8
NEW CHINA SERIES
FARTS TODAY
Tis 16 years now sinco Borley Rectory eaught firò and WILS levolled to the
ground, but it would seet that ghosts are non-inflam- mable.
For curious, unexplained things are still happening on the site of that gaunt and rambling, building on the Essex and Suffolk bor- der.
It seems dctermined to main-
tain its reputation of being the
ment haunted house in England.
t
t
The sensational, frequent, extraordinary varied manifes- tations which were reported the Rectory
over a period of more than 30 years remain lo- day as much a challenge to the suplic as they ever were.
For there a no falling back on the usual explanations DESTI atributing the phenomena
10
Jonel ur frightened hound maids, There is far too much documentary evidence.
His possible to trace dozens of "observer" who spent T+ night at Borley. Their signed statements of all they witnessst and heard can be examined Detalls are available to the in- vestigator of many of the 2,000 pelfergelet manifestations corded between 1930 and 1935,
no-
And If you want more up-to date testimony you have only to travel the 70 miles from Lindon to Borley, as I did recently, to talk to the people living in this
stle Bumiet of
soils
Fm the rectar, the Rev. A. Henning, and from the mun who now
owns the land CAPT which the Rectory stood. you may hour of mysterious fool- #tops, ap apparition, #trange smells, and of organ notes from Borley Church when the church was locked <mply, And months.
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21964.
THE WORLD'S STRANGEST
The Haunting of
STONIES
BORLEY RECTORY
Just across the pond from the medlátval church the Rectory was scrcoued by a hedge and a belt of high frees, which east their shadows over the large arid gloomy garden. If ever house looked haunted It Borley Rectory.
By FELIX BARKER
"
WJ3
CHURCH
ulier
Orst
Twenty-three years was finished there is the
recorded Mory of the super- natural-something rather vague ghastly satsteps"--but major manifestation
about the Orst belongs to this century.
the
Fifty-four years ago on Wed- besday-July 20, 1900-three Ethel, daughters of the rector, Fredn and Mabel Bull hyd Just returned to the Rectory,
from garden party. It was bill quite light as they walked across lawn to the house. Simuliage- ously, they say, they saw the figure of a black, with bowed head,
rusi drozed in her hands clasped as in prayer.
One of those sisters is living to this day in Sudbury, two and half miles away. A woman h her eighties,
Mus Ethel Bull still maintaibs the story of that evening. Repented ques-
ang cannot shake her asser-
recent
Bortey Rectory, BA ugly red brick house with snore
than 2 rooms and without main water or electricity, was bull In 1803 by the Rev. H. D. E. Ball, who had the living of Borley, (£298 a year) and children.
May 29, 1943. In að álfeript to lay the ghost öf, the dun the Rev. A .C. Henbilia Burled in consecrated grojną, a caskel containing part......ör, A. female skull found under the cellár at the Rectorys
LET'S HAVE
SOMETHING SPECIALĮ
To a man, with a discerning palate. whisky is not merely & Scotch ?, H Jooks for the fince points and symas
his preference 4, White Hoës.
· Every drop is perfected and my be
ured until it'in as fine a whisky
as ever came out a Sobijan
14
tion and if asked whether she can recall how she fli. tho replies, "Certainly scared stim."
GHOST-HUNTER
FOUR
w19
HOUR months later she saw the nun again, and during the next 20 years Edward Cooper and his wife servants of the
•Banity GREEN
COACH
DICH HOUSES
B
RECTORY.
KUR'S WALK
The shaded area shows the position of the now-demolished Rectory. (A) Is where Mr Williama heard the footsteps. (B) Is approximately the site of the chicken-house,
which was burned down soon after he saw the apparition from the window. (C) Marks the spot where the Bull klaters
saw the man in 1900.
as a haunted house almost en- tirely rests.
Price, who during his career unmasked a number of fraudu lent spiritualists, stened to and In Borley Rectory all the mani- festations of which for years he had held up the supernatural to publie derision.
Bullfátállyalstated: that they share too bad, seen the bug Alto- gether. 18 people claim to have seen her.
:
According to the Coopers they were subjected to almost night- ly disturbances during the three years from 1910 to 1919. They heard an invisible dog padding about the cottage which they occupied near the Rectory; they saw the black shape of a man In their bedroom; and one night -tite fit of three accounts of this phenomenon Edward Cooper looking out of his bed- roons window saw a coach drive nolculesaly through the Rectory farmyard unimpeded by hedges or buildings.
Ho did not spend much time in 1929, but when the Rectory was put up to let in 1837 he decided to teme it. He kaw the perfect opportunity for a complete Investigation under "controlled conditions." and within a week of taking up his
night on February 27, 1939, an oil lamp was knocked over by a falling pile of books in the main hull, Within a few minutes tenancy he advertised in The the house was ablaze. Tie roof Times for "responsible Der- fell in before the Sudbury fire sons of leisure and intelligence, brigade could save II. Intrepid, critical, and unbiased” to "Join a rota of observers in a year's night and day in vestization of alleged haunted house in Home Countles."
From June, 1937, to May, 1938, 40 observers--among them on Army colonel, a doctor, an engineer, and an official of the Bank of England-kept watch in the cheerless, unfurnished
house and took turns to sleep on П camp bed in the Blue Recm, tuppes** centre of th haunting.
and
But even in destruction Borley Rectory added to its legend. People were reported as saying that they saw "Agares moving in the Bames near the Blus Room window," and several villagers told Harry Price that they saw two people in cicules
one a girl, the oiler a "form-, less figure-leaving the blazing' house.
NEW EVIDENCE
To Hlorry Price they sub- no a great extent Harry Price mitied reports of muffled
kept a monopoly on news footsteps, dragging noise:
about Borley by making all his the smell of lucense; there wêre
observers sign u paper promis. innumerable poltergeist
move ing not to divulge anything seen merits of books and other ob-
or heard during their watch. jects; most
pheno- So persistent
when his book, "The Mast of all were inexplicable flaunted House mena
In England," pencil.marks which appeared appeared in 1940, giving an as- on the walls.
BORLEY ABLAZË
in
count of all the phenomena great detail, it caused something of a sensation.
Could all these observers have
been
responsible duped? Eo many signed state- Could ments be doubted? It certainly secined caster to accept the idea that Borley, was haunted,
NOxford Rhodes Scholar, S. G. Welles, describing in detail a "luminous patch" which op peared in the Blue Room for about a minute between 8.15 and 8.20 p.m. on February 16, When it had gone Mr Welles and three friends (not in the room at the see it the same sert of time) carried out careful tests to
light! could be produced artificially; They decided is could not.
Rectory-without any of
After Price der Berley) cul is...
observers having seen the num
his
Price, However, had his critics, who were only prevented from challenging him publicly by fear of legal action. During hts HI- time the Rectory was largely accepted in the public mind as
genuinely haunted house.
But with his death in 1048 it was taken by Captain W.. the Society for Psychical Re- Gregson, but his tonancy was search decided to make an in~~ destined to be short. At mid- dependent investigation of the
haunting. They began d. sys- tematic checking of all Price's papers about Barley.
I understand that they have Interviewed a number of the ob servers who kept watch at the Rectory and are imposing for more critical standards on their testimony.
Theli
report cannot be anti- cipated, but when it is publish- cd it may be that some of the phenomena at Borley will seem rather less supernatural than they appear in the pages of Mr Price's books,
But whatever the Society's findings, Borley's reputation la not likely to fade quickly. 11 has taken too firm a grip on the six public imagination, and years after Harry Price's death the ghosts of the now demolish-
ed house are not laid,
Only last werk 1 stood in the grown Jong grass which has
over the foundations, of the Rectory and talked with a man who, for the last three and a half years hna lived in the coachhouse .which cacapod the fire.
fact,
Mr WUlia is retirer en gineer who keeps chicken. form there. Quici, matter-of- and the least mystleal person I have ever met, he is not normally at all forthcoming about the haunting. Publielly, knows, will I only bring more coach-loads of curious sightseers inore medlums who will fall rances by the Nup's Walk But he
frankly and
he
∙any
gula unent he has experienced
have
no normal explains. "
ite told me of how he had sometimes woken in the night to find a light-a "glow" ho called it--hovering in his bed room and that once he heard quite distinctly footsteps follow
ing him across the courtyard at
Language, it is often bellerady is the biggest obstacle to undefitand- ing Bbivian Hotrans. -It is often a source of great embarrassment to trav ellers. But there is one language that is being Increasingly spoken
.
They Nearly
All Speak English
OURISTS in Swedon
aro almost certain to rocolve arbply in English from anybody they stop in the street and ask for information. English is part of the curriculum in all Swedish schools from the pubile elementary up-
wards.
the back of his liousa. He turn- ed round but there was no one
In a crowded bus one day behüjd him. Suspecting a trick, he ran round the corner of the heatd. an Englishwoman house, Still no one. -task: "Does anybody hero Had he been the hunt Me spenk Englisht? I think the Williams took his time before conductor has given me the answering, and tlien said slowly: "Well, I think perhaps I may wrong ticket. Before I I was in one of thecould make my voice heard, chicken uses at the time I about half of the bus had was broad daylight. And, I EDW a figure pase the window-just offered their services
interpreters. 'a vague outline really,
a man or couldn't zay woman-and then disappear.
"When? Oh, lost summer that was--Just before the chicken-house was burnt down.”
have.
Was
You:
Next Wednesday: acquired,
The Man They Couldn't Hang
The Rectory seen from the lawn before the fire. The window of the haunted Blub Room is the centre ens on the first Boar. The Nun's Walk is just out of view on the left, Photo- graph taken 1923.
Germans In Sussex Get An
Steyning, Sussex,
17
E retired farmer put Another 50 Germans start a school torm in Britain-at the the question in the taxpayers' expense. bar of the George Inn in an educational experiment that costs £30,000 a year. They are guests of the Foreign Office Desplic thesso and many other strange alories about
at Steyning. "80.000 Borley, It was not, as for as 1 year," he said, "for what?" He got an echo from the postman: "Waste of money, call it. And we're pay-
can discover, until 1929 that the public at large heard of the haunting.
WDS
On June 10 a report appeared in a national newspaper about Ing." the Rectory and next day there arrived at Borley, a small, en- The taxi driver disagreed, thusiastle
man in his middle «I'm all for it. We spent fortler with a slight slammer and pri already established re- £15 millióit a day on the putation as a ghost-hunter. This wir. If this abope war even Harry Price, on whose for five years, it's cheap. books, articles, and broadcasts Anyway, the money stays in of the Rectory this country. We got the
benefit."
The old argiment was live gene. For another 80 Germans have come to the Foreign Office centre of Wilton Park. They pro guests of the Government... at the expense of the British taxpayer.
the reputation
A
They will attenul a four-week ression of lectures and dish ciklons, od British policies, polities, economies and industry, held
House at Wiston mellowed, mener, dating back to le 18th century, settled in a curve of the Stissoi, Hljs.
Wildons Park; as the former rightly mid, colta,
a Year. The genie, was startet in Buckinghamaning b the Socialista IN, I948, för German! Prisoners of wit.
£30,000
The Tories, moved it to Sussex in 1981, and kept it going for
German civilians on o fow Park, and later into the Ger- reprentatives of other Eura inan Federal Parliament, under peace countries,
the alias of Fronz Richter.
Old School Tie
Let Dr Koeppler fármici's aütıllan:
In
The time-fablo “ls heavy, answer the "£30,000 a, one week, sesalon members are expected to attend flyo sutorials, 15 lectures and discussions, with evening meetings, and
or
:
28
Indeed, it fe dificult for the American or British resident (or tourist) to learn Swedish tor, whenever he attempts to use what Swedish He has the Swede he is nddressing will answer in Eng- Ish. And the English will
· undoubtedly
beller be much than the. Swedish used by, tho Englishman.-Cyril Marshall: ASKING FOR IT
FOR the
English opoaking fourist to attempt to spent Spanish and -expect to be allowed to muddle his way through a sentence or two, in shy of the ingfor hotels in Spain, is arking for trouble. 4. In the first bloce he is bound to attend the walter or the porter or the hotel manager. *most each one of whom has probably spent many of his lefsure hours during the winter studying English and has looked forward to the arrival of tho first icurists so, that he can "try out what he has learn TANK
Even in the smaller particularly an the tourist- minded. Costa Brava--the Eng- lish speaking tourist has to be a determined man if he is to insist on altempling Spanish at all costs. Once the Spaniards About him have realise his intention, however, then
they will do all they can
A week la o Spanish hotel, in fact, with the staff on your side helping you wade through your dietlonary and phraso book. and you will learn for better Spanish (and with the right pronunciation, too) than In two months at night school- Dapline Crecr.
people.
year-for what?"
"Britain and Germany have four fought against each other in two make two visits to British in- SECOND LANGUAGE world wars," ho sald, "One attitions
sort of ond fartar in those wars was that enother.
VERY many people in the the Germans, dll not know what
larger towns In France Dr. Koëppier cannot point to Britain was.
any big results of eight years learn to speak English organ- "For the last 50 years a be- work and a quarter of a million other foreign language and to So far more than 6,000 Ger-
(Roessler was unmasked and let has grown up in Germany pounds. It is not the sort of road, il; probably more French mans have attended cessions of gapled for 18 months in 1952, which simply is not true that thing, that, chown immediately, people speak, a one week, three weeks, or four
for falsifying documents and Britain la decadent, old, with an he says. But there are more and
ihan do other progn language violating the electoral lava,) Empire breaking bp, and jealous wets. The total bill is ezarly a
There hra tourist areas like us more people In Germany whờ, tjuarter of a million pounds.
Another was General Adolf of a strong Germany.
world to ullend acasions,
Brittany, the Riviera, the Nor- This session is Number 1. Kuntzen, one of Hitler's tank
division commander,
""second language" who "We want to show the Gere over one English tradition because of the business interest. Ho smiles a little sheepishly mandy coast, where English has
become Foland, France and German fought in
mans what Britain 14 That shb Mitch has gone bank to Get industrialists, journalists, local a Knight's Cross. Questa? Thoy
are politicians, against the Russians, and won
can be a good friend, but
In other areas like Alsac He k
French and Lorraine,
people Councillors, school teachers -
How dangerous enemy, That it is une tatly. The Golmans have de- which wise to take up arms against Wutonian tic. It is navy blue, French and German, or on the her of the committeo
STLanded and got an Old are bilingual from childhood in officers people in public life who help will exfect
for
any us.
Since Britain must live to ferm, public opinion
German army.
with with Europe, it is in here Seme
Bearing, the of them. served Hier's
terests that tha, Germans should Panzer armies. Sopiz suffered in his Manteuffel spent three weeks at General Hassó, · von
bridge leam to be good. Europeans.” bonecatration camps.
Wilton Parkt this summer, in a
Who
are
these
of
"
→
When the
special session for German MPH. Heavy Time-table first batch elvilians from Germany were Since his return he has › np- invited in 1947, members were pealed, for the formation of a screened to, minke they German army under NATO, were confirmed anti-Nazis,
surc
No Screening
Warden
Wilton Park
gold dilcids
bicoat-of-arms, a
Spanish frontier-French
north
Britain and Spanish.
objective dis-
Nurmounted by a lily
thing
17178, Bd
English
and
Numbers of people in
thaye lozent samo
the principal language taught...
compulsory IA 511 secondary schools. and the standard is high. Moreover, when the French start learning foreign language they usually keep it up.
Adult pupils learn either st night. school or from home Frimers, and they all take the first opportunity to visit the quare interests them. particular country whose · Jan- The reputed "laintss" of the Ariglo-Saxon to learn any other language never seems to strike the Tranch; ut least have never heard them · speak **'die... paragingly, of the fact-Stephen
NOT A SO GOODA
this," he added, figa "A modern, tank coolz come
aika £40,000, Wilton Pirk The Wilton Park method is is at least as good security:?? Host to the Germans is the to collect as representative Dr. Koeppler may be right.
of Wilton Park, Dr Heinz Koeppler,
group of Englishmen as possi But there were some Germans _0 broad- ble to advise, lecture and hold who knew shouldered, brown-haired
Britain before the discissions with the Germans. Inst war, Herr von Rib
Ribbentrop, torlin of 42, who went to talg land 1932 on a scholarship to
for InstanceI Oxford. When Hitler came to Socialist Sir Harold
On the Academic Council ero Von
went Ribbentrop
Lo power Dr Koeppler chose Eng- Tory Tard Aberdare, and Dr. weeks, but for a year, Later he Nicolson, achicol in England, not for four land, and became naturalised.
Robert Birley, the austere head- sold us champage.. Ho WRLS": At Wirion House, rented it master of Exon Discussion German Ambassador, In London £600 a year from Sussex land- leaders have. Included, Cabinat for three, vents, s One such student of Brits owner Mr. John Goring, Dr Minister Sir David Madewell He was the man who told Blowns | Fritz Rotselera Koeppler has a permanent staff. Fyfe and Mr Harold Macmillan. Hitler: "Britala" won's fight,” former houd of the Nazl heads of 29 (six tutorial, seven admini-, pillowpties Esil Russell," Anan- quarters i Saxony, who strative, 10 domestic), His saldry, cien Lara Plercy," und : MPs of smuggled himself into • Wilton is £1,375 a year.
all parties.
Now there is no such screen Ing. If Nozla est elected to public office, or put in positlong of muthority, Nazis.come to Wilton Park..
JOHNNY HAZARD
LEHE HUMAN (SCENT DRAWBS FROU FROU
| GLOBIA: TO HIS PREY?!!!
BY
Mary Hewat Coulter: 19
thar their E
aro less
moment English”. ite), but tho net usually about de effet average Britan pen-of-my-aunt
"All good things Hävo d-dadiel
fin Scotch the name li White: Harst
WHITE HORSE