Poltergeist in the factory.
After three weeks’ investigation, Mr F.E. George, works manager at Mather and Platt’s works, Bradley Fold, near Bolton, said last night he was pretty well convinced that various happenings in the jig and tool design office could only be attributed to a poltergeist.
Three weeks ago, two matter-of-fact designers complained to Mr George that they had been bombarded with brass bushes. They produced five of the bushes, which, they claimed, had been flying about the room.
Aircraft movements were checked but showed no possibility of supersonic bangs. Windows were closed and no one was in the room but the three men.
Then it really started. Crash went two china mugs and a heavy glass vase.
The poltergeist performed once each morning and once each afternoon. Mr George checked each time for any evidence of practical joking, but found none.
The works chief inspector saw the next phenomenon. A heavy metal pencil sharpener flew from one corner of an office to the other and smashed. The sales manager was installed in the room. He could see both men and had a clear view. But the poltergeist struck again. This time it was a bottle of red ink. The two men went to another office and a clerk who had served as a C.I.D. sergeant moved in. Apparently the poltergeist is law-abiding for nothing has happened since.
Mr George has made inquiries in Manchester to find out where the brass bushes could have been made. None like them are made at Bradley Fold.
Liverpool Daily Post, 12th February 1958.
The factory ghost gets top security.
Britain’s most embarrassing ghost was firmly confined behind the high wire fence of the giant Mather and Platt works at Radcliffe to-day. Uniformed security guards stood behind the 7ft. gates and admitted: “We have orders to say nothing.” For there were red faces after the Manchester Evening News told about the poltergeist in the drawing office. A ghost in the works is not likely to impress customers.
Three men digging in gardens around the works had to face the quips of passers-by. “Burying the ghost?” they were asked. The poltergeist has been blamed for showering the departmental manager with a bottle of red ink and pelting two draughtsmen with brass fittings.
Manchester Evening News, 13th February 1958.
Mr. George Takes Over The Ghost.
Formidable opposition has arisen for the ghost that haunts the Radcliffe engineering works of Mather and Platt. “Works manager Mr. Frank George has got everything in hand,” it was said at the works to-day, where the poltergeist plays havoc in the drawing office, hurling ink, tools, cans, and crockery around.
The firm’s Manchester H.Q. said: “We are definitely not closing the drawing office. The situation at Radcliffe is normal. We are not doing anything at all about this.”
Manchester Evening News, 14th February 1958.