Larry, The Mischievous Ghost.
He started fire in my home, says Mr Stringer.
“Evening News” Reporter.
Larry, the Easter poltergeist was at work again today in a Camberwell house. Firemen were called for the 12th time in five years to the Trafalgar-avenue home of Mr Graham Stringer, a photographer, when a chair caught fire in the front room. And he again blames the mischievous ghost.
Mrs Vera Stringer smelled burning soon after her husband had left for work and found the chair alight. She carried her three-year-old son, Steven, to safety. Mr Stringer said later: “Ever since we have been in the house we have had troubles with peculiar fires. Clothes, a dressing table and other chairs have been burned and we cannot get an insurance company to cover us now. It always seems to happen around Easter time and we put it down to a poltergeist, which we call Larry.”
Mr Stringer said that he thought Larry was responsible for moving the clock across the mantelpiece, for opening the front door when it was locked and bolted, and other strange hapenings in the house. “He has been fairly quiet lately, but it looks as if he has started work again,” said Mr Stringer.
Evening News (London), 3rd April 1962.
The couple in fear of a firebug ghost.
Graham Stringer and his wife Vera will sleep uneasily this weekend – if they sleep at all. They fear the ghost of a baby will set fire to their home. For the Stringers say they have been haunted for years by a poltergeist – a mischief making ghost – and it is always most active around Easter. Already this month firemen have been called to their home twice in the same day. The first time, a carpet was alight. Then a bed was destroyed by fire. Firemen were unable to find the cause.
At Easter two years ago fire destroyed furniture at the Stringer’s home in Trafalgar avenue, Peckham, London. Now a medium has told Mrs Stringer that the poltergeist is her 18-month-old brother Charles, who died from burns more than 20 years ago.
Officials of the College of Psychic Science have confirmed the presence of a poltergeist in the house.
Daily Herald, 21st April 1962.