‘Snowy’ apparition seen praying.
MP asked to help family to flee ghost.
An MP has been called in to help a West Bromwich family escape a ghostly figure which they claim is haunting their house – “kneeling and praying” in the middle of the night. The family says the ghost cries out and walks up and down the stairs. Now West Bromwich East MP Mr Peter Snape is to investigate the case. The apparition – an elderly man with snowy hair – is said to have appeared in a bedroom at the post-war Lincoln Road home of the Grainger family – and spooky footsteps on the stairs have been heard, with no apparent owner, says Mrs Sheila Grainger, aged 42.
The Graingers moved into the Sandwell council home two years ago. And in the last year they say:
Barry Granger, who is 17, has seen the ghost and now refuses to sleep in his bedroom – the room where it made its presence felt.
Daughter Tina Grainger heard voices calling to her in the middle of the night through her bedroom.
Mrs Grainger has heard the ghostly footsteps coming up the stairs.
Now, Barry says the apparition has made him terrified of sleeping upstairs. He spends every night downstairs on the settee or staying with friends. Tina has left home, and her sister Kim, aged 23, is also planning to move away. Barry said: “I just cannot sleep up there. I saw the figure and it would not go away for five or 10 minutes. I know I saw something. Mum has even taken me to the doctor because of the worry I have had over this. But he could not find anything wrong with me.”
His mother said: “We have all been under a strain because of the events. Barry is hardly ever here now and will not go upstairs on his own. He is a sensible lad. This whole thing is driving us apart. I have appealed to the council many times but with no success. I have even tried to arrange a private exchange.”
The Grainger family said they had not yet considered bringing in a priest to try an exorcism.
A spokesman for Sandwell Council’s Housing Department said the Graingers’ case would be thoroughly investigated.
Sandwell Evening Mail, 7th October 1981.