The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Terrifying True Story of the Battersea Poltergeist

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

Between 1956 and 1968, a quiet house in Battersea, South London became the center of one of the strangest and most disturbing poltergeist cases in British history. For over a decade, a young girl named Shirley Hitchings was plagued by unexplained knocks, flying objects, and chilling messages from an unseen force. In this deep-dive documentary, we explore the terrifying true story of the Battersea Poltergeist — through real accounts, media coverage, and theories that still divide believers and skeptics to this day. Support the channel with Patreon - www.patreon.com/thetapelibrary Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in audio form on all of your favourite podcast providers. Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. Additional footage and audio from Evanto, Artgrid, Epidemic Sounds, Singularity, Midjourney and Pexels. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and the youtube audio library. All other footage used under fair use. Chapters 00:00 The Battersea Haunting 02:42 Welcome to The Tape Library 04:05 The Key 06:31 Crash in the Night 14:21 It Speaks 17:02 He Has Arrived 28:13 Harold Chibbett 36:36 Leaving Notes 42:50 The French Prince of Battersea 48:47 Seeing the Future 53:13 James Dean 58:47 Farewell Donald 1:04:03 What Really Happened? 1:15:45 Wrapping Up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who are you? Can you tell us who you are? I am from France. I drowned. I'm here for sure. It was just like any other day on Wycliffe Road. The quiet residential street in Battersea, a district in the south-west of London. Lily was folding her now dry clothes on this crisp March afternoon, when she suddenly heard a commotion.

She walked into the front room, glanced out the window, and were shocked by what she saw. Fire. Her next-door neighbour Wally was standing in the street, desperately trying to beat out the flames that were engulfing, what appeared to have once been a bed sheet, but was now a smouldering heap of darkened cloth. He was screaming in pain as he did,

the flames licking at his hands and arms. Lily rushed to her phone to call the fire brigade before running outside to help Wally. By the time she was out there, a small girl, crowd had begun to form. The flames were out but Wally was in a bad way. His hands burnt as he cowed on the street in pain. She tried to comfort him, telling him help was on the way, but she knew the fire brigade or an ambulance wouldn't help. Not really. Sure they would treat Wally's burns, but his family was still in sight. And once he was treated, he too would have

to return. Lily looks up at the house he had just come running out of. Number 63. The house of the Hitchings family. But not just their home, not anymore. They shared it with a young boy, apparently. Lily closed her eyes and immediately she could hear the banging, that constant sound that would reverberate through the walls. She thought about the boy, the boy who apparently drowned a long time before any of them lived on Wycliffe Road. Yet somehow, he was there. And he was the reason. Wally Hitchens was lying in the street in pain. I hope you're all ready for a weird one. I only had a passing knowledge of the Battersea Poltergeist case, but it wasn't until I really delved into this one, that I realized I really

knew nothing about it. I feel most of the write-ups and videos on this case, case don't really do it justice because I think this might be one of the strangest haunted house cases I have ever covered for the tape library and it shares more than a few similarities with our good friend Jeff the Talking Mongoose. As with that one, this story gets into some very odd and unbelievable areas at times but just go with it and I promise you will have a good time. Depending on your point of view this is a story that jumps between genuinely terrifying to hilarious, to just flat out bizarre and back again. Don't forget when you finish the episode, please do let me know your theories on the case in the comments below.

It's always fun to start a conversation on these strange topics. And with that out of the way, it's time to get into one of the strangest poltergeist cases of all time. So get yourself a warm drink or a cold one for all you people out there who can't handle the heat. Dim the lights and get comfortable. This is the bizarre tale of the Battersea Poltergeist. Welcome to the tape library. It was January, 1956. Shirley Hitchens, a 15-year-old girl, had just returned home to their semi-detached house on Whitecliffe Road.

She didn't notice it at first, as she put away her belongings for the day. But then the light caught it, a little glimmer from her pillow. She walked towards her bed and was confused by what she saw. There, laying on her bed, was a key. A key she did not recognise. Around two inches long, silver and a barrel style, it looked like something you would use to open a drawer or cupboard. But where had it come from?

Shirley took it downstairs to show her parents, Wally and Kitty. Neither of them recognised it, but Wally set about trying to solve the mystery. He walked around the entire house, trying every single cabinet, drawer and door that he could find that had a keyhole in it. But it didn't work on any of them. Everyone went to bed that night, except Wally, who sat up in his kitchen, finishing a cup of tea. As he did, he played with the key between his fingers.

Curious as to where he had come from, Wally placed the key down on the kitchen table, turned off the lights and went to bed. The following morning, Shirley asked why he had given it back to her. Wally wasn't sure what she was talking about. Shirley said the key. When she woke up, it was laying on her pillow again, next to her head. Shirley lived in this house with her parents, but the property was effectively split into two, and upstairs and downstairs.

Upstairs Shirley's grandmother, Ethel, lived with another relative, who appears to have been Shirley's adopted brother. In the various retellings of this story he has been referred to as either Mark or John, seemingly not wanting his true identity to be connected to the case. Shirley actually had her bed in a parent's bedroom, something she kept a secret from those who knew her. This was because she was prone to sleep walking. At night they would lock the door and know that they were there to stop Shirley from

hurting herself if she did get up in the night. They didn't have much, but Shirley said she had a good childhood and loved her family very much. It would be her teenage years that would be the dark period of her life, but not due to her family. The noises began on the 27th of January, not long after the first appearance of the key. The family hadn't long gone to sleep, but they were all awoken by an odd sound they hadn't heard before, a banging. Wally would later describe it as almost like the sound of water pipes bubbling, but loud. Very, very loud. frustrated but unable to identify where it was coming from Shirley decided to head up to

her grandmother's room to get some sleep hoping the sound would be quieter upstairs it was but Shirley still didn't get any sleep it was the strangest thing but she said she just couldn't get comfortable her covers kept being pulled off leaving her cold she couldn't figure out how it was happening it almost felt like someone was pulling them off the bed. The next night it happened again. As soon as everyone went to bed, tapping. Tapping that grew louder and louder. Shirley said it sounded metallic with a sort of hollowness to it. It came back the next night and the night after. It was loud enough that the neighbours began to complain. It got so bad at one point that Shirley claims the police were called.

Then Shirley began to hear it during the day as well. But no one could find any source for the sound. It didn't seem to come from one place. Sometimes it felt like it was in the walls. Then the floors. Other times it sounded like it was coming from their beds or from other furniture. It became impossible to pinpoint. Over time the sound seemed to morph.

It wasn't just a tapping sound now. It was often accompanied by something. that could only be described as scratching. After a weekend of being kept awake by the sounds, Wally, a train driver for the London Underground, went to work on the Monday looking tired and troubled. Wally was an honest man, to a fault as we'll see later in this story, and when people asked him why he was so tired, he explained the whole strange story. Everyone had their opinions, some sort of plumbing issue, rats, the nearby Battersea power station somehow causing rumbles. But one man had a very different opinion. Henry Hanks was also a train driver,

but his beliefs had brought him to the spiritualist movement and he was a practicing medium. Henry believed he could help Wally with his issue, but didn't think it was a practical one. He thought it was a spiritual problem. Wally was a member of the Church of England, devoutly religious but didn't really entertain the idea of ghosts and such. He especially was very cautious about getting caught up in what he saw as Henry's slightly quirky beliefs, but something about the way Henry spoke got through to Wally. He thought if he could really help, then what was the harm? One week later, Henry visited the property with his wife and they conducted a seance in the downstairs bedroom, the place that had been the main hotspot for the sound.

Henry and his wife didn't witness anything strange. But as soon as they left, the banging and tapping sounds began again. Henry returned ten days later to try something else, this time putting himself into some sort of trance in an attempt to communicate with whatever was in the home. But after an hour of trying, he admitted defeat and said that he hadn't made contact with anything. The sounds continued.

The neighbours that shared a wall with the Hitchens' property you got the brunt of it, being convinced that Wally was pulling up floorboards in the middle of the night. The sounds carried so far that even neighbours three or four doors down would complain. One of these neighbours was their close friend, Lily, who they brought into the house to let her hear the sounds for herself. Lily was an old school friend of Kitty, and she would often come to help out the family due to the fact that Kitty was largely confined to her wheelchair due to arthritis. She became one of the most regular witnesses outside of the family to the events. Lily offered to let Shirley come and stay with them one night, so the young girl could get

some rest. But strangely, the sounds followed, being heard throughout the night in Lily's home. A vicar from a nearby church came to visit. He witnessed the tapping and banging sounds, but left as confused as everyone else. And neighbours would constantly drop in to catch up on the latest goings on in the Hitchings home. But the incident at Lily's wasn't a one-off. Shirley wasn't free when she left the house. The sounds would follow her. She would hear them on the bus. She would hear them when she was at work. She worked at a large department store in the West End and her colleagues would complain about hearing the sounds around the building when Shirley was there. Objects would go missing and she would be blamed. Her colleagues were scared of what was going on. Some were scared

scared of Shirley herself. Shirley was exhausted and clearly troubled by what was going on, so she was sent to the company's doctor. When it was explained to him what was happening, he was enraged at his time was being wasted on such nonsense. But then, when he saw Shirley, he heard it too. The tapping. The tapping that followed her everywhere she went. A constant reminder that it was following. Whatever it or whatever. was. The doctor told Shirley to take two weeks off while she figured out what was going on. The only medical advice he could give her was to get some rest. At first, the missing items at work seemed unconnected, but it soon became apparent that whatever this was had powers beyond

just making the occasional sound. Shirley was at home on a Saturday afternoon when she dropped one of her gloves. She bent down to pick it up, but as she did, the glove, the glove. The glove, appeared to leap off the floor, slapping into the face of her father, who was standing next to her. One week later, things took a much more serious turn. Shirley had gone to bed earlier than the rest of her family, when there was a sudden scream coming from her room. Her brother and father came rushing into her room to see what was wrong. Shirley was on her bed, claiming that something was pulling the sheet. Sure enough, they could see one corner of the sheet was were slowly moving away from Shirley, as though it were being gently tugged.

The two men pulled it back, but as soon as they let go, it immediately was pulled back out, floating up into thin air, as though an invisible person was just standing in the corner of the room, holding the edge of the sheet. Suddenly the sheet began to pull out from under Shirley more violently. Her back arched, she was crying out that it felt like something was pushing her back She couldn't move. The two men tried to help her, but as they touched her, they noted her body was stiff and rigid. The sheets suddenly flew out from underneath her and landed on her parents' bed. Then Shirley collapsed down onto the mattress, leaving all three speechless.

After this, objects began to move on their own more and more. A chair thrown across the room with no one in it. objects that had happily sat on the mantelpiece for years, found on the floor. This was obviously all common knowledge in the local area, and it wasn't long until the press got involved. Numerous reporters visited over the weeks and interviewed the family. Wally, Kitty and Shirley were all very convinced now. They were dealing with something truly unexplainable.

But Shirley's grandmother, Ethel, told the reporters her own slightly more complicated feelings much like her son she was devoutly religious but was an old Irish Catholic woman and thought the whole idea that this was a ghost was nonsense. Interestingly though it wasn't because she didn't believe in ghosts as a concept she claimed to have had her own paranormal experiences in her earlier life including being visited by her dead husband and she did admit that yes she had seen things fly through the air on occasion in the house But she still seemed keen to downplay the entire event. It was a reporter who seemingly made the first communication with whatever was now residing

in their home. They realised they could get it to tap on command, offering it one tap for no and two for yes. The reporter asked the entity if it was evil. A single tap was heard. When asked if it needed help, it said yes. When asked if it had a message, it said yes. It said it had a message for Shirley, but it wasn't ready to deliver this message yet. Other reporters discovering this trick had their own attempts at interviewing the spirit,

and it was Elizabeth Few for the Daily Express, who seemed to get an identity out of the entity. It seemed to be called Ronald or Donald. There seemed to be some confusion on this. The origin of the name Donald, however, is disputed, as Shirley said later in life that she believed Donald was just a nickname they had given the entity at some point. Either way, more and more little snippets of backstory seemed to be revealed as the entity played its yes and no game. It claimed it was a young boy who had stayed on Wycliffe Road many times in the past,

that he and Shirley had played together as children and that he had moved away some time ago. Sure enough, Shirley did have a childhood friend named Ronald, who she would often play with. But what made this story? The story all the more strange was that Ephol got in contact with the family. Ronald, now a teenager himself, was alive and well. But the name Donald seemed to stick.

And from this point onwards the entity was referred to by this name. It seems though that giving it a name just made it much more real. The tapping sounds continued. Objects moved on their own. The strange key would keep reappearing on Shirley's pillow, and it continued to follow Shirley any time she left the house, with many witnesses claiming to hear the strange sounds whenever Shirley would show up. Henry Hanks had a new suggestion.

If the entity could communicate through taps, why not try a Ouija board? Wally was very against the idea of a Ouija board coming into his house, but he did seemingly agree to let Henry write out the alphabet. and a yes and no on a large sheet of paper, the man would then point to each letter and wait for a knock to confirm that it was the correct one. A long drawn-out process, but one that allowed more in-depth communication, although it would lead to somewhat confusing conversations. The entity's ability to spell when general structuring of sentences was rather odd and disjointed. One newspaper started to run with the idea that the entity could be inel

in love with Shirley. The first full message spelled out by the entity was apparently, be loving Shirley, come soon. Much like Shirley's childhood friend, Donald claimed to have been born in Kent, and that he was 15, although he did also claim that he was not born of flesh and blood parents, whatever that was supposed to mean. Late in February, more than two months after all this had started. Shirley found herself on the BBC's telling her story. She was paid approximately £3 for the appearance. Seemingly, this was the only money the family took during their multi-year ordeal. This brought a new level of attention and scrutiny to their home. People would knock at all hours of the day hoping to come inside and see Donald from themselves. Reporters were camped up

outside the property day and night. On some occasions they would be let in. and were claimed to witness Donald throwing items while hearing the odd sounds. Others were more skeptical and thought that a hoax may be afoot. Various mediums would ask to come and give their view on what Donald was, but seemingly every medium came up with a completely different story to explain the entity. Ethel was getting more annoyed than anyone by this whole thing. But despite telling the reporter she thought the whole thing was in her words, rot. She placed the crucifix on the floor of her room to apparently ward off Donald.

Instead, she found herself violently yanked out of bed in the middle of the night by unseen hands. Before it started banging on the walls so loudly, the neighbours came knocking to see if everyone was okay. Any attempts to use religious icons to control Donald was seemingly met with frustration and anger from the entity. faith was no help to them in this circumstance. Then Henry Hanks came out with a new idea. It was time to exercise Donald. The exorcism didn't take place in the Hitchens home however. Hank brought Shirley to his house instead. Shirley was hesitant at first, it seemed almost like she didn't want Donald to leave, but Wally was insistent. They gathered in Henry's home, along with a group of other spiritualists and a TV crew who were very eager to witness the whole thing.

Although video footage of the exorcism appears to be available, Hanks insists this was actually a reconstruction, recorded shortly after the ritual was complete. He thought filming or taking photographs during the actual process could affect the outcome. As the ritual began, Hanks went into another one of his apparent trances, as the others sang hymns around him. But they were interrupted by a loud banging on the door. Moments later, two policemen burst in. They had been called by the locals who were claiming that a black magic ceremony was taking place. Once this little misunderstanding was sorted out, the exorcism continued.

Hanks, along with his apparently African spirit guide, named Sambo, told Donald he had to leave. At the end, Shirley said she felt happier. and that she thought it was gone for good. But Hanks worried that all the attention the entity was getting was fuelling its power, and that this wasn't the last they would hear from it. Two reporters from the Weekend Mail were asked to take Shirley to run some tests. Surprisingly, Walter and Kitty were completely fined with these two random men, taking away their teenage daughter for the day.

They interrogated Shirley in their offices, convinced that she was somehow the sort of the of the sounds. They claimed they even had a female reporter carry out a strip search on her to see if she had something concealed in her clothing that could produce the tapping, although Shirley claimed she has no memory of that taking place. Then they took her to a large house to meet what Shirley assumed was some sort of medical professional. He then spent the afternoon attempting to hypnotise Shirley. The young girl was rather scared and confused by this point and resisted. After a frustrating few hours they sent her home. She ran to her parents, upset and distressed by the whole ordeal. That night, Donald returned.

The sounds returned louder and more aggressive than before. Hank said they needed to try the exorcism again. He took Shirley away for a couple of days, but this time the press were not made aware. An ice-cold breeze was felt throughout the room as the exorcism began once again. But other than that, nothing strange happened. Yet again, Shirley felt lighter and happier after the exorcism was complete. She stayed with the Hank's family for several more days, giving her a chance to get some much-needed rest. Hanks believed that the persona of Donald wasn't real exactly, that Shirley was a natural medium, and as such she was attracting attention from multiple spirits. It was a power she didn't yet understand and that she needed to be careful in case something else decided to latch onto her.

But it seemed those reporters who took Shirley away would reignite the girl's anxieties. Their report came out with the headline. Spook was in girl's big toe. They claimed that the tapping sound came from the girl's feet, that she was able to crack the joint to create a tapping sound. They claimed that the tapping came from the girl's feet. that she was able to crack the joint to create the tapping sound. This isn't an uncommon claim that has been used to debunk

apparent examples of ghostly tapping. It has been used as far back as an apparent explanation for the case of the Fox sisters in the 1800s, and even more recently, in the case of the so-called conjuring house, where Medium's Cody and Sotori have been accused of using a similar technique. They claimed that they took her to see a doctor who examined, examined her feet and felt her popping the joints, but that the doctor believed that she was doing it unconsciously. The reporters completely dismissed the repeated claims of objects moving or being thrown across rooms,

as well as the banging that apparently could be heard multiple houses away. Because of this, Shirley returned home feeling as though she was now seen as a liar in her community. The second she walked through the door, the sound started again. This led to one of the most detailed messages they had received from Donald so far, and one that added further intrigue to the story. His messages were always jumbled and poorly spelt, which means most of the write-ups of his messages are rough translations, of what it was thought he meant, rather than a word-for-word example.

But in this case, he apparently spelt out, I am 15, I come from France, lost in channel, cannot remember name. I had a girl like you. Donald is not aware of me. I want someone to tell him. I want happiness between you two. Won't go till made it so. Let me go happy by telling Ronald of me, but not telling his family. He must be secret between you and me and to himself. Give this the church. Let no one see it. If give to father, I be angry and set fire. This message kick-started a few different elements that were repeat in the entity's messages, over and over again. First, the reference to France, which would grow and grow into a rather complicated backstory for the entity.

Second, the reference to Ronald, Shirley's childhood friend. The entity seemed very keen that they should be reunited and that he believed a romantic relationship should form between them. Then there were references to Kirsch. This was a reporter named Michael Kirsch. who surely admitted that she had a crush on, but was interestingly one of the more skeptical reporters who was involved in the case, the entity would demand to see him over and over again, often growing angry when the reporter did not want to return. And this anger took the form of fires. Fires were his constant threat.

Any time the entity was enraged, he would threaten to set the home on fire. on some occasions taking great pleasure in pointing out, it would be difficult for the wheelchair-bound Kitty to escape his flames. The activity ramped up. Shirley would often find her watch pulled off her wrist. Slippers were seen walking around on their own. Noises got so bad that the police were called on multiple occasions. Kitty claimed she felt fingers touching her in the night.

The family would awake to find their bed covers being pulled. pulled off of them. The poltergeist would remove Shirley's shoe and throw it across the room. Other times she would wake up to find her feet tied up with a string, almost as though it were playing along with the idea of her making the sound with her feet. All the while it kept demanding to see Michael Kirsch, although that reporter was its fixation at the time. Over the months that followed it would take an interest in different reporters. Although often, when the family were finally able to get the person it had requested to the house. It would then go silent until they left. It was like it was toying with them, or making utterly random requests that it

didn't really care about. But around this time the family received another visitor, a paranormal investigator named Harold Chibbott, the man we have to thank for the vast majority of the information available on this case, as he kept detailed records of everything he experienced. And that's was a lot of information. Harold would investigate this case for years, becoming a constant presence in the family's life. Chibbett was in his mid-50s, wore a three-piece suit and always had a pipe in his hand. By day he worked in the tax office, but by night he was a hunter of spooky phenomena. But he didn't see himself as an expert or someone who could truly understand the phenomena. He saw his role more as a journalistic one, dared to record events for others to explain.

Chibbett quickly noted that while there were apparent examples of paranormal goings-on, happening in the home when Shirley was away, the overwhelming majority seemed to centre around a girl. She was clearly the focus of Donald's attention. On his initial visits, Chibbett didn't experience much. but a reporter from the South London advertiser had struck up a good relationship with the family and they had agreed to let her stay the night. Chibbitt had left for the day by the time that Joyce Lewis arrived but he must have been fascinated when he got to read her reports of her stay in the home. Lewis and Shirley shared Shirley's parents' bed for the night while her

parents slept on the sofa bed in the front room. That night Lewis was jolted awake by what she described as a terrifying scraping noise coming from under the bed. Moments later, she felt a tug on the undersheet. She pulled back, but the force kept ripping it up, almost like a game of tug-of-war. The scraping noise then seemed to move to the headboard. Lewis froze in fear, as she heard the sounds right by her ear. This continued for nearly half an hour, when suddenly she smelt the scent of perfume. She described it as violet-scented, but quickly, it transformed into something akin to burning rubber.

Thinking something might be on fire, they checked the room but found nothing wrong. This was a common piece of phenomenon that many reported while visiting the home over the following months. A pleasant smell of perfume that was quickly replaced with something close to sulphur, then it would just dissipate as quickly as it had appeared. But Lewis's experiences that night continued. Twenty minutes later, Shirley screamed. When they jumped out of bed, Lewis noted, what looked like a large red scratch running down her leg.

The pair got back into bed, but suddenly a loud bang was heard that Lewis was convinced came from right next to her face. And then the bed began to move. The movement and noises stopped, but then Lewis felt something tickling her ankle. When she tried to speak to Donald, asking him to stop, the bed sheets were pulled off of her.

The noises and constant tugs on the bedding continued throughout the night, until eventually Shirley was pulled out of the bed. Strangely, they discovered that Shirley's big toe had a piece of string tied around it. Another reporter who visited went as far as the tape, up Shirley's hands and feet. But still, the noises persisted. Donald made claims that he would sometimes leave when people visited because he got scared. He then started claiming that the reporter he was so obsessed with, Michael Kirsch, was in danger. He finally did come back, but shortly

after leaving, Donald came out with a string of messages, threatening the reporter, claiming it would suffocate him, suggesting that the danger that Kirsch was in came from the entity itself. At times, Donald would tap along to the music. He would hit the keys on the family's piano. He apparently enjoyed watching TV, taking a particular interest in historical dramas. Then the threats of fire returned. This time he wanted one of the reporters who had taken Shirley away to visit. If they didn't, he said he would burn the house down. The night after this threat, Shirley claimed to see three small balls of green light moving through the air, only for a very brief moment before vanishing.

Then the sound of a match being struck was heard. Ethel claimed she saw a lit match float through the air, slightly singeing Shirley's eyebrow as it dropped to the floor. The threats of fire continued. And when the family ignored them, sure enough, the bed sheets in the downstairs bedroom were set on fire. Wally rushed outside with them, desperately trying to extinguish them, burning himself as he did. But was Donald really responsible for this? The threats of fire continued on for a great deal of the family's experience.

Wally took to turn in the oven off at the mains because someone kept turning on the stove. At times blankets were found on top of the lit stove and bins were set alight. Some one or something seemed to genuinely be trying to burn the house down. But over time Donald began making references to other entities, including Mickey, Doppie and Shaggy. Sometimes he would claim they took his power. Other times he claimed that the threats of fire and violence were coming from these other entities. Yet the messages always seemed to come in Donald's strange broken style of writing, even if they were supposedly from the other beings. Much later in the haunting, Donald started to

warn the family of intruders in the house, especially at night, often claiming they were coming for Shirley, on one occasion saying someone with a knife had been in the house, but they never saw anyone. The family was understandably falling apart by now, stressed, unable to sleep and genuinely fearful. Shirley had been unable to go back to work and ultimately was forced to resign from her position. To give the family a break, Wally's sister Nell offered to take Shirley to her home, just one road away for a while. Sure enough, Donald followed. Although he informed the family they should not fear him. He was there to protect them. The exact details of what happened during that stay haven't been recorded. Shirley only stayed with Nell for one day before being returned

in the police car in the middle of the night, a fact that deeply angered Donald, who threatened to set fire to Nell's house. Nell wasn't able to deal with Donald for even 48 hours. She wouldn't let Shirley back into her house ever again. Donald began communicating with Harold Chibbett. What started off as a difficult communication slowly blossomed. Chibbett became the person other than Shirley that he was happiest communicating with. He began by telling Chibbett that he was French and drowned in the English Channel, before bizarrely threatening to harm anyone who did not believe in flying sources, which interestingly was another of Chibbett's fascination. This led to a series of increasingly strange messages about space and life on other planets,

before claiming that he came from the atmosphere. Donald was erratic, one moment he was pleasant in his communication, the next angry and threatening. He particularly took a dislike to Ethel, who received the brunt of his threats, mostly concerning setting fires of the old woman in her bed. He kept demanding that Shirley should be given her room. Then Donald's communication method began to change. A notebook was found with a strangely scrawled message that read, Shirley, I come, my Shirley.

This was just the beginning. Over time, Donald began writing frequently, at first using a pen and paper, then later scribbling messages on walls, and even at points using a typewriting, that the family gave him. Shirley saw psychiatrists and medical experts, but no one could find anything medically wrong with the girl. She was given some tablets to calm her nerves, but seemingly after bringing them home, Donald destroyed them in a bowl of water. Any time the discussion about

her looking for work came up, Donald would become angry again, telling the family that she wasn't allowed to. He seemed at times very protective and nurturing towards her. the girl, demanding things that would benefit her, but at others, controlling and possessive. In fact, Donald seemed to enjoy controlling the entire family, telling them what they could and couldn't do. Sometimes his threats were empty, other times less so. A rarer but occasional event the family would witness was a voice. At times it sounded just like a faint whistle. Other times they were sure they heard a whispering voice saying names, and even distant moans. But it happened so infrequently they weren't able to make any sense of it. Donald went back

to his claims that he was there to spark up some sort of loving relationship between Shirley and Ronald. But even that he seemed to go back and forth on. His reasons for being there just didn't seem to make a lot of sense, like he was just piecing together random bits of information that he had. attempting to create a story, but it was a story he didn't really understand. Some suggested the idea that if Shirley really were the centre of all this, and that she was some kind of medium unaware of her powers, then maybe she was acting as a kind of antenna, that various spirits were passing through the home,

using her to communicate, but that the many voices were jumbled and confused, mixing together messages like skipping through radio stations. After four or five months, the press had pretty much lost interest in the story. But Chibbett remained, visiting the family as often as he could, and communicating with Donald. Wally finally returned to work, but his bosses didn't think he was in a fit enough mental condition to drive the train, instead assigning him to ticket collections. It was frustrating and led to a significant

significant decrease in his wages. But at least it gave him a reprie from Donald in his erratic antics. In April, Donald's messages seemed to begin to centre around the idea of France, mentioning things like the quarter France and saying, this is not like the palace in France. Increasingly, odd words would appear in French, although they were often misspelled, as was his English. The familiar activity continued, along with some odd new events like paint and cream appearing on Shirley's legs when she would wake up, or random footprints appearing. At times, heavy footsteps were even reported, although this was infrequent. Some visitors to the house became convinced that Donald would follow them home, tapping and banging on their walls too. Eiffel finally had enough one night, when again Donald demanded that she give up her bed for Shirley.

If she did, he promised he would be quiet that night. The old woman agreed, but that night he continued the crashing and banging. Ethel, enraged, began to shout at the spirit, who responded by throwing around various items. That, along with the constant threats, were more than enough. Ethel packed her bags and left. Donald's French backstory continued. He claimed he and his brother had drowned in the English Channel, that his father was called Louis. He also claimed to have been a prince, maybe explaining why he would grow so angry when he didn't get his way. Later in April,

when Donald's repeated demands for a specific reporter had not met, he again threatened to start a fire. Wally left for work that afternoon, taking extra care to turn off the electrics. but they were somehow switched back on, along with the cooker. Numerous items had been placed on top of it, and then the stove was turned on. Luckily, two neighbours smelling smoke came rushing to help, and found Kitty in her wheelchair battling a small fire. Together they put it out and turned the power off again, but it kept getting switched back on.

Small fires kept starting. This continued all day. The fire brigade were called but the emergency services were growing increasingly frustrated at being sent to what the locals now called, Spooky House. This was the closest that the family came to moving, but there was a problem with that. They knew that Donald was not restrained by the house itself. He would go wherever he pleased. And usually, that meant following Shirley wherever she went.

Shirley continued to try and return to work but Donald would not allow it. On the rare occasion she attempted to defy him, he would simply follow her to the interview. Her distracted and confused potential employers apologising to her for all the noise as they tried to conduct their interview. They said they weren't sure where all this banging was coming from. When a medium named Eric Davy offered to help the family, Donald said he needed to stay away and that if Davy came he would kill him. Davy ignored Donald's threats and attempted an exorcism himself. But again, it was seemingly unsuccessful.

In May, this narrative continued about Donald being some kind of French royalty, now claiming that his name was Lewis and that he was killed before the French Revolution. Soon after this, he claimed specifically to be the son of Louis XVI. After his continued insistence that Chibut needed to contact Shirley's childhood friend Ronald, the man finally did write to him, two letters in fact, but the response he received from Ronald's family was that they wanted nothing to do with this. Donald's control over the family continued. He would decide when they could go to sleep, when they should wake up, what they could and couldn't do, any attempts to ignore his requests were met with at times violent tantrums.

Objects thrown, the continued threats of violence, but if the family obeyed, Donald would become quite a positive and friendly presence to be around. The family seemed to warm to him. It almost comes across as Stockholm syndrome-like, but they were being kept by an invisible presence. Drawings began to appear on the walls, most notably of Fleur-de-Lisse that Donald would alter over time. This appeared in the front bedroom that Donald had effectively claimed as his own by this point. Shirley would spend much of her time in there with him alone. And apparently, at Donald's insistence, she began playing with dolls in there. Donald demanding that she made dresses for them, which she did.

Shirley was 16 when she began this habit of playing dolls with Donald. But it continued for years right into her adult life, just her and Donald. alone in the room, surrounded by dozens and dozens of dolls. Another attempt by Shirley to start working somewhere led to him ripping her mattress to shreds and throwing kettles and scissors at people's heads. She was his and no one else's. On the rare occasions that she would meet a boy, he would also grow angry. This was despite his initial insistence that she needed to start her romantic relationship with Ronald. But Donald didn't seem to have a romantic interest in Shirley himself.

He claimed he had come to her because she reminded him of his sister from when he was alive. Donald's anger at her further attempt to go back to work continued for well over a week. It took an especially dark turn when Shirley had gone out for the day with her friend. She had been convinced that Donald had followed them all day. A fact that was confirmed when her friend suddenly fell towards the train tracks while they were waiting for the underground train to pull in narrowly avoiding falling down in front of the actual train her friend laughed it off as a simple act of clumsiness but surely had seen it something had pushed her something that couldn't be seen Chibbock continued to test Donald.

Sometimes the entity would agree to be the little experiments. Other times it would refuse, depending on its mood. Mostly this centred around trying to understand its true identity. But the facts that Donald would provide wouldn't always make sense. Marks began appearing on Shirley's skin on occasion. At first it was assumed it was some sort of allergic reaction, but the markings appeared deliberate. That summer and a new element, to the phenomena began to happen, and perhaps one of the strangest yet. Donald's conferences.

He would demand to be left alone in the house for a time period of his choosing. When the family would return, they would find chairs in one of the rooms upstairs arranged in a circle. Books were placed on the chairs, the mirror was covered with material, and the unmistakable smell of tobacco in the air. Donald said these were meetings with his statesman. although he never really explained what he meant by this. He would sometimes arrange these strange little get-toghirt would request a piece of information that Donald didn't seem to know the answer to. He would inquire with his statesman and come back to the investigator with an answer.

Initially, Chibbett was suspicious and believed that Shirley could have simply returned to the house and done this. But then the conference set-ups appeared in the middle of the night. He couldn't see how she was. was sneaking out of her parents' bedroom and rearranging heavy furniture right above their room without getting caught. Despite claiming she reminded her of his sister, Donald began asking Shirley to be his princess. The pair were becoming increasingly close, and Donald was always requesting demands from her parents for the girl. She even eventually moved into the room that Donald

was effectively calling his own. All the while in the background, Chibbett was researching Donald's claims and increasingly they didn't seem to match up with actual historical records. And on the occasions they did, he speculated that this was information that Shirley herself could have acquired from television or from books. He wasn't in the camp of believing the teenage girl was faking all of this, but he was suspicious. Part of his theories included the idea that Donald wasn't actually writing the messages himself. but was instead using Shirley's body to communicate the messages, although it's worth noting that their handwriting doesn't really match. And Shirley claims that she has no memory of ever writing any of the messages herself. Then, another strange twist in the tale began.

Donald had regularly become obsessed with various reporters or visitors to the house. But now his attention appeared to be drawn to a television actor named Jeremy Spencer. Donald told Shirley that he was his favourite actor and that he actually looked a little like Donald. He demanded they put up a picture of the attractive young actor in their room. Then he started demanding to talk to Jeremy. This continued for a long time. He kept stressing that it was important that Jeremy was in danger, but wouldn't explain what sort of danger.

Wally noticed something strange during this time. When he went into his daughter's room, the photograph of Jeremy would often be wet. The liquid tasted of salt. Wally said it was almost like the photograph had been crying. Just going to interject into the story for a moment to question if this was a one-off occurrence for Lee or if he was prone to just tasting wet things that he found. Donald began to write letters that he demanded the family send, telling Jeremy about a danger and that he needed to speak with him.

At one point Shirley claimed to have heard Jeremy's voice, saying, Hello Shirley, come to me, You don't know me but I know you. Jeremy. Donald claimed that it had been Jeremy's voice and that he had connected them through something called mind transference. This happened on more than one occasion seemingly. Eventually he warned that the actor would be in a car accident.

accident. It didn't happen straight away but just a couple of months later, sure enough the actor was in a car accident, although his injuries were minor. Donald continued to demand to see Jeremy and even made Chibbitt and Shirley try and contact him. Both the actor's brother and agent did get in touch, initially to ask the Hitchens to leave Jeremy alone. But as the whole story was laid out, curiosity got the better of them. Eventually, Spencer's agent said the actor would come to see Donald if he could pass the test that would prove his apparent mystical abilities by describing something specific from the actor's home,

which Donald had suggested wouldn't be a problem for him. Donald failed the test. Jeremy never came to visit, much to the chagrin of Donald and Shirley, who apparently also had quite a big crush on the actor. This wouldn't be the last of Donald's apparent predictions though. He predicted deaths of famous people, an injury to John Wayne, and even a plane crash, seemingly just hours before they were announced by the news.

Although his predictions weren't always accurate, there was enough of a correlation to draw Chibbett's attention. Donald began to blame some of the more violent threats and activity, particularly the fires on the other entities, most notably the one he called Shaggy Roots. During this time Donald's French improved. He began sending letters to Chibbitt fully in French, as opposed to his previous habit of just replacing random words with French ones. But the grammar was often totally incorrect and the spelling was still poor, like it was being badly translated by someone who didn't know how to string the words together. One of Donald's excuses,

for this was that he wasn't used to the modern French language, having died in the 1700s. As 1956 drew to a close, Donald demanded Christmas presents for himself and Shirley, something that he began to do every year, and left every member of the family a note, wishing them a happy New Year. Correspondence between Chibbett and Donald became so frequent that it was impossible for Chibbett to keep up with them all. He was receiving countless messages, and the more time went on, the more the French personality seemed to be shining through as the dominant one. Well, that was until for a brief period of time. The entity suddenly started claiming to be James Dean.

Dean would generally use the typewriter more so than the hand-written notes. Many of these messages have apparently been lost, but much like Donald, the spelling and grammar appeared erratic. In one of the earliest surviving messages he apparently wrote, I don't know who you good folks are, but I'm still waiting for help. Please hurry. I'm grateful to you, ma'am, for keeping me here, but I'm lost. I want to get back to my home country. Look, mister, I'm James Dean.

I didn't ask to come here, but I just guess I got here. So help me please. I belong in California. Dean then started encouraging Shirley to become a film star, something that Donald seemed to agree with. Throughout the following months and years, she toyed with the idea of various roles in different creative industries, in fact. All of which Donald was supportive of, despite his prior insistence that she wasn't allowed to go to work.

At times Donald would grow jealous of Dean, saying he didn't mind helping him, but he better not try and cut Donald out of the Hitching's life. Dean would apparently refer to Donald as old fancy pants. Chibbert would visit the house during this time with a variety of experts. While the James Dean character was interesting, he didn't appear to provide any information that couldn't have been gleaned from a basic biography on the star. In the summer of 1957, a large number of threatening letters were sent out to various members of the local community. A window cleaner was threatened with being pushed through a shop window.

One woman who returned home from her son's funeral found a letter waiting for her that said, It should have been your daughter. The police never identified a suspect, but it was noted that the letters were violent, graphic, written in ink, and by someone who appeared to be borderline illiterate. Donald never admitted to being behind the threatening messages, but could it have been one of the other entities that appeared to be residing in the home who, on occasion, were still threatening the family?

Eiffel had returned to the home sometime prior and had continued to be the focus of the entity's attacks, convinced that somehow Shirley was responsible for all this, their relationship quickly soured, which just seemed to draw more anger towards the old lady from Donald. Many of the times that Donald would act up would be when he was incensed by Ethel, who was one of the only people who would still defy his demands. Eventually, she again felt she could no longer take it and moved out,

arranging to move into a nursing home in Rohampton. She left that afternoon. The next day, Ethel died of a stroke. Donald stayed quiet for several days after this. only returning a couple of days after Ethel had been buried, acting like nothing had happened. Chibbett and Donald continued to discuss his apparent life in France. These were back and forth conversations both in person and through letters that continued for a long time. Chibbett had decided to write a book and he had become fascinated with the idea of

Donald actually being the spirit of a deceased French prince, so much so that he seemed to become almost blinded to every other aspect of the story. If Donald was indeed real and was actually a singular entity, then he had lied repeatedly time and time again about his identity up until now. But when the facts about his French ancestry didn't match records, Chibbitt still pushed forward, desperately trying to find answers, desperately searching for a piece of evidence that would make all the elements of Donald's story fall into place. But it seemed for every detail that was accurate, there would be two that didn't match up. Dates, places, people, all seem to contradict Donald's story.

During this time Donald didn't become any less vocal, but his more poltergeist-like powers seem to fade away. He would rarely move things or cause mischief, just send message after message after message. Over time this side of the activity diminished into virtually nothing, at least compared to how often it had been previously. Eventually Shirley did finally start a new job. Donald informed Chibbett that he had to go with Shirley to work, so his letters would become less frequent, but this just gave him more time to investigate the claims that Donald had made up until this point. One day, while sitting in the kitchen, Wally found a small silver key. It was different to the one Shirley had found at the start of all this, but it was still

one he did not recognise. He asked Donald if this was his key. The knock came for yes, while he asked if he had more keys. Donald said yes. He never answered where the keys were coming from, or what they were supposed to open. The landlord of the Hitchens house repeatedly tried to find tenants for the upstairs rooms. But every time someone came to visit, the ever-truthful Wally would tell them about Donald. Unsurprisingly, no one was desperate to move in, a fact that nearly saw the family evicted.

Chibbett continued his communication with Donald, but as his questions grew more complex, the entity began to reply less and less. By the middle of 1963, Chibbett had finished his book, but struggled to find a publisher. While most of his poltergeist-like activity had diminished, Donald was still prone to the occasional tapping, and on one occasion painting, Viva LaFronts on the downstairs wall,

this it appeared would be the beginning of the end for Donald the poltergeist. Shirley was now 22, and had met a man named Derek, who she was very much in love with. While she still spent a significant amount of time alone playing with Donald and the dolls, She was home less and less. She had been hesitant to tell Derek about Donald, but her family told him all about it after a few months. Arriving so late, he never saw the dramatic poltergeist activity, but he did see messages from Donald.

He was initially sceptical of the whole thing, but that soon changed when they would return home from a date, only to find note that described events from the date, conversations they had had and even arguments. But despite this, Derek decided that Shirley was worth the added poltergeist baggage. The pair later got married and Shirley moved away from Battersea. There were now tenants living upstairs. While they didn't witness anything directly,

they did note that their dogs would often be found standing in the same spot, staring at nothing, growling. Learning that the house was at some point in the near future going to be demolished, and now having the money to move from his retirement fund, Wally and Kitty finally moved out. Donald continued communicating with Shirley by note. In fact, when she fell pregnant, she found out through one of his letters. Donald seemed to know everything. Donald was apparently more active in the new home of Kitty and Wally.

Although some questioned whether by this point Kitty was suggesting that any slight noise or stranger event could be attributed to the ghost. Donald's presence was felt less and less in both homes over time and in 1968 he seemed to vanish for good after being with the family for 12 years. In the book The Poltergeist Prince of London that was co-written by Shirley in 2013, it is suggested that the activity didn't end on a specific date, just faded out over time. But in more recent years, Shirley has apparently said this was increasingly and provided a slightly more romantic ending. In both Shirley's home and in the home of Kitty and Wally, they both found an envelope.

Inside the letter simply said, goodbye. Whichever version was true, Shirley and Wally felt relieved that Donald was finally gone. Kitty, however, fell into a period of mourning. She admitted it didn't make sense. but she said it felt like she had lost the son. Harold Chibbett never did find a publisher for his book. He passed away in 1978 of a heart attack. Kitty followed in 1980, after a battle with cancer.

And Wally passed away just eight months later, also of a heart attack, leaving just Shirley behind as a sole survivor of the story. But was Donald really gone? Late in the 1980s, Shirley and Derley, had moved to a small town in the south of England. This was a totally fresh start. No one knew her past, and the story had been forgotten about by the press many years ago by now. She never spoke about Donald to anyone anymore. Shirley had begun volunteering for the local Women's Institute. She had been helping out for several weeks when one of the other women

had called her over. The woman seemed hesitant to speak at first, but she had been helping out for several weeks, but she finally plucked up the courage and told Shirley that she was a member of the spiritualist church. Instantly, Shirley's memories of the very first man who had tried to help her came flooding back. She didn't say a word, but then the woman asked her if Shirley had lost a little brother. Shirley, worried for a moment before saying no, said she hadn't. But Shirley was visibly shaken. The woman tried to comfort her and said she was sorry. Obviously she was wrong, but that she was a medium.

She had been watching Shirley for weeks, and she had seen something, something she felt that Shirley should know about. Shirley asked what it was. The woman told Shirley that there was a young boy, in blue satin lace, with red hair, following her around. She said he was always with her. In fact, he was there with them right at that moment. So what really happened?

Well, where'd you start with this one? Let's take it at face value first. Initially this starts out very much like a traditional poltergeist case. In fact, in some ways it feels so stereotypical that some experts dismissed it as a hoaxe for this very reason, as though someone had read about a poltergeist experience and just called copied the events, but over time it really begins to morph into an utterly strange tale. It reminded me so much of Jeff the Talking Mongoos. Although this entity's choice of communication was writing and tapping rather than speech, but the obsession with the teenage daughter,

both in terms of attention and demanding gifts for her, the ability to travel wherever it pleases, the at-time confusing messages, where it changes its opinion on things at a moment's notice, and jumping between friendly to aggressive. Even the elaborate backstory kind of echoes Jeff's travels from Egypt. One idea I picked up on is the changing of personality over time. We've already discussed the idea of it actually being a number of different entities, effectively all sending messages through Shirley. But what if actually it was shifting?

Changing its messaging based on who was its main focus. Initially it spends all its time talking to, to Shirley. It's focused on her having relationships with boys, her obsessions with celebrities. On occasion it obviously stands in her way of living her life, such as when it blocked her from going to work. But maybe this was a manifestation of the girl's deep-seated anxieties. Maybe a part of her wasn't ready to leave home and become an adult just yet. This could be hinted at further by the entity wanting to play dolls with her, long after she should have grown out of the habit. Then, over time, its attention turned to Harold Chibbett. It threw

around a few different stories and personalities, including trying to use his interest in UFOs, but Chibbett really seemed most interested in the French element. So the entity doubled down on that. Much like Shirley, given the person who has given it the most attention, exactly what they wanted. Was this some way for it to bond with the living? Did this point more towards it being a home? or maybe it needed the attention and the easiest way for it to get it was to appeal to what people who were giving it attention most cared about. It doesn't feel like there is a logical natural explanation you could use for this case. Mass hysteria maybe? The old gas leak excuse doesn't really work because of so many reported incidents happening outside the house.

Unless of course they were having full-blown hallucinations inside the house. But once away, other people were hearing the slightest creak or tapping of pipes, and instantly blaming Donald because they were primed to. But of course, none of that explains the many, many messages that were not just heard, but also written, and even sent in the post. So then we have to get into the idea of a hoax. I genuinely struggle to believe the idea that the adults were involved in this, if that was the case. Wally took time off work with stress.

When he returned he was effectively demoted and made a fraction of his income. He was burnt by at least one of the fires so bad he needed treatment. Then you have Kitty, who with her crippling arthritis, it seems hard to see how she could have physically done a lot of what was witnessed. Ethel seemed to be genuinely angry about the entire thing and died long before Donald's activities ceased. The adopted brother is barely in the story at all. In fact, he appears to move out within the first year or two of Donald making himself known, and apparently wanted nothing to do with the whole thing.

All they gained from this was a short-lived amount of attention from the oppress. Virtually no money. Wally and Kitty didn't attempt to write a book. If attention was the only goal, why keep it going for over a decade when most people stopped caring after six months? Which just leaves the most obvious culprit, Shirley. What often makes Poltergeist cases tricky to talk about is they so often do centre around a teenager. They are the person who is present for most of the activity. They are the person who most of the activity is targeted to walls, so it becomes very easy to point the finger at them.

In this case, it's hard not to. We've already discussed the idea of Shirley cracking toe joints to create the knocking sounds. This seemed to be a narrative a number of reporters ran with at the time. Numerous of them made comments about watching Shirley's feet when the sounds were coming through. Some didn't notice anything. Others felt that vibrations were coming from her feet but they couldn't be sure. Although this doesn't really explain the much louder sounds that were heard. Nor the more traditional poltergeist-like activity. But if Shirley was faking the knocks,

then it obviously makes this whole thing harder to swallow. As is often the case in poltergeist incidents involving children, investigators have noted that they have caught the children faking activity, much like in the Enfield case. They argue that it makes sense they would do this, though. Investigators are with them for months at a time, and they get attention when weird stuff happens. But it has also been pointed out that this doesn't necessarily mean

that real activity wasn't also taking place, that often the fake activity created by the children, is much easier to identify as a hoax. It's hard not to look past the fact that the entity liked whatever Shirley liked. It enjoyed the same TV show she did, talked about boys she liked, even demanding to see reporters that she had developed a crush on. There was also the suggestion that Shirley was the one doing the writing, although it was debated if she was deliberately writing fake messages,

or if Donald was somehow controlling her and using her as a physical vessel to put pen to paper. She was apparently mildly dyslexic, which could account for Donald's confusing spelling. Some reports state there being a number of books on French history in the house, although others contradict this story and say this was not true. Shirley herself is very clear that this was not the case. The idea that Shirley is faking the whole thing though is, I think, genuinely one of the darkest possible answers to this puzzle. If she was really doing this, the apparently shy, well-behaved teeth, Falled countless adults for years and years. She also wasn't just making noises and claiming to hear messages from beyond.

If this was her, she was launching pairs of scissors at her parents' heads. She was sabotaging relationships with neighbours and other family members, ruining every chance she got at work. And then of course, there were fires. Numerous attempts to burn down the house. Sometimes while people were asleep, gloating about how her mother wouldn't be able to escape in her wheelchair, even burning her father's hands and arms. Then, once grown up, she would have seemingly continued on this extravagant lie with what was apparently the love of her life.

Shirley, of course, denies all of this. She says that while it wasn't all bad, that much like Vori in the Jeff case, Donald stole her to her to do. teenage years from her. She struggled to go anywhere, to do anything he didn't want her to do. He controlled her life. This case was something of an obscure curiosity for the most part. And Shirley was quite happy to put it behind her, but increasingly over the years she read write-ups that she felt misrepresented the events drastically. In 2013, she co-wrote the aforementioned book. The book was pieced together by Shirley's own memories, diary entries from Wally. and the boxes and boxes of note that Harold Chibbett had kept over the years.

Well, not a huge success, she was happy that her story was finally out there, in a way that she felt best represented her experiences. Then, years later, Danny Robbins discovered the case and tracked down Shirley to make the hugely successful podcast series on the case. She stands by her story that this all really happened, that she wasn't responsible for any of it, And again, I'm struck by that feeling. If you did make this all up, why bring it all up again after all this time? Why not just let this embarrassing period of your life fade away?

While I really do struggle to fully believe this story, part of me thinks that it all just seems too strange to be a complete out-and-out hoax. But maybe the answer lies somewhere in the middle. One of the many psychical researchers that visited the house was Andrew Green. He seemed to come at the case with a fairer. fairly level-headed approach. Initially, he was seemingly very sold on the idea that the tapping were being created by Shirley. Either deliberately or that she was popping her toes

almost subconsciously, he suspected that this could be explained psychologically, maybe even some mix between her faking some phenomena and unconsciously creating the rest, but after visiting her, he became a lot more convinced by the sounds he heard. He no longer believed that Shirley was faking the whole thing. But he wasn't convinced by this Donald persona either. Throughout his decades of research into hauntings, he had settled on the very popular opinion that poltergeist activity was actually evidence of some kind of human ability, not of the afterlife. That the human mind could exert a very real influence on the physical world, like telekinesis, given the right circumstances. Often it is suggested that puberty,

creates those right circumstances, that often the person behind all this activity has no idea they are responsible at all. He believed that Donald was a figment of her imagination, that she was writing all the letters, but she had disassociated and had no idea she was doing it. Chibbett, meanwhile, did believe it was the work of an earthbound spirit, although despite his obsession with the French print story, he was never truly convinced that this was Donald's identity. Shirley is very honest by saying that she doesn't know the answer. She's open to Green's theories, but she struggles to believe that she was the one writing all these letters, but has no memory of it. She leans more towards Chibbitt's theory, but she can't

say conclusively because she doesn't understand what happened. All she knows is she experienced something truly unbelievable that took place during her teenage years. She doesn't know that she doesn't know who or what Donald was and she's now resigned to the fact that she will likely never know. But still, all these decades later, she can't get him out of her head. And when she hears a creek late at night or a gentle, unexpected breeze as she lays in bed, she wonders, is Donald still there? That's all for this entry into the tape library. Wow.

I didn't expect this one to be. quite as odd as it ended up being. There were times I nearly ripped the script up for this one and moved on to something else because it just got so unbelievable. But something about the story just kept me coming back. What begins as a pretty standard poltergeist case ends up bringing in premonitions, arson, a deceased matchmaking French prince,

and even James Dean tapping away on a typewriter. I mentioned the Danny Robbins podcast series earlier. I just want to make a note here and say, much like when I covered Hail Van Gog, I didn't actually listen to the series while preparing this episode. The reason for this is, as fantastic as this work is, both these series contain short snippets of interviews mixed in with audio drama style reenactments. Because of this, I always find myself questioning what aspects are accurate to the story and what parts are dramatized. So for this episode, I mostly relied on the book, The Poltergeist Prince of London by

James Clark and Shirley Hitchens herself. As I've already mentioned, the book was created using Wally Hitchens' diary entries, Shirley's own recollections, newspaper reports from the time, and the research conducted by Harold Chibbert that was passed on to Shirley after his death. If you really do want to delve into the minute detail of the case, I would recommend checking it out. This episode is very long, obviously, but I only touched on a lot of the story. There were so many examples of activity that, much like the Becker case, it almost becomes mundane,

such as Donald demands to see the actor, which seemed to go on for months with daily requests. It's not the easiest of reads due to how in-depth it goes, but if you want to understand every detail of what happened, it's worth tracking down. I did read some write-ups that I'm assuming did use the Robbins podcast as their source, and didn't know to anything drastically different. But if there is a piece of evidence or information that is discussed in the show that I haven't mentioned here, then please do let me know. So what do you think happened here? Let me know your thoughts on this case in the comments below.

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