The following is taken from Some Things Strange & Sinister (see end of post)
*******************************************************
The “Henacre Road Haunting” very briefly got
into the Press in 1990 (1 & 2).
Apparently, Kim Jye and her children had moved into the 1960s first
floor flat in Henacre Road,
Bristol, sometime in 1988/1989
–the local council would not specify the exact date. By August, 1990, a priest had been called in.
Kim Jye had
reported seeing the ghost of a man wearing dark trousers, white shirt and “with
an old-style bobbed haircut” on at least four occasions. But the 21 year-old was not the only
witness. Christopher, 3 years-old, had a
rather bad time of things in his bedroom.
According to a statement buy his mother: “My little boy would not sleep
in this particular bedroom for at least seven months –he said a man was coming
to get me.”
The newspaper account didn’t make it quite
clear whether young Christopher was stating that he’d merely seen the ghostly
figure and felt it was ‘after him’ or his mother.
Whatever, Father Michael O’Regan, of Our Lady
of the Rosary, was called in and he performed a blessing ceremony. By July, however, the events at the flat had
driven Kim Jye and her three children to take refuge at her mother’s home, the
first blessing having failed. Father
O’Regan contacted Bristol City Council who took the alleged haunting
seriously. Mike Griffiths, a council
spokesman, told a reporter:-
“We
are taking it seriously. We are taking
it as a legitimate
problem, taking it on face
value, bearing in mind we have a
letter
from a man whose moral credence must be impeccable.”
Presumably the Jye’s were moved. The council would not discuss the matter as
it concerned a tenant and they could give no information. I have not managed to track down Kim Jye and
there appears to have been no further disturbances at the flat –which I am
aware of.
The Parkside Hotel stands next door to the ITV
West TV studios, Brislington,
Bristol. In the 1970s I had visited the hotel on a
number of social occasions, as I had been in the local newspapers regarding
other investigations at the time I was recognized by one staff member who
furtively asked me: “Are you on an investigation here?” When I pointed out I was attending a function
the person in question clammed up and left.
I later learned he was an assistant manager.
The twenty-two room hotel itself dates back to
1760 and was at one time a convent for the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. In
1997 a Dutch TV crew stayed in the hotel to see whether they could film
anything. As far as I can find out they
never did.
But what was
being seen at the hotel? According to
Chris Romer of the Cheltenham Student Parapsychological Society Research Group
(CSPSRG), who had been one of the investigators to look into the goings on in
1996, quite a lot was happening.
There had been
reports of a ghostly nun walking across the restaurant by several witnesses. Of course, the nun ties in with the old
convent which, interestingly enough, some of the witnesses had not known about.
Then there was the
bar –and any number of jokes you can make out of ghosts seen in bars. Sounds had been heard and what was called a
“poltergeist” had moved glasses in the bar.
However, as noted in the chapter on the Ghost of All Saints Church, this
was not what you could categorize as a poltergeist but rather a haunting in
which objects were moved.
According to Manager Rob Green, when I talked
to him in 1997; “quite a few people who work at night have seen some odd
things.” Mr. Green suggested I contact
the CSPSRG as they were preparing a report.
It was now Chris Romer who told me of events at the hotel while his team
was investigating.
A camera was set up in one particular room
which had a rather bad history: apparently visitors had not stayed in it very long. A male and female investigator were left to
keep the room under observation and the camera had, I was told, picked up a
vertical bar of red light that appeared above the bed. There was embarrassment over the next part of
the report; apparently the two observers felt “odd” and the next thing they
were engaged in frantic sexual activity!
More the embarrassing because, apparently, neither was “very keen” on
the other.
There were also other manifestations and a
report/case file did exist. However, by
1998, Mr. Romer still had not been able to find out who had this document (3-5).
In 2005 there was a report of another ghost
sighting at the hotel by a staff member –this filtering through to me from a
newspaper reporter. The hotel has kept
its mystery tenants it seems.
But there are other little known ghosts in Bristol and some hark back to the siege of Bristol during the English
Civil War.
Having been born and raised in the St
Werburgh’s area of the city, I and other kids liked visiting the old bomb sites
in the early 1960s and especially the “haunted houses”. We also trekked regularly to Eastville Park and Stapleton Woods. Prior to his attack on Prince Rupert in the Civil War, Cromwell had
mustered his New Model Army in the area of the woods. I had heard, as a youngster, of a ghost in
the woods but as none of the gang had ever seen it why worry about it?
A Roundhead figure was once seen quite
regularly; he would approach people as if to say something –but then walk right
through them. Had the Roundhead seen the
modern day walkers –and if he had, did they suddenly vanish in front of
him? I can find no record of the figure
being seen after the 1980s, quite odd.
My grand dad, Bill, being “Hanham born ‘n’
bred”, told me that a serving girl whose name had been Sally, lived on a farm
in the area and during the Civil War refused to tell the Roundheads where
Royalists were hiding. In an attempt to
escape, Sally got to the roof –it’s uncertain whether she jumped or was thrown
or was simply killed there. Her ghost
has always been seen on the roof though I have failed to discover which farm
–if it still exists.
Another spectre no
longer seen, I believe since the 1970s, is “The Starving Monk”. At a time when saying Mass was illegal, priests
often visited stately homes and were hidden
in “priest hid holes” if the authorities turned up. The ghost in question was said to haunt Oldbury Court and
originated from a time when there was a stately home in the area.
The monk was said to have been hidden, forgotten
and to have starved to death –a not very likely tale. But for a long time the monk was seen but
modern changes may not conducive to ghostly wanderings?
Another ghost that I have heard very little of
in recent years was that of Jenkins Protheroe, aka: “The Evil Dwarf
Highwayman”! Protheroe would beg for
money but if he didn’t get as much as he had expected he had a novel method of
getting more –he held up the person in question and robbed them. However, you can only get away with this
behaviour for a certain amount of time.
Protheroe was captured and tried for his crimes. In 1783, at the top of Pembroke Road, Clifton,
Protheroe was hung and haunted the area –but no longer?
I’m still trying
to find out whether a German Luftwaffe aircraft did crash at the old Whitchurch Airport during World War Two. The area, now Hengrove Park,
has been undergoing a great deal of development in recent years and I’ve heard
of no sightings of a German pilot said to haunt the site.
Interestingly enough, the mid-1990s saw a rash
of ghost reports. At Mulberry
headquarters, Kilver Court,
Shepton Mallet, Somerset,
“something” was up-setting the security guards.
Everyone was keeping tight-lipped but one security guard reported that
when he switched off all the lights they were suddenly turned on again – this
happened several times as well as other “strange things” happened but that was
all we learned of the affair (6 & 7).
In 1995, another couple fled their council
home due to a ghost. Michaela Barber and
her partner, Shane, lived in a house in Leg Of Mutton Road, Wells, Somerset. Things would often vanish from where they had
been placed and were not seen again. On
one occasion, having left the house, the couple looked back and saw a curtain
very clearly lifted. No one living was in the house.
One morning, at 8.00 a.m., the couple fled
their home and swore never to return.
Apparently, Michaela had found her five-months-old baby under his high-sided cot.
A toy TV suddenly
turned itself on. Again, tenant
confidentiality meant the council would not tell us where the couple were
eventually moved to (8 & 9).
But we note, again, this movement of objects
–and that includes the baby.
The Royal
Clarence Hotel,
Bridgwater, Somerset,
was in the news, albeit a small column (10), in 1982. Why so little space was given to the incident
in question seems odd because the ghost
spoke to a member of staff.
A woman in white
had been seen many times over the years, several times outside a blocked off
door which used to lead to the minstrel’s gallery. Mrs Rita Walsh had worked in the hotel
kitchens since around 1977/1978 but had seen nothing odd. In December of 1982 this changed.
Mrs Walsh was working alone when she saw the
infamous woman in white move toward her.
Mrs Walsh told a reporter:
“When the woman approached, I tried
to scream for the
night-porter,
but I just couldn’t get a word out.
“The ghost told me I should not be frightened
as she
would
not hurt me. She was so friendly that I
was
able
to ask her why she wasn’t resting, and she said
she
just couldn’t, then she disappeared.”
Just what do we make of this? That a ghost actually spoke to the living without a so-called “medium”. There
are types of this phenomenon according to researchers.
The most common form of ghost appears to be
what might be called a “Crisis Apparition”.
This is usually a “vision” or disembodied voice of someone under great
stress –at the point of death, for example.
This vision/voice is seen or heard by someone close the person in
crisis. As we know nothing really about
the process of dying it is possible –possible—that
there may be some kind of telepathic link between the dying and loved
ones. In many cases, no doubt, these may
be self-induced visions of a dying loved one by a person.
The “Collective Apparition” where more than
one person sees a ghost. This can be at
a séance or some other locale.
The “Haunting Ghost” is where a ghost walks
about, plays or looks out of a window, is seen seated or going through some
other mundane task. Here you could class
the Parkside Hotel nun or even the Royal
Clarence Hotel
woman in white. Some parapsychologists
feel a “psychic record” of a person may be “imprinted upon a place of tragic
death, a beloved garden spot or room.
Then we have the “Presence” where “something”
is most definitely felt but nothing
seen or heard. These reports may
indicate some form of electro magnetic or other phenomena creating a localised
effect felt by person present –such as in the “Luminous Chamber” case.
There are also the “One-Offs” –ghosts seen at
a location with no spectral history known to the witness, investigators or
others in the area.
“Poltergeists”
(angry/noisy spirits) have been recorded since at least the 12th century. Unexplained bangs, crashes, foul smells, sudden
cold spells in a house or place, inexplicable voices, objects appearing and
disappearing and even levitation of of victims are “symptoms”. Here we can place the Lamb Inn, ”Coonian
ghost”, the Parkside Hotel and the
Leg Of Mutton Road events.
Parapsychologists use the phrase Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis
(RSPK). ‘Demons’, ’Satan’ and even
elementals have been blamed in these cases –but then so have adolescent
girls/boys who are seen as the “focus” in these cases.
In the Leg Of Mutton Road affair there was no
adolescent, only a baby. We are not
aware of an adolescent in the All Saints Church case either.
But that leaves us with the woman in white at
the Royal Clarence. Here ‘she’ knew Mrs. Watts could see her and was
alarmed but placated the witness by telling her no harm would befall her! When asked why ‘she’ was not resting, the
ghost responded to the question.
How –how—can
a dead person’s ghost walk around knowing
his/herself to be deceased and start up a brief conversation? The Royal Clarence case isn’t the first of
this type of “conversation” either. It
infers, rather strongly, that there is
life after death and in some cases, well, hundreds of cases, something has prevented the dearly
deceased from “passing on” –“finding eternal rest”.
This I simply find impossible to accept for so many reasons. Billions of people have lived and died on this
planet and “Heaven” must be suffering some severe over-crowding! There takes place one disaster after another adding
thousands upon thousands more souls to the ‘population’ –and what of dead
animals - the highly intelligent dolphins?
Is it just humans who go into an “after life”?
Scientifically, I cannot accept that. So what is going on? The truth is that I will keep on investigating and, one day, hopefully I can have a
‘conversation’ with something like the woman in white!
______________________________________
A4 Format
B&W
Paperback
358 pages
Heavily illustrated
£20.00
After more than 40 years as an investigator and more than fifty as a naturalist,the author has opened some of the many files he has accumulated dealing with such things as..
The Terrifying Events At The Lamb Inn, The Ghosts Of All Saints Church, Dead Aquatic Creatures of Canvey Island, captured bigfoot like creatures in India -all exclusively presented for the first time and with new added research previously unseen.
PLUS a vastly expanded section on Spring-heeled Jack! Photographs, maps, line drawings and up-dated to make 358 pages looking at Things truly Strange and Sinister.
Cryptozoologist,Ghost Hunter,Ufologist or Fortean:this book has something for everyone -including the just plain inquisitive!
ContentsForeword by Travis L. Whitehurst
Introduction de occultis non judicat ecclesia
The Bristol Rocking Horse
The Terrifying Events At The Lamb Inn
The Coonian Ghost
The Ghosts Of All Saints Church
His Luminous Chamber
The Late Reverend Dr. Blomberg
And More Ghost Stories
The Thomas B. Cumpston Case
The Chupacabra
The Strange Case Of The Gotherington Gargoyle
What’s Tall,Hairy And Vanishes?
Mystery Beasts Of Ireland
The Creature Of The Dump
The Strange Creature Of Repton Woods
The Bizarre Legends,Crimes And Truth About Spring Heeled Jack
The Black Beast Of Darmstadt
The Nameless Thing Of Berkley Square
The Terrifying Case Of The U.S. Naval Transport
The Case Of The Ghost Lear Jet
Ghost Planes,Crashes And Dead Aquatic Creatures
The Mitchison Loch Ness Monster Video
From The Deep Below To The Air Above –USOs
Aerial Encounters Over Austria
A Crashed UFO In 1790?
Angel Hair
Quimper-Corentin:Where “Thunder Fell”
Strange Aliens From Space
The Llandrillo ‘Saucer’ And Other Crash Retrievals
Transient Lunar Phenomena,Alien Structures And Moon Vegetation
Whiddon Down-Saint-Jean-du-Guard:Impossible Correlations?
The Venezuelan HorrorA Final Word.
