Poltergeist: A Classic Study in Destructive Haunting (25 page)

The next person to see “Fred” was their next-door neighbor, Mrs.
May Mountain, who occupies the other half of their semi-detached house.
The ghost seems to have regarded the whole house as his domain, and made drumming noises in Mrs.
Mountain’s rooms.
It was, admittedly, often difficult to pinpoint where the noises were coming from—one of the characteristics of poltergeist rappings—but the cracks in Mrs.
Mountain’s ceiling (which are still there) indicate that Fred was indifferent to the partition wall between the houses.
(Cracks also appeared in the Pritchards’ ceilings, but these were repaired a long time ago.)

One morning, Mrs.
Mountain was at her kitchen sink when she felt someone standing behind her.
She had heard no one come in, and assumed that it was her nephew, who had sneaked in to make her jump.
She said something like “Oh, give over,” and looked around.
She found herself looking at a tall figure dressed in a black monk’s habit, with a cowl over the head.
Its position prevented her from seeing the face.
She told me that it looked quite solid, and that—oddly enough—she felt no fear, only curiosity.
Then it vanished.

During this period, it was clear that the poltergeist was becoming more powerful.
Its drumming noises were now deafening.
And it had added a number of other sounds to its repertoire.
There were farmyard noises—the first time they heard them, the Pritchards thought a cow and some chickens had got into their bedroom; naturally, the room was empty.
“Fred” also made stertorous breathing noises outside the bedroom door at night.
I asked Mrs.
Pritchard if she ever went out to investigate.
She said: “No, we were too scared.
Besides, he’d usually switched off all the lights.” To counter this, she kept a large torch by her side in the evenings, but as often as not, this proved to be minus a battery or bulb when she wanted to switch it on.

Rene Holden was to see the “Monk”—or at least his lower half—at very close quarters.
A local spiritualist church had invited Jean Pritchard and Rene along to talk about their experiences.
They sent a car for them.
Jean played them the tape, described the events that had taken place, and then answered questions.
Later, the same car drove them back home.
Jean Pritchard invited the driver in for a cup of tea, and to see for himself the scene of the events she had been describing.
He was obviously a little nervous, but unwilling to show it openly.

As Rene Holden was crossing the lounge, on her way to sit down, the lights suddenly went out.
To reassure the man—who was obviously terrified—Rene reached out and put her hand on his shoulder as he sat in the armchair.
As she did so, she felt a hand on the back of her head.
She glanced underneath her outstretched arm and saw in the light that still came through the curtains, a long black garment, like a dressing gown, descending to within an inch or two of the floor.
Then the lights came on again, and the man in the black robe was no longer there.

The phenomena reached a kind of climax one evening when Diane had gone to the kitchen to make coffee.
The lights went out, and while Jean Pritchard was groping for the torch, she heard Diane scream.
It was dusk, and there was, in fact, enough light to be able to see their way around the house.
They found that Diane was being dragged up the stairs, and it was light enough to see that her cardigan was stretched out in front of her, as if “Fred” was tugging at it; his other hand was apparently on her throat.
Phillip and Jean Pritchard rushed up the stairs and began trying to pull Diane down again; she was yelling with terror—this was the first time it had “laid hands on her,” so to speak.
Phillip and Jean Pritchard went tumbling backwards down the stairs with Diane.
Philip has the impression that it was his thought of trying to touch the presence that caused it to let go.
He made the interesting comment: “It always seemed to be ahead of you.” Diane had to be given a large brandy.
In the light, they saw that her throat was covered with red finger marks.

It was at about this time that Jean Pritchard came downstairs one morning, and realized that the hall carpet was soaked with water.
Then, as she looked, she saw footprints on the wet surface—huge footprints .
.
.

Yet “Fred’s” activities were almost at an end.
One day, Phillip and Diane were in the lounge, watching television when Phillip looked around, and saw the shape on the other side of the frosted glass door that led to the dining room and kitchen.
Diane followed his gaze, and also saw the figure.
It might, of course, have been someone who had walked in.
Phillip opened the door, and saw the tall, black shape of the “Monk” vanishing.
He says that it seemed to disappear into the kitchen floor.

A friend of Joe Pritchard’s who had just returned from Scotland told him that the crofters there hung cloves of garlic over doors and windows to keep out “spirits.” The Pritchards had heard of garlic being used to repel vampires—as in the various Dracula films—but had no idea that it had a wider application.
Phillip volunteered to go and buy dried garlic at the local supermarket.
And this, it seems, did the trick.
The house smelt strongly of garlic—fortunately, none of them minded the smell—but “Fred” disappeared.
It may be that the haunting had reached its natural conclusion anyway.
Or that Fred’s feelings were finally hurt by this evidence of their desire to get rid of him

So the manifestations ended as abruptly as they had begun.
And Jean Pritchard was at last able to settle down to redecorating her house, and assessing the damage.
Fred had damaged walls and cracked ceilings, as well as smashing enough crockery to fill a tea chest.
It had also destroyed the grandmother clock.
Yet apart from this, it had done no real damage.
Diane seemed to be the special object of its good-natured malice, yet she told me that she felt it never meant to harm her.
It could certainly have done far more dangerous things than it actually did.
On one occasion when Mrs.
Scholes was in the kitchen, a large potato shot out of a box, flew across the room, and shattered against the wall, missing her head by a fraction of an inch.
The force required to shatter a solid potato is considerable; if it had hit her it would have been like a blow from a club.
Yet there seems to be some kind of law that poltergeists avoid doing severe physical damage to persons.
Like the school bully, they seem to enjoy causing alarm and dismay; they would be capable of swinging a cricket bat within an inch of someone’s nose after waving it threateningly.
Those who can be frightened seem to be more vulnerable than those who get angry.
Yet, like the school bully, the poltergeist seems to bear in mind that if he goes too far, it might come to the attention of the headmaster.
There may be other explanations, but this one seems to fit.

It was about ten years after “Fred” had departed that Tom Cunniff, a young man with an interest in local history, heard of the Pontefract poltergeist, and found himself wondering whether it had any connection with the local priory, which had existed from 1090 until 1539.
He went along to see the Pritchards, and wrote down their story.
He was particularly excited by one piece of information.
Jean Pritchard mentioned that a neighbor had found a book in the Pontefract public library which mentioned that a Cluniac monk had been hanged for the rape of a young girl in the time of Henry the Eighth (that is, not long before the destruction of the priory).
A little more research showed him that the gallows had been on the top of the hill where the Pritchards’ house now stood, and that their house stood on the site of an old bridge called “Priest’s Bridge.”

Tom’s theory, which he incorporated into a typescript called
Mea Culpa
, was that the monk had committed a rape followed by murder (Mrs.
Pritchard also seemed to remember that the girl had been strangled), had been executed for his crime, and now haunted the spot where he was hanged.
The attack on Diane, he thought, was basically sexual in nature.

Unfortunately for this fascinating theory, there is no evidence whatever that a monk of Pontefract was ever hanged for rape.
Pontefract is a small town, and there are a few local histories.
They are to be found in the reference section of the library, where I spent a morning in August 1980.
My search revealed that the local monks were involved in a great deal of litigation and a certain amount of violence—their virtues were war-like rather than contemplative—but there was undoubtedly no rape and murder.
Perhaps the neighbor had read the story of the hanging of a vicar called George Beaumont in the time of the Civil War, when the Parliamentarians were besieging the Royalists in Pontefract Castle; he was accused of carrying on a correspondence with the Royalists.
He, as far as I can see, is the only priest to have been hanged in the area.

But is it necessary to assume that the Pritchards were haunted by a Cluniac monk?
We must bear in mind that the poltergeist seemed prone to take up suggestions that it heard.
On its first visit, it slashed the small picture—but only after Mr.
O’Donald had remarked that poltergeists often destroy photographs.
The grandmother clock was destroyed one evening after a group of local councilors had been to the house and listened to the banging sounds.
(Joe Pritchard’s mother was Pontefract’s first Lady Mayor at the time.) Before leaving, the Mayor remarked that she was surprised that the grandmother clock on the landing was still intact; half an hour later, it hurtled downstairs and shattered.

Unfortunately, Jean Pritchard kept no diary of the sequence of events.
So we do not know whether the “monk’s” first appearance—in their bedroom—was before or after the neighbor had borrowed the book from the library.
My own guess is that it was after, and that it was inspired by what it had heard.
In the same way, the upside-down crosses appeared on the walls and doors after Vic Kelly’s attempt at exorcism.
During the course of that evening, someone probably made a remark about evil spirits and their propensity to invert the cross.

Why was the Pritchards’ home chosen?
I believe that Mrs.
Holden came close to the truth when she suggested that the underground stream may have some thing to do with it.
If Lethbridge is correct, then the “field” of running, water—and of dampness in general—records “psychic impressions.” When “Fred” first made his appearance in 1966, Phillip had just passed the age of puberty, and was therefore an ideal “focus.” Poltergeists only seem to manifest in unhappy households, and in the Pritchards’ home there was a certain amount of tension between Joe Pritchard and his son.
Joe Pritchard had been a sporting enthusiast, and he found it incomprehensible that his son should prefer books and music.
Presumably it was because of this tension between father and son that Phillip stayed at home when the rest of the family went to Devon.
Tom Cunniff’s theory—incorporated into his manuscript—is that “Fred’s” first appearance was an unconscious expression of Phillip’s resentment toward his father; but this is at odds with his view that the “ghost” was a Cluniac monk.
It seems to me altogether more probable that “Fred” was simply an ordinary poltergeist—some kind of “elemental” (we shall look more closely into the meaning of that term in the next chapter)—who found the kind of energy he needed in the Pritchards home, and proceeded to make use of it.
He was certainly one of the most inventive poltergeists on record; I can find nothing like him in the annals of this type of haunting.
The sounds, the smells, the animal noises, the heavy breathing, the bites on sandwiches, and, finally, the appearances, make him almost unique.
It is a pity that no trained investigator came on the scene while the disturbances were at their height.
The Doncaster Psychical Research Group (now dissolved) became interested in the case in the spring of 1969, and their own conclusions were cautiously skeptical—as seems to be the case with such groups the world over; but most of the phenomena had become infrequent by that time.
An investigator who noticed “Fred’s” propensity to imitate phenomena he heard discussed might have conducted a fascinating series of experiments, trying to find out just what Fred
was
capable of.
Would he, for example, have made “human dummies,” like the Phelps poltergeists, if someone had mentioned this within his hearing?

I drove up to Pontefract in late August of 1980 to interview as many witnesses as possible.
At this time, I was inclined to accept the usual view of poltergeists as “RSPK”—recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.
But on the way to Yorkshire, I spent the night at a conference in Derbyshire, and had the opportunity to meet Guy Playfair, with whom I had been corresponding for some time.
We discussed the view—expressed in
The Flying Cow—
that a poltergeist is basically a mischievous disembodied spirit.
I was inclined to be skeptical.
Guy explained his own notion of the nature of the poltergeist: “It’s a kind of football.” “Football!” “A football of energy.
It somehow gets exuded from disturbed teenagers at puberty.
Along come two or three spirits or elementals, look through this window, and see the football lying around.
And they do what any group of schoolboys would do—they go and kick it around, smashing windows and generally creating havoc.
Then, as often as not, they get tired and leave it.
In fact, the football usually explodes.
Oddly enough, it turns into water .
.
.”