Phantom appears in city house.
Uncanny happenings in a house in the Greystones road district of Ecclesall, Sheffield, have caused the occupants to wonder if it is haunted. The mysterious, unexplained incidents include the appearance of a wraith of a man, recognised as a relative, the shaking of beds, and the rattling of furniture int he bedroom, and the unexplained turning on of the electric light after the light had definitely been turned off. The incidents have been occurring over a considerable time but recently they have been renewed with increased frequency, and a married daughter who used to occupy one of the bedrooms, complained, on a visit, of the creepy incidents.
A “Daily Independent” reporter learned yesterday that the mystery started about seven years ago. The householders were in bed awake when the wife suddenly saw standing in the room the figure of an old man wearing a raincoat. She recognised the figure of the man as an uncle who had died some time previously. “I had my eyes closed, but I was not asleep,” she said to a “Daily Independent” reporter yesterday. “I uttered a loud cry and attempted to draw the attention of my husband to the figure. Before I could do so, however, the figure turned round, walked through a wardrobe and disappeared.”
“I am not nervous of things like that. I am not fanciful and I am not a spiritualist but I was unable to explain the apparition in any way. On one other occasion only did I have a similar experience. That was when a figure which appeared to have a shawl over its head appeared. That occurred before the other incident, and I fancied I must have been mistaken and said nothing about it.”
The married daughter, who now lives outside Sheffield, occupied another bedroom when she lived, before her marriage, in Sheffield. She had the uncanny experience of waking up in the night to find the bed shaking as though a heavy lorry was passing along the street. This happened on several occasions. Since her departure from Sheffield, her father has himself occupied the same room and reported similar experiences.
On the first few occasions he thought that a lorry was passing or that an earth tremor might be the explanation. He jumped out of bed and looked out of the window but could discover nothing that would explain the incident. Apparently father and daughter were each unaware of the other’s experiences until this week when further uncanny incidents led them to compare notes. The daughter was visiting her parents’ home with her baby. The baby had been put to bed at night when – an unusual thing at that particular time – it began to cry. She went up to soothe the baby to find the electric light on. At first she suspected that it had been left on by mistake, but inquiries revealed definite evidence that the light had been turned off beforehand.
A similar incident occurred, and it then transpired that the householder had found the electric light on after he had turned it off. The occupants of the house, which is a comparatively new one, are inclined to treat the matter light-heartedly.
Sheffield Independent, 20th October 1938.