Family fear being gassed by a ghost.
By David Bainton.
A fat ghost who fiddles with the gas taps has put a Salford family in fear of their lives. And they have been driven to desperate measures to foil his antics. Every night before going to bed, Mr Charles O’Neill runs the gas meter “dry.” Even then, he and his wife Sylvia are not guaranteed an undisturbed sleep. Their dog Snowball may start howling with fear for no apparent reason, or light bulbs mysteriously glide out of their fittings to hit the floor without breaking.
At other times the ghost himself has put in an appearance. The figure of a stout, elderly man has been seen at some time or other in almost all parts of the O’Neill’s 100-year-old council house at Halton Bank, Bolton Road.
Things started happening a fortnight after the O’Neills and their six children moved into the four-bedroom house 18 months ago. Hot water taps in the bathroom started running – even though the whole family was downstairs. And wall fittings were moved by a ghostly hand.
But the O’Neills really got worried when the taps on their gas stove were twice turned on in the middle of the night. “It’s so frightening that at night we burn off the gas, so there is nothing left in the meter,” said 29-year-old Mrs O’Neill. She added: “The electricity board has been to examine our light fittings and they say there is nothing wrong with them – yet bulbs will glide to the floor without breaking. We’re not trying to find an excuse for moving out. this is a corporation house and we want to stay here. But we shall have to move next year, when the house is demolished for road widening.”
The previous tenants of the house moved out after a serious fire. Mr John Clarke, aged 23, and his sister Pat, both saw the ghostly figure of a man on many occasions.
Mrs O’Neill says that she has seen the ghost upstairs, while her husband has seen the same figure downstairs, rubbing his hands over the fire as if trying to keep warm. They have been so worried that they called in a clergyman. He advised them not to let the spirits drive them out.
Neighbour Mr William Walsh, who has lived in the road for 40 years, said: “Many strange things have happened along here. When we moved into our house back in the thirties, all the windows had been nailed up. I heard that a woman had been killed when she fell from an upstairs window. At the O’Neills, a man had a very turbulent life with his wife, and died there about 30 years ago. He was a stout, elderly man.”
Manchester Evening News, 22nd June 1972.