This document was written in three installments by Lionel Foyster, then the Rector of Borley living in Borley Rectory with his wife Marianne It is also known as the 'Foyster Memorandum'. The installments are
The narrative is in a fairly condensed style, A letter with the manuscript said the Diary was written "chiefly to send round to members of my family.". He mentions it in 'Fifteen Months in a Haunted House'.
Foyster wrote in vague terms about dates before March, suggesting that there was no previous diary on which this was based. We can infer that the early part was being written in March 15th as he mentioned incidents happening 'when I was writing this' (he later wrote, in 'Fifteen months in a Haunted House', about March 15th, 'As I am typing a diary of events in the house....', clearly a reference to the 'Diary of Occurrences'). No part of this document is quoted in either of Harry Price's Borley books.
It seems to be a legitimate record of actual events, written no more than four months after the events described. In the middle of his Diary of Occurrences, he states, "I could declare, if it was necessary, on oath, that the foregoing is to the best of my knowledge an absolutely true statement of the facts as to what has taken place in this house since we came in."
He made several copies, as the intention was to send it round the family. At one point he refers to this, writing 'I was correcting my second copy of the first account I wrote, which normally was kept inside a bible'.
We know that many of the events that were described to him never happened, and that many of the things he recounted were the result of trickery. Much of this was due to the mysterious lodger, Francois D'Arles aka Frank Peerless or Frank Darless who was a petty conman who was having an affair with Marianne at the time, and finally left the couple penniless.
Since I have been asked by members of
our family to tell what I know of the so-called Borley ghost, and since I
think it is desirable that a record of our experiences should be preserved,
I am writing this before the details
have gone out of my mind.
I should like to say first of all that
if I had been told by anyone what I am about to relate, I certainly should
not have believed it, unless I had the very highest regard for their general
strict adherence to the truth. In fact I have during these last two weeks or
so, wondered more than once if I should not presently wake up and find it all
a dream; I regret to say that I have not done so as yet.
Again as far as imagination goes; one
can imagine, one has seen things or heard things, or felt things, but one
cannot imagine stones and bricks and books and pictures lying on the floor
and things flying about the room and a broken window when these things are
still in evidence the next day and the next week.
To begin then: We had, before
we came here, heard about my predecessor’s experience, and were rather
inclined to attribute it to his imagination or to practical jokes played on
him. When we came to Borley first of all, we looked at the rectory and other
and another possible house, and decided to live in the former, neither of us
feeling that there was a particularly uncanny or ghostly atmosphere about
it and treating the whole matter, as so many others have, as practical
nonsense.
We came into residence on October 16,
1930.
Our
first experience of anything at all out of the way was one which generally
one would have naturally have forgotten. I was quite tired one evening and
was lying down upstairs, when Marianne who was sitting in a room downstairs,
came running out to ask if anything was the matter, as she had distinctively
heard me call "Marianne Dear" more than once.
I had not called at all.
A few days after this I went with
Adelaide up to bed one night, and while I was upstairs heard someone, whom of
course I took for Marianne, walking about the hall. When I came down, I found
she had not left the room she was sitting in. I thereupon took a light and
went round the drawing-room, study, and dining-room, at that time a
wilderness of packing cases as we had not been in for more than about a
week, but could see no signs of anyone.
I did not trouble to look much
further as it was too big a job to go all over the house, and besides they
were not stealthy footsteps, as those of an undesirable intruder would have
been.
These steps were subsequently heard
several times by different people, including the baby, who more than once
when I was out said "There’s Daddy" and went with Marianne to look for me to
find no one there.
Another time a man working in the
house said, "Do you know where Mr. Foyster is? I heard him just now coming
downstairs, but I can’t find him anywhere."
Marianne knew I had been out some
time.
I cannot remember the exact date, but
we had not been in the house very long before Marianne began seeing Harry
Bull. This of course might quite well be imagination, but I mention it, as I
want to tell everything that we have experienced.
And yet it is odd if it were her
imagination that he did not appear as he looks in his last, or one of his
last photos that one can see in many of the houses in the parish, in which he
looks very thin and ill; nor as he looked when she saw him once, many years
ago, but fatter and happier looking, also not wearing clerical dress but a
rather peculiarly coloured dressing gown.
She described this dressing gown to
Mrs. Bigg, who lives at Borley Place almost opposite to the rectory and saw
him a good deal during his last illness, and she said, "you don’t mean to say
they have left that old dressing gown lying round? He wore that quite a lot
round the house during the last months".
Twice she was with me when she saw
him, but I saw nothing, which is not to be wondered at, since I am not
clairvoyant, while she comes from a psychic family.
Twice she was with baby, who once
remarked "Oh look", but what this had reference to is not known.
The last time she saw him was some
time before Christmas. She had a room upstairs then for her sitting room, and
hearing steps on the stairs, she thought it was me coming home and ran out to
meet me and nearly ran into him coming up the stairs.
She dashed back into her room, and,
for whatever reason, he has not appeared to her since. He seemed generally to
be carrying something, so possibly he wanted to communicate something to her
about his will, about which he might be uneasy, since it is said that he
talked about making another and possibly he did so and it has been mislaid.
Anyhow I must not begin to wander into conjecture.
A peculiar thing we noticed about
this time was in reference to certain smells. A wonderfully delicate perfume
would come into the house and especially into our bedroom and on the bed.
Mrs. Bigg coming in one morning remarked about it and called it lavender,
which most nearly described it. Again an odd smell of cooking would often
come through our bedroom window between 11 and 12 p.m. Also, some of our
crockery would disappear out of the kitchen in a wonderful way and presently
appear again.
The only unpleasant incident about
this time was in reference to Marianne’s wristwatch. She took it off one day
in the bathroom while she was washing, and when she went to put it on again
the bracelet had been detached from the watch, had disappeared, and has never
been seen again.
Otherwise spirits were distinctly
friendly; things we were looking for and could not find were once or twice
put out where we could not help seeing them, and Marianne one day looking for
something she particularly wanted in a great hurry, a door opened; she went
to shut it as she passed and found the thing she was looking for just inside
the room.
From about the time Marianne last saw
Harry, things were very quiet for some weeks, no sounds of footsteps even,
and we began to think that everything had died down and all mystery connected
with the house had gone.
Then, I should think it was somewhere
about the beginning of February, one day a book was left lying on the
windowsill of the inside W.C. I just thought that Marianne had left it there,
and she thought that I had.
After it had been there some days, I
thought it looked untidy and took it away. The next day another appeared.
Marianne thereupon expostulated with me about it and we then discovered that
neither of us had taken it there, (I must say now what I should have said
before, that we have had no servant since we came to the house. A woman comes
in for about a couple of hours or so in the afternoon three or four times a
week).
It was taken away and the next day
another appeared; this was repeated quite a few times, with the exception
that once a book was thrown down in the passage leading to the bathroom.
I found it there the first thing in
the morning though it was not there when we went to bed the night before.
These books are all old, over a hundred years, and most of them, though I am
not sure about all, were left by the Bulls on a shelf in the housemaid’s
pantry.
I
omitted one thing that I think took place before this. One evening we had
been sitting in Marianne’s room for some time when we discovered a bag of
lavender on the mantelpiece. We had neither of us seen it before and the only
other people who had been in the house that day were the people from the
cottage.
Marianne asked the woman, Mrs.
Mitchell, whether she had left it there, and she said she had not any in the
house. The next day it had gone, but a few days afterwards I found it in my
coat pocket while I was dressing in the morning, though it was certainly not
there the night before.
Now I come to definite dates and the
most extraordinary part of our experience, though I am told that such
experiences are by no means unknown. On Wednesday, Feb. 25th, I mentioned to
Marianne that I had missed the milk jug belonging to our breakfast set and
some other jugs recently. She said she had looked for them and a tea pot
everywhere and could not find them, and added "I wish they would bring them
back".
That afternoon I was away and she was
alone in the house, except for the baby, so she locked the back door and was
sitting in her room, from where she could hear anyone coming in by other
doors. Presently she went into the kitchen and found the jugs all together on
a little plate that had also disappeared, on the table.
She said, "I wish you would bring
back my tea pot." That evening that also had appeared.
So I said to her "You had
better ask for your bracelet," which she did, saying what she thought about
its theft in not very complimentary language.
Thursday 26th, started with our
finding two boos had been placed under our
bed during the night. Then bells started ringing. Our predecessors, the
Smiths, had been so bothered with this that they had had them all
disconnected except the doorbells and one bedroom. We had not been bothered
hitherto, except on only one occasion as far as I remember, when a single
bell had rung at midnight one night that we were late going to bed; the only
night that I remember that we had been up so late since we arrived.
But on this day, first the front door
bell rang with no one there, and then two or three other bells.
During the afternoon a whole lot of
books were deposited on the rack for warming plates over the kitchen range;
these included a number of Durham Mission Hymn books which we use at the Lent
week day services and of which we rather short, so they were a welcome
addition, some rather decrepit A & Ms and two other large books.
The restored teapot again disappeared
and one last book, or rather just a torn cover with about a couple of pages
in it, thrown on the floor of the W.C.
So far it was just amusing, but what
followed was not. I was in the bathroom and Marianne outside on the landing
with a candle in her hand, when suddenly she was hit a terrific blow in the
eye which almost stunned her, gave her a cut under the eye, which was
bleeding when she got to me in the bathroom and gave her a black eye for some
days
She was not near enough to the wall
to have collided with it. I did not know what to make of it and wondered
whether I was dreaming or not.
The next night, Friday, we had just
got to bed and the light was out, when things started flying about the room.
First something hit the wall and fell on the bed, which turned out to be a
large cotton reel that was standing on the mantelpiece when we went to bed,
and then something whizzed fairly close to Marianne’s head and fell on the
ground with a great clatter.
I lit the lamp and discovered the
head of a hammer with the broken handle in it lying on the floor.
I had not seen this hammer for some
time that I could remember, and when I last saw it, as far as I remember, it
was in a cupboard in my study.
The next day I wrote to Hilda to ask
her advice as to what to do, as she is rather an authority on these matters.
It would it would seem that this irritated the intruders.
Just
after I had finished writing we were having tea in my study. Marianne was
just going to sit on a chair when baby called out "Oh Mummy, needle" and
there was a pin sticking point upwards in the chair.
Eventually I sat on this chair and
Marianne on another. She sat down and jumped up quicker, as there was another
pin sticking up on that, and this was the chair where I had been sitting
writing just a shot time before.
Not very long after that an erection
was discovered outside the door of my study where I was sitting working, over
which I might have fallen if I had come out carrying a lamp, if baby had not
come along first to say goodnight.
It consisted of a part of an old lamp
and an ancient saucepan, neither of which Marianne says she had seen before.
A little later Marianne came to tell
me supper would soon be ready; when I came after a few minutes the long
handle of a floor polisher had been put across a door I had to go through
though it was not there when Marianne had passed the door just before.
When the latter went into the
bathroom she tripped over a tin of bath salts placed just inside the door. We
were comparatively quiet now till the next Thursday (March 5th.) I think
probably there was some bell ringing, but if so nothing worse that I can
recollect.
On Thursday night, however, we had
some more throwing after the light went out. Two things were thrown, and then
after quite an interval, just as I was going off to sleep, I was roused by
being hit on the head by my hairbrush; however it did not hurt.
On the Friday night, I was in the
bathroom and Marianne just coming to it, when I heard her give a cry and the
rattle of something skimming along the passage outside. I rushed out and
found that she had been narrowly missed by a small doorknob that must have
been thrown with some force from just behind her. This seemed to upset her a
great deal and I came to the conclusion I simply must do something.
So I went to the only man quite near
at hand who I thought would be sympathetic and might be able to help me; this
was the Rev. A.H. Sellwood, Rector of Great Cornard, in whose parish we were
staying when we first arrived from Canada.
He was very sympathetic and ready to
do anything he could; gave me some holy water from the well of Our Lady of
Walsingham and a form of service to use, since I was very anxious to do
something to help us to a quiet night if possible.
When I returned home, I found that
Marianne had been thrown at again and hurt in the neck in my absence. She was
feeling absolutely rotten, but she somehow managed to come with me round the
house and held the light while I said the prayers and sprinkled the water.
This proceeding evidently enraged the
powers of evil immediately. In the middle of it a stone nearly the size of my
fist whizzed by Marianne and hit me on the shoulder. Still we kept on and finished
what we had intended on doing, and then I had to go out and get help for
Marianne
(Her heart is not in a good condition owing to her operations she had last
year, and all this is very hard on her).
While I was gone she said there was a
great din going on somewhere, and I found that a lot of the books in her
sitting room ( I left her in the kitchen) had been pulled off the shelves,
and then when I went into the hall later on I found every picture there and
about half way up the staircase had been put on the ground and were lying
about anyhow, except one that was pulled very crooked.
Then the idea came to us, could it
possibly be a man hiding up in the attic? However that night, owing to
Marianne’s low blood pressure and the intense cold, we had our window shut:
yet things were thrown after we got in bed, which shows they did not come
through the window.
Sunday, as usual, was quiet. When we
went to bed we locked both the doors of our room, after carefully looking
under the beds, etc, but still things were thrown, first with the window open
a very little at the bottom and then a little at the top.
As there is a veranda outside the
window with a sloping glass roof, this almost precluded the idea of a human
agency.
But
it was absolutely precluded by the events of the next day, Monday March 9th
and subsequent events, (for instance they are evidently very annoyed about my
writing this and have been throwing things about the room while I am writing.
A minute or so ago a large walking stick hurtled across the room from one
corner to the other. A little time f before, a piece of coke flew across.
However, I am forestalling my narrative.)
Monday, March 9th, really was a
desperate day. Although we had men (thawing out our pipes) in the house, and
I was running round quite a lot, things went on appearing outside the kitchen
door; great heavy things I do not know where they got them from. Also stones
came rolling down the back stairs.
In the afternoon Sellwood came to see
us; I had written to him on Sunday night about the events of Saturday. He was
quite taken with the idea that it was a half crazy man in hiding, but
satisfied himself that it could not be before he left.
I was very glad that while he was
here not only did we have an exhibition of bell ringing, but also a stone
came flying down the back stairs when he was quite near and he was able to
see it almost before it had come to a standstill.
He promised to come on the Wednesday
morning with incense and holy water and to have a service and exorcism. I was
out for some time after he had gone, but when I came back things were acting
in an absolutely wild way.
Incidents:
I
do not think I have ever found it so hard to go to bed in all my life as I
did that night. They were generally especially venomous on our way up to bed
or just after we got into bed, and their having been so bad during the day,
we did not know what to expect at night.
Besides that it was getting rather
badly on our nerves, and I was wondering how much more we could stand.
At about 10 o’clock I asked Marianne
whether she could stand to stay in the house all night, or should we turn
tail and seek for an asylum at the Bigg’s. This though would have meant
telling them about the trouble, which we are most anxious to keep to
ourselves, also being suspected of incipient insanity.
Besides she felt that if she once
gave way and ran, she would never be able to face the house again; so after a
moment’s hesitation she said that she could stand it if I could, so we
decided to see it out.
Personally, I can say that I never
could have done it, if it had not been for my faith in a Higher Power, and I
am sure it was the same with Marianne.
At last we made the effort and
started up.
Adelaide had of course been put to
bed some hours before things were not so bad then. There has never been any
attempt to hurt her, and she is not old enough to understand anything about
it or to have any fear.
Since things are thrown as a rule
from behind us, one of us looked one way and the other the other going along
backwards. At the foot of the stairs Marianne somewhat collapsed for a time, but we
at last got up to the bath room and then to our bedroom without any
demonstration.
We kept a light burning in the room,
and I did not go to sleep until after 3 a.m. but there was no throwing, for
which I was very thankful, for as I have said I could not have stood much
more that night.
I woke up soon after 5; Marianne was
awake and showed me a heap of four or five stones that had been piled behind
her pillow. She thought at first they had been thrown but I think they would
have woken us up if they had been.
Tuesday was a much quieter day.
During the afternoon, while I was out, Marianne said a whole lot of things were
carried and placed in the kitchen passage; in fact, the woman who comes in
the afternoon must have spent quite a lot of time carrying stones, etc., etc.
out. I suppose she attributes most of it to the baby, as she complained one
afternoon about the baby carrying in a very heavy thing that I could only
just life; it had not been there a short time before, s o who else could have
brought it in?
She asks no questions fortunately,
and there have been no demonstrations while she has been here in her vicinity
anyhow, so far, except bell ringing, which certainly did worry her quite a
lot one afternoon.
On the Tuesday evening a stone was
thrown from inside which broke a large window in the hall; this is the only
damage of that sort that has been done so far. It was a bitter night, but we
managed to block up the hole by means of a picture (in its frame) propped up
by some of the weird things that have been carried into the house.
That night as we went to bed, a brick
was placed outside the bathroom door while we were in there, over which
Marianne tripped when she came out; she fell but did not hurt herself. There
was no more throwing that night either, but in the morning a couple of stones
were lying behind my pillow.
Punctually at 10:30, Sellwood
appeared and brought Bernard Smith and his wife with him, (B. Smith is a
distant cousin and rector of a church about 6 miles away). He had been there
the day before to borrow a censer and incense, and of course had to tell why
he wanted them. However, I was very glad indeed to see them. I had a very
nice letter from B. in the morning, in which he said he would come if he
could get away.
The house was incensed and sprinkled
from top to bottom, attic to cellar, and every room however small was done.
There were no demonstrations this time and I started off for my preaching
engagement early in the afternoon with great hopes that all would be quiet
now.
When I got back at about 6:15, I
anxiously enquired from Marianne and was disappointed to hear there had been some
bell ringing and a stone thrown at Jack Mitchell the boy from our cottage,
who does several odd jobs in the house. Though the Mitchells are in here
quite a little for one thing or another it is odd that there has been very
little happening while they have been in. Jack did have a stone thrown near
him on the Monday, but though it was Adelaide, which it certainly was not.
However "they" have evidently no animosity against the MS., why should they?
And I think this stone was intended for me, as he is about as tall as I am.
When I got back they did not waste
much time in demonstrating; first a regular peal of bells and then a stone
during the short time I was in here before going to church. The Rev. R. Flynn
who was preaching for me heard the bells, but I am sorry to say he had just
gone out of the house when the stone was thrown.
Later, after I came back, another
stone missed my head by a few inches. We were all standing in the hall.
Thursday was very quiet with the
exception of a lot of clean linen being taken out of the cupboard and being
trailed across the floor.
On Friday, March 13th, Ally Bull
came. Sellwood had suggested telling him about it; he said he thought that he
ought to know, so we consented and he told him all about it, and they both
came that morning. Ally was very keen to see a demonstration; he was partly
disappointed, but not altogether. They were just going and I was standing
outside the front door seeing them off, when we heard Marianne give a cry. We
all three rushed in, and found that she had been badly hit by a piece of
metal thrown down the back stairs. Ally seized a stick and rushed up the
stairs; Sellwood also went. Of course they found no one.
That evening while we were having our
evening meal suddenly a piece of a brick fell right on the table close by my
plate. If it had gone an inch or so to the right or the left it would have
broken something; as it was it just fitted in. Marianne had risen from the
table at the moment and had her back turned and neither of us saw from which
direction it came.
I omitted that on another night while
we were having our evening meal, I was filling up the tea pot, when a piece
of broken pottery, which must have been thrown from just beside where I was
standing, hit Marianne on the side of the head and made it bleed.
Besides a stone trickling down the
second back stairs, nothing further worth recording happened till the Sunday
stoning, March 15th, when I was writing this.
I have recorded how things began
flying about the room; the first thing was my collar which I had taken off
and laid down somewhere, suddenly hit me on the back of the neck.
The next morning when Marianne went
into the kitchen, she found the table on its back with its legs sticking up
in the air, and the contents of the store cupboard scattered all over the
place, on the floor, inside the table and even outside the kitchen.
That evening we found our bedroom
window, which had been left open, shut the wrong way round - the top of where
the bottom should be and the bottom where the top should.
Things have been very much quieter
during the week - a little throwing and bell ringing now and then, but
nothing worth speaking about. We are getting used to it anyhow and do not
mind it so much. When they start, I tell them aloud in the Name of Christ to
go out of the house and not come back. This appears to have an effect on
them.
A new thing they have started though,
is to produce horrible odours, particularly, I think almost exclusively, in
my study. It is a good thing they do it there, as I don’t mind it as much as
Marianne does.
With regard to the throwing, though,
I have been hit a few times, I have never been hurt at all, and am not afraid
that I shall be. Marianne has been hurt quite badly four times, but never
when wearing her Scapula. Twice she forgot or neglected putting them on, and
once they were on a few minutes before, but the fastening on which she had
them round her neck was mysteriously broken.
There are evidently two quite
distinct sets of spirits; - the one very inimical and the other friendly. The
night after Sellwood and Bernard Smith were here, when we went to bed we
found it perfumed, and we knew then there would be no further disturbance
that night.
But
even in the middle of the worst of things, articles which we had never seen
before mysteriously appeared in the house. A very useful small tin trunk was
discovered in the kitchen; a powder bowl, very much like one I was going to
get for Marianne for Christmas, in the bath room. (She saw it in a shop and was
most anxious to have it, but while I was buying other things, someone else
bought it, and they had not another). Also in the bathroom, a very nice
wedding ring; it was first seen there that night and was still there when I
was dressing the next morning, but a few hours later Marianne hunted for it
everywhere in vain.
On the other hand, things of ours
disappear. Another strange occurrence is that Marianne’s name was at one time
continually being written on little odd pieces of paper in a rather shaky
childish hand (Adelaide needless to say, cannot write yet). That has stopped
now as far as I know. Quite loud footsteps are still heard round the house;
if we are in separate rooms, I generally think it is Marianne and she thinks
it is me, till we ask each other; but after all these are quite harmless.
I do not think I have anything else
of interest to narrate up to date (March 23). I can only say that I could
declare, if it was necessary, on oath, that the foregoing is to the best of
my knowledge an absolutely true statement of the facts
(Signed)
L.A. Foyster
Thursday, March 23rd, 1931.
____________________
I finished my first account of
‘happenings’ at Borley rectory on Monday, March 23; I now go on from that
date.
I
had to go to bed with the influenza on that day. In the evening Marianne was
bringing me up something to eat, carrying at tray in one hand and a duplex
lamp in the other. She was just about at the head of the second flight of the
front stairs, when I heard crash of broken glass and she came in with the
lamp minus a chimney. I asked her what had happened and she just replied ‘
the usual thing." Something was thrown at her, she didn’t know what, from
just in front of her.
Next day I looked in the hall below
to see what it was, and found the inside piece of an iron - the piece that is
put into the fire to heat. I imagine, therefore, that is was thin. If it had
hit her on the head it would, if going with any force, pretty well have
killed her.
The next evening she was thrown at
several times, out on the landing outside our room; I think I counted four
times within a few minutes, but she took no notice of it; they were not big
things.
After that the house suddenly quieted
down and there was a different atmosphere.
It was, I think, the next evening
(Wed. March 25) that Mrs. Mitchell, from our cottage, told Marianne that she
had seen me standing out on the landing outside our room. One can see on to
the landing very plainly from the courtyard at night, when the blind over the
big stair window is not down. As it happened I had not been out of my room at
all, and Marianne told her so and said she must have made a mistake, but she
was very indignant and said she was quite sure she saw me there in my
dressing gown.
When the next day Marianne saw Harry Bull
again, (she had not seen him since quite a little time before Christmas) we
felt that the matter was explained, since, as I recounted in my first
account, Harry is always wearing a dressing gown and the village people say I
much resemble him. Adelaide was with her once when she saw him but evidently
Adelaide did not see him, since she ran forward to open the door, quite close
to which Harry was standing, and he stepped aside to let her come.
On Sat. morning, March 28, I heard
Marianne give a very loud cry somewhere down in the back regions. I was in
bed and jumped out and ran on to the landing and called out to know what had
happened. She told me afterwards it was something the goblins had done, but
absolutely refused to tell me what it was.
During the two succeeding weeks -
Holy week and Easter week - we had absolute peace, with the exception of
bells ringing occasionally, till late on the evening of the Saturday of
Easter week, when something was thrown after we were in bed. ( I should have
stated that Marianne only saw Harry twice, I think peaceful too, nothing
occurring that I can remember worth recording. Then another really bad ‘bout’
started on Monday, April 27th.
That afternoon (I have already told
this story in the C.L.) Marianne was getting tea ready, when I noticed a milk
jug that I thought I had seen full a few minutes before, quite empty. I asked
if it had not had some milk in it, and she said it had. This was not the
first time that a milk jug has mysteriously been emptied. I remarked we would
have a clean jug and not fill that one up again, as I would rather drink
after the cat then after those beastly things.
Soon afterwards we sat down to tea
and things began to fly. I was thrown at from between 12 to 14 times between
then and soon after 11 p.m. I was however not hurt at all. Once I just moved
my head in time to avoid being hit by a stone; another time a fairly sharp
flint actually went through my hair.
There was also some throwing in the
house. This all seemed directed at me; while I was out of the house it
stopped and the throwing in the house took place while I was upstairs.
Amongst the things that were thrown were some very curious little delft
things painted different colours and adorned with rabbits and chickens. They
are about the size of a bantams egg with the top cut off, and about the
weight of a golf ball, and so very nice things to throw, but what they are,
or where they came from, I have no idea. I have shown them to quite a few
people, but they are all equally mystified. I have now ten of these in my
cupboard. I was writing the C. L. and describing these a day or two
afterwards, when more were thrown at me.
The next really bad day was Saturday
(May 2). There was a nasty feeling about the house that evening, which both
Marianne and myself noticed.
We were sitting in the kitchen as it
was chilly and we had no other fire in the house, and we could hear weird
sounds in the front part of the house before the storm actually broke. Then
it suddenly started in and we had the worst half hour that we ever had. We
were having a late evening meal and Marianne was cooking some things for it,
when things started flying about the kitchen and Marianne had pepper thrown
into her eyes. We sat down to our meal and tried to take no notice, but it
was very nerve racking never knowing at what moment there was going to be a
bang or where a stone or some other implement was going to land. Amongst
other things thrown, a table knife hit me on the hand.
We felt we would have to do something
and we were lamenting that I had not sent for any incense, when we thought of
some creosote we had in the house. I went to get it and then Marianne came
after me. I was hit on the neck by a great piece of hard mortar on the way
there and a spanner touched my hair on the way back. However, as soon as we
got the creosote burning, we smoked them out and everything quieted down at
once. I went with it through the house, but not into any of the rooms. I
certainly should have gone into our bedroom, but foolishly did not think of
it. We paid for this omission, for we had just settled down for the night
when pepper was dropped on to our faces. This was a second dose for Marianne.
On Sunday afternoon I wrote to Hilda
and gave her an account of what had happened on the previous day. Marianne
saw the letter just before she went to evensong, but when I came back it had
absolutely disappeared and I have seen no sign of it since. This reminds me
of another event that too place during our quiet weeks. I was correcting my
second copy of the first account I wrote, which normally was kept inside a
Bible. I left this in a room by itself just for a minute and when I came back
five out of the nine pages had vanished, one was lying on the floor; the
other three were where I had left them.
Almost directly after we got back
into the house Marianne fumigated the kitchen and went round the house with
creosote. I did not think at the time that she had quite done the latter
sufficiently and soon after she had done it the bells gave a triumphant ring
as much as to say "That’s all we care for that."
Then Marianne went upstairs and a
stone whizzed by her; soon afterwards she was walking up to the kitchen door
and a jam jar came smack up against it and splintered into a hundred pieces.
So I went round again and fumigated more thoroughly and there was nothing
more. This seemed an easy way of getting rid of them, but unfortunately
Marianne hates the smell of creosote smoke almost as much as the goblins.
On Monday afternoon some people who
live between here and Sudbury and attend Borley Church, Sir George and Lady
Whitehouse, were in the Rectory. One Sunday morning several weeks ago I had
suddenly confided our troubles to them. Marianne was rather cross that I had
done so, as she thought the secret might not be kept, but they have kept it
absolutely and have been very sympathetic over the whole thing. They said
before leaving the house on Monday, that if only they knew when things were
happening, they would gladly come up to witness it. Marianne said she thought
that thrre would probably be a demonstration that night, so they arranged to
run up after they had finished dinner. They arrived about 9 p.m. and I was
able to show them a collection of six articles that had been thrown since
they were here in the afternooon. We were sincerely hoping that there would
be a demonstration while they were here - or at least I was - but nothing
happened for a time. Then we suddenly discovered thre was smoke in the house
- somewhere upstairs. We rushed from room to room looking for it and finally
discovered it in one of the unused bedrooms that at the time was locked and
had the window shut. The room was full of smoke when we went in; after it had
cleared a bit we found that the skirting board and floor on one side of the
room was on fire. I must explain that there was absolutely no natural means
for them to have caught; there was no fire nor flu anywhere near them at all,
and there had been no one in the room at all that day as far as we know. We
poured water on and soon got it out; we were all rushing round with lamps and
there was quite a little confusion for a few minutes; during the confusion I
was hit somewhere on the back with a stone, but no one had the chance of
witnessing this.
Soon afterwards though, we were all
in the room where the fire had been and a stone was thrown in. Sir George
instantly picked it up and kept it as a memento and a witness.
Lady Whitehouse had brought some
lavender stalks to fumigate the house with in preference to creosote; she now
got these, lit them and ran round the house with them. I think she was a
little bit chagrined when they took no notion of the smoke but continued to
throw stones. I don’t know how many were thrown, but quite enough for the
Whitehouses to be able to witness to the fact that they had seen stones
thrown, for which I was very glad.
After a bit I think the lavender had
some effect and the throwing stopped. Marianne was quite upset by all this
and the Whitehouses urged us to leave the house for the night and to go and
stay the night with them. Lady W. said they had no visitors just then and
they were used to having the house full. Finally we accepted, packed up a few
things, bundled the children up in blankets, and went down in their car,
arriving there about 11.30 p.m. We intended to come back the next day, but
Lady Whitehouse would not hear of it; we intended again to come back today,
but again she would not hear of it. We come up here - at least Marianne and I
do - during the day, but go back there for the night.
One evening we were here till after
nine, but there has been no trouble at all since Monday. The goblins have not
even thrown at me while I have written this, but then one does not know when
there is going to be another outbreak.
I have written to the Bishop of
Colchester, who is also Archdeacon of this part of the diocese, and I am
hoping that he will be over to see me in a day or two, since he said he was
coming to see me after Easter, but I do not quite know what he can do.
Another thing I should mention. I
believe I stated in my first account that the word "Marianne" was at one time
often found written on odd scraps of paper; Lady W. suggested that we should
write "What do you want?" underneath one of these, which I did. The next day
there appeared what I read as "Rest", but which Marianne declares is Pest,
(It might be either, I think) underneath, while on another paper appeared
‘Marianne help me’. I wrote ‘How?’ underneath that, but no answer has as yet
been given.
(Signed)
L.A. Foyster
Thursday, May 7th, 1931.
____________________
We had a very quiet time for some
weeks; now and then something or other was thrown, but we at once burnt
incense and there was nothing more, so we really began to feel we knew how to
get any trouble stopped.
During this time there was also some
very mysterious writing on the walls. I mentioned writing on papers before.
‘Marianne’ appeared one day on the wall of the passage leading down to the
bathroom. It looked as if the writer had been pulled away just while he was
finishing, since the end of the ‘e’ went up in the air and the ‘i’ was not
dotted. I wrote underneath it ‘What can we do?’ but no notice was taken of
it. Later a little further along the passage was written ‘Marianne please
help get’ and then a dash as if again someone had been pulled away. Later
still further along the passage was written ‘Marianne get help (something
undecipherable) bother me’ (or bothers me). Marianne wrote underneath ‘I
cannot understand, tell me more. Marianne’. Something was then added
underneath but subsequently written over.
Some time later, was written one day
while we were in the house, ‘Get light mass and prayers here’. When we first
saw it, the ‘here’ was not written and then a short time afterwards we found
it added. After reading this we could see that evidently either this or
something very much like it was originally written at Marianne’s request, as
mentioned above.
On Saturday evening, June 6th, Lady
Whitehouse brought up a nephew of hers who was very much interested in
Poltergeistism, also her son to see what there was to be seen and naturally
there was a lot of talk in the house on the subject.
Soon after they had gone a stone or
something was thrown. Marianne had not been at all well that week and she had
a very bad turn on Sunday morning. We decided to have the doctor and she was
moved into the spare room next to ours, where there are twin beds. The doctor
ordered her absolute rest and quiet and freedom from all kinds of worry.
Ivy Bull had been asked to tea that
day, since she was coming to evensong, it being the Sunday nearest to the
anniversary of Harry’s death, which took place on the 9th. After tea she was
asking me about what had been happening in the house, which someone had told
her about, so again we were talking about it for quite a time, but needless
to say I did not say anything about Harry himself.
Later on in the evening, trouble
started. There was some throwing, and twice when Marianne was asleep or just
going off to sleep - sleep being the thing she required just then above
everything - a chair was thrown over in her room. Once - I forget whether
then or the next morning - a door of the wardrobe suddenly burst open and I
think a stone or something was thrown towards the bed.
Throwing in the house was witnessed
by Mr. Pearless, the father of the little boy who is staying with us as a
companion for Adelaide, who was down for the day.
That night I was very tired and slept
soundly, but Marianne who was awake quite a lot, said there were very weird
noises going on in the house. She called to me to try and wake me once, but
did not succeed. It sounded as if someone was walking about on the landing
and once there were knocks on the door.
The next morning, I heard quite a
loud noise soon after 10. a.m. but since we had never had anything so early
from the Goblins, I put it down to the puppy. Soon after, however, I heard
two small bangs one after the other on the staircase, and going back to look
discovered a pair of my shoes which had been in our room, lying there.
Not long afterwards there was a
tremendous bang, and I found our dirty clothes basket, full of clothes, about
half a dozen shoes, and some other things lying in the hall or on the stairs.
Young Whitehouse had asked to be told
if there were any demonstrations while he was staying in these parts, so I
went across to ask Mr. Bigg, who lives opposite the Rectory and who I knew
was going into Sudbury, to leave word as he passed their house.
I had an uncomfortable feeling that
something would happen while I was out, and I was right. When I came back, I
found a great conglomeration of things lying on the stairs and in the hall,
including clothes, books, etc. I asked Marianne what had happened and she
said that and awful noise had suddenly started up in our room ( the next to
the one she was in ), and she thought they were going to take the bed out, so
she got up and went in there, whereupon it had stopped.
I went in and found the room in
confusion, a small table thrown over, things all about the place, the
mattress turned over and the bed had been slightly moved. I left things as
they were so that young Whitehouse could see them when he came, and the
doctor arrived to see Marianne while they were still lying about.
I
apologized to him at the door for the condition the house was in and told him
we had a Poltergeist in the house, if he knew what they were, which he said
he did, but afterwards he confessed he thought they were painters. However,
he concealed his surprise while going upstairs very well and Marianne
enlightened him further.
As he came down the poltergeist very
kindly gave him an exhibition of throwing, which interested him very much.
Soon afterwards Edwin Whitehouse arrived and also witnessed throwing.
While he was here I was talking to
him upstairs when we heard a cry from Marianne’s room, which I had only just
that moment left, and rushing there we found her lying on the floor with the
mattress on top of her; she had been ‘turfed’ as we call it at Marlborough.
Later in the afternoon, she was
asleep and things seemed pretty quiet and I left her to go down to look at
the kitchen fire, when I heard a cry again and once more she had been turfed.
The Whitehouses were coming up that
evening for a Parochial Church Council meeting, and Lady Whitehouse hearing
from Edwin what had been happening, decided that she simply must be taken out
of the house and she planned to take her down in their car after the meeting
was over. She came into the house before the meeting started just to see how
Marianne was and to unfold her plans, and just before she arrived, throwing
started in with a will; bang, bang, every few seconds, so she urged us to let
her go at once (the clothes basket, by the way, which I had carried up, had
been thrown down again ).
While preparations were being made,
she was left alone for a short time and was turned out of bed a third time.
So Sir George took her down in his car and I kept the meeting waiting in the
vestry till he returned. The children went with them and I went down with Sir
George after the meeting was over.
The doctor was very emphatic that
Marianne should not be subjected to the strain of sleeping in the house till
after she had had a good change, so she has only spent one night here since
up till now - June 24th. I have spent a few nights when Pearless has been
here to keep me company, but there has been no more violence shown, only
things moved, the garden door unlocked once or twice, and the last lot of
writing that I have already referred to.
Possibly, since I have written this
in the house, there may be a little demonstrating to-night; writing or
talking about it seems to stir them up. I should have mentioned that we burnt
incense on Sunday and Monday, June 7th and 8th, but it did not seem to have
very much effect. For one thing, the windows being open, it soon all blew
awake - I mean the smoke did.
P.S. July 6th, 1931.
Some people have been foolish enough
to almost accuse Marianne of being at the bottom of all the trouble we have
had in the house - of doing it just for a joke - and this upsets her very
much, Hilda is very anxious that I should produce instances of occasions when
it was quite impossible for her to have been responsible for throwing and to
add it to this account. There were several occasions, namely:-