “
“We had gone to bed at about 10.30, a week last Sunday, leaving a fire in the front room. The piano is there. My daughter Laura and myself sleep in the front room and Alice and Annie in the back. We had left Tony in his basket in the front room. Suddenly, after we had been in bed half-an-hour or so, we heard a chord played on the piano. Then there was a pause. Laura said: ‘Who is playing the piano?’ Then another chord was struck and we heard Tony scratching frantically at the door and whining. Again a chord was played. Alice went downstairs a few moments later and opened the front room door. The dog flew out and scurried upstairs trembling all over. The piano lid was shut and there was no one in the room.
“The next morning,” said Mrs Easom, “I went next door to ask if anyone had been playing their piano late at night. They answered me that they were all in bed long before 11. Besides this, their piano is in their middle room. It had struck me that the chords sounded as though my blind brother who died two years ago, had played them. He was organist to the Horncastle Wesleyan Chapel for about 50 years, and the sweep across the keys was reminiscent of the way in which he would do exactly the same thing before settling down to play for any length of time.
“He visited us quite frequently before he died. I don’t say it was the spirit of my brother. It may or may not have been. It is very strange. I am not a nervous person but I would not sleep alone in the house now.”
“The chords were too loud for us to have made any mistake about them,” said Miss Alice Easom. “When I went downstairs I heard nothing more and saw no one. I am not afraid to stay in the house. None of us has ever been to a spiritualist meeting. We are all sceptics in that respect.”
Miss Laura Easom and Miss Annie both related the same story. Since then, although the piano has not been heard, there have been strange noises, and a few nights later Miss Alice heard the back room blind fly up with a rattle and the noise of furniture being moved. The dog was whining, and when she went downstairs she found him crouching terrified near the sideboard, and the blind, which was drawn when they went to bed, rolled up.
From that time to this silence has reigned all night, but the family is expecting other strange occurrences at any time.
Nottingham Journal, 16th January 1929.
Remarkable noises at dead of night, including chords struck upon the piano by an unseen hand, and sounds as of furniture being moved about, have been heard at a house in the Cottesmore Road, Lenton, Nottingham. The house, a semi-detached, is occupied by Mrs Eason, who is 76, and her three daughters. One of the daughters gave a graphic description of the “manifestations.”
“The other night we retired to bed about 10.30,” she said. “We had been in bed about half an hour or so when we heard a chord struck on the piano, immediately followed by the whining and scratching of Tony, our little fox terrier, which sleeps in the front room. Then, to our alarm, two more chords were struck. Alice, one of my sisters, went down to investigate, but the front room was empty. The dog was trembling visibly.”
Mrs Eason described the notes heard as similar to those which used to be played by her blind brother, who died two years ago, and who was for a number of years organist at the Horncastle Wesleyan Church.
Other remarkable noises included sounds as of furniture being moved and the crash of a blind, which flew up when no one was near. After the mysterious notes struck on the piano, Mrs Eason was convinced that the sounds were caused by a practical joker. She made searching inquiries from neighbours, but nobody could clear up the mystery.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 21st January 1929.