January 3, 2025 • 30 mins
With Season 8 due to return next Friday, it’s back to the archive one more time…
This week we’re heading back to the 70s, to a quiet housing estate in South East London…
Considering there have been settlers based around the area comprising present day London for over 5000 years, it's hardly surprising that under all that concrete we find remnants of those that have come before us.
But what comes of those whose remnants have been disturbed?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
With season eight due to return next Friday, it's back
to the archive of one more time. This week we're
heading to the seventies, to a quiet housing estate in
southeast London. Considering there have been settlers based around the
area comprising present day London for over five thousand years,
it's hardly surprising that under all that concrete we find
(00:21):
remnants of those that have come before us. But what
comes of those whose remnants have been disturbed? This is unexplained,
Season three, episode three, Under the Asphalt. That night, Zoe
(00:48):
was restless, lying in bed with her boyfriend's stand fast
asleep beside her. She had noticed a strange, diffuse light
that appeared to be emanating from just inside the bedroom window.
Nudging Stan awake, she gestured toward the far end of
the room. Seeing it now too, he sat up, trying
(01:10):
to comprehend what he was looking at. Before he had
time to think, Zoe was already up and flicking on
the main light, nervously looking about the room, before turning
it off again. With the room shrouded once more in darkness,
the peculiar light appeared to have gone. Must have been
(01:30):
something from outside, said Stan as he rolled on to
his side and closed his eyes. Zoey rubbed her arms,
suddenly feeling a little cold, and moved over to the window.
Peering down through the curtains to the quiet street below,
she could see the soft sodium glow of a street
light illuminating the pavement on the far side of the road.
(01:53):
That must have been it, she thought. She pulled the
curtains tighter and got back into bed. Before she could
get comfortable, however, she saw once again that the strange
light had returned. Stan whispered Zoe. He opened his eyes
for a moment before turning away again on to his side.
(02:17):
I told you it's just something from outside, but Stan
said Zoe. It's moving. Stan paused before turning to look
at Zoe and then towards the end of the room.
What at first seemed like a light was more like
a misty white shadow now, and it was moving away
(02:39):
from the window and further into the room. Stan's hands
gripped tighter on the covers. The pair froze as the
amorphous shadow of light continued to move around the room
before stopping at the end of the bed. Stan shot
under the covers in terror, but Zoe couldn't take her
(02:59):
eyes off it, she reached out her hand, drawing closer
and closer until she was near enough to touch it,
and then as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.
You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mc lean smith.
(03:25):
The following morning, Zoey and Stan weren't quite sure what,
if anything, they had seen. An embarrassed Stan left early
for work, leaving a perplexed Zoe to explain the events
to her housemate Rosemary. The two of them lived together
in Flat number twenty four of Frankombe House, a five
(03:45):
story red bricked council housing block built in the late
nineteen thirties. It was located on the corner of frankom
Street and Deptford Church Street in southeast London, forming part
of the area's Crossfield Estate. The estate had been built
over a ten year period as part of a major
regeneration drive to improve housing in the local area, but
(04:09):
had itself in recent times come under threat of demolition.
In early nineteen seventy three, builders had moved in to
widen the adjacent road, and now the council were considering
the partial removal of some of the housing blocks on
the estate. To make way for it. It was shortly
after builders moved in that Zoe's peculiar experience had taken
(04:32):
place that morning. However, recounting the story to Rosemary, she
couldn't help but feel a little bit stupid. Most likely,
as Stan had suggested, it really was just a trick
of the light. Twenty one year old Zoe had moved
into the flat the previous year, shortly after giving birth
(04:53):
to her baby, Natalie. The pair shared the apartment with
the twenty eight year old Rosemary and three year old
daughters Donna and Jennifer, and her seven year old son Mark.
Though neither was particularly superstitious, with their young children also
living in the flat with them, they could be forgiven
a slight sense of apprehension at the thought of something
(05:15):
strange happening inside their home. They had soon forgotten the incident, however,
until a few weeks later, when Zoe, who worked as
a nurse, returned to the flat after a long shift
to find a putrid smell filling the apartment. She had
come across that smell before at work. It was the
(05:36):
smell of rotting flesh. Rosemary had recently adopted a puppy.
Perhaps it had brought something into the flat, thought Zoe,
yet despite scouring the place from top to bottom, she
found no obvious source. When Rosemary returned with the children
later that day, they spent the evening pulling back furniture
(05:58):
and disinfecting the pro even spraying air freshener everywhere, but
it was to no avail. Nothing could shake it. The
following day, the stench persisted. Being Saturday, the families took
the opportunity to get out for the day, hoping the
odour would dissipate by the time they had got back.
(06:20):
Returning later that evening, they were somewhat disappointed to find
it still very much lingering. Zoe took little convincing to
stay at stands for the night, leaving the others to
deal with it alone. Doing their best to ignore it,
the family would eventually bed down for the night and
find some sleep. It was sometime around one a m.
(06:49):
When Rosemary awoke with a start. The room was pitch black,
but as her eyes slowly adjusted, she could just make
out the figure of a man standing at the foot
of her bed, watching her. Assuming it to be her
boyfriend Lloyd, who had mentioned possibly heading over that night,
(07:10):
Rosemary watched in silence as the figure turned and walked
straight out at the bedroom without saying a word. Lloyd
whispered Rosemary into the night, but there was no reply.
Feeling suddenly unsure, she stepped from the bed and peered
into the darkness of the corridor, looking down to the
(07:34):
far end. Although the living room door was closed, she
could see the room's light was on, softly shining out
from under the door. Lloyd she whispered again, but still
there was no response. After checking to make sure that
there was no one in the kitchen, Rosemary cautiously made
(07:57):
her way toward the living room, stopping outside the door,
she could just make out an airy, scratching sound coming
from within. Slowly she opened the door, but there was
nobody inside the room. The sound, she now realized, had
been coming from the record player, which had inexplicably been
(08:20):
turned on. She watched for a moment, mesmerized by the
empty table as it spun round and round, listening to
the scratch of the needle as it dragged against the
empty plate. With a rising sense of panic, she hurried
to check on the children in the other rooms and
found them all sound asleep, with no sign of an
(08:42):
intruder or Lloyd, for that matter, anywhere. Finally making her
way to the front door, Rosemary double checked the locks,
finding them just as she had left them earlier that night.
Now thoroughly spooted, Rosemary switched off the living room light
and returned to bed. After eventually getting back to sleep,
(09:12):
she was woken just before seven by an unexpected brightness,
surprised to find her bedroom light had been switched on.
In fact, as she would discover soon after, every light
in the house had been turned on again. There was
no sign of anybody else other than her children, who
(09:33):
were still sound asleep in their beds. A few hours later,
while helping her daughters get dressed, Rosemarie went to the
spare room to get clean clothes. She opened the door
and let out a stifled cry. The room had been
completely smashed up. The bed had been stripped and the
(09:55):
mattress tossed to the bottom of the room. All her
children's clothes had been wrenched from their drawers and scattered
across the floor, And in the middle of the room
sat a small rocking horse, which until that morning had
been perched high on top of the wardrobe. Then she
spotted something else lying on the floor, a golliwog doll
(10:19):
of her daughter's, its head torn off and the stuffing
ripped out of it. Although quite popular with many white
families at the time, the dolls designed in the image
of a black face minstrel have since been broadly recognized
as racist and offensive depictions of black men. All other
(10:40):
dolls in the room had been left curiously untouched. There
was something else too. The window was wide open. However,
as Rosemary looked down at the sheer drop two flights below,
it was clear that nobody could have climbed in or
out of it. Later that day, having confirmed that her
(11:02):
boyfriend Lloyd had been nowhere near the flat, a deeply
shaken Rosemary, accompanied by her three small children, made her
way up the road to Saint Paul's Church. Terrified that
she was going mad, She relayed the events to Canon
David Diamond, who listened with patience and concern to her story.
(11:23):
Though he wasn't free to see the flat for himself,
he gave her a crucifix to install in the apartment.
A short time later, Rosemary returned home, joined by friends
and neighbours Linda and the aptly named Missus mystery. Stepping
into the damaged bedroom, Mystery was immediately gripped by a
(11:45):
profoundly unsettling sensation. Blood drained from her face and the
hares rose on the back of her neck. Certain that
whatever had been here was violently angry. Together, the friends
cleaned up the room and placed the crucifix on the
wall at Linda's suggestion, The nervous Rosemary also scattered garlic
(12:11):
throughout the room to ward off any evil spirits. That night,
with Lloyd staying over this time, Rosemary slept soundly with
no repeat of the previous night's disturbances. The next day,
Priest Diamond arrived and, sensing something of an unquiet spirit,
(12:32):
he offered up a solemn requiem Mass, also known as
the Mass for the Dead. The Mass, as the Catholic
Rosemary knew well, was usually given at funerals in an
effort to bring rest to the souls of the deceased.
But Rosemary was confused. Why would he need to say
(12:53):
it in her apartment, she asked, As Diamond explained this
wasn't the first time he had given the Mass at
frankm House. In fact, he had been hearing reports for
some time that the place was haunted. As it would transpire,
there had been another building here before the council knocked
(13:14):
it down to build the estate. It was a church
demolished in the nineteen thirties, and Frankom House had been
built right on top of its cemetery. Perhaps the recent
building work had disturbed something in the soil, but Rosemary
shouldn't worry, said Diamond. The spirits wouldn't be bothering her now,
(13:39):
and he was right for a short time at least.
Hattie Smith and husband Jim had lived at Number sixteen
for twenty seven years when they accepted the council's offer
to move out as part of their redevelopment plans for
(13:59):
the US area, and they couldn't have been happier for
the opportunity. All six of their children had at some
point grown up in the frankem House flat, and all
had strange stories to tell. The family had always kept
it to themselves, not ever quite sure of what they
had experienced, but also concerned with what others might think.
(14:24):
Hattie had often sensed a presence when alone in the apartment,
and at times had even felt something touching her or
pulling at her clothes. Lights would frequently turn off and
on of their own accord. Hattie's daughter Shirley saw shadows
moving about the flat and heard odd noises late at night,
(14:46):
as if furniture was being moved around, only to find
the next morning that nothing had been touched. Another daughter, Sylvia,
had spent an entire night staring with horror at her
bedroom door as the handle moved up and down the door,
seemingly being opened and shut by something unseen. One time,
(15:10):
a neighbor late one evening thought she caught sight of
Hattie's husband, Jim, standing at one of the windows just
inside their apartment. Only the flat had been empty at
the time. The strange events seemed to have abated until
that final year before they moved and the workmen moved
(15:31):
into the area. It was late one Tuesday night when
Hattie returned home from playing bingo, with Jim away for
work and the children having left home many years before.
Hattie was completely alone when she put a pile of
dirty washing in the bath to soak overnight before retiring
(15:53):
to bed. The next morning, she was woken at seven
thirty a m. By the sound of fast running water
racing into the bathroom. She found it gushing out of
the tap. With the tub almost full, Hattie hurriedly turned
it off and looked down at the water. It was
(16:14):
the strangest thing. At the very bottom were her clothes
soaking in a layer of dark, dirty water, but then
on top an entirely other layer, completely clear. Whatever it was,
it was back a few weeks later, Hattie was cleaning
(16:34):
the bathroom when the door suddenly closed behind her. Turning
to pull it open, she found it had stuck fast,
as if it had been locked from the outside. Hattie
called out to Jim for help, pulling furiously at the handle.
Looking down, she screamed in terror at the sight of
(16:54):
a hand sticking out from under the door. Jim arrived
moments later, opening the door with ease. It had been
unlocked the whole time the Smiths left their apartment in
February of nineteen seventy four. It was around the same
(17:18):
time that Hattie's friend and neighbor, Beatrice Goringe, first experienced
her own peculiar happenings. Beatrice lived next door at Number seventeen,
and things had never been quite the same since her
husband died the year before. It started with the knocking,
short quiet taps that seemed to come from within the walls.
(17:42):
Then other sounds were heard, like something being dragged across
the floor. One night, early in the new year, the
fifty six year old Beatrice had just said good bye
to her daughter, who had come to visit, when she
turned back into the flat and noticed the bath from
door swinging closed. She called out, but received no reply,
(18:06):
hearing only voices coming from the radio in the living room.
Tiptoeing down toward the bathroom, she felt the temperature drop suddenly.
She pushed open the bathroom door, but found nobody inside.
Now feeling very cold, she listened with alarm as the
(18:28):
volume on the radio in the other room was suddenly
turned down. Hello, she said, but again there was no reply.
Moving slowly into the living room, she headed to the
radio and turned the dial back up, but the volume
wouldn't shift. When Beatrice stepped out of the room a
(18:51):
moment later, the radio blared out at full volume. Rushing
back in, she wrenched the cord from the wall and
stood for a moment in the silence. That night, Beatrice
awoke in the dim light of the late evening to
find what appeared to be the faint outline of a
(19:12):
figure standing at the end of her bed. Too terrified
to move, Beatrice waited until morning before packing a bag
and racing to her mother's, where she would spend the
night For the next few weeks. Friends suggested the figure
she had seen was her recently deceased husband, but she
insisted it wasn't. Her husband had been quite short, but
(19:38):
this figure was something else, entirely tall and oddly shaped.
Back inside number twenty four. A few nights later, Rosemary
was woken by the sound of the baby crying. With
(20:00):
Zoe out for the evening, she was just getting up
to see to her when she heard the cry of
leave me alone coming from her daughter's bedroom, but when
she entered, there was no one there except for Donna
and her sister Jennifer. I'm frightened, said Donna, as her
mother tried to comfort her. For the next few days,
(20:22):
the family are plagued by doors in the property that
continually open and close on their own. When a friend
hears of the latest events, she convinces Rosemary and Zoe
to try out a wigi board in an attempt to
communicate with whatever is haunting their home. One night in
(20:43):
early March, with the children fast asleep. Rosemary, Zoe, and
her boyfriend Stan sit themselves around the kitchen table, having
crudely constructed their own numbers and lettering, and placed them
in a circle around a glass. With their fingers on
the vessel. Rosemary asks quietly if anybody is there. Slowly,
(21:06):
the glass begins to move, stopping next to the word yes.
Are you a good or bad? Spirit cuts in Zoe.
Rosemary gasps as the glass makes its way across the table,
first to the letter B, then to the A, and
(21:26):
finally to the D. Cut it out stand, says zoey.
But I'm not doing anything, he says. To prove it,
he takes his finger from the glass and asks a
question that neither of the others could possibly know. What's
the first initial of my brother's name, he says, with
a deep breath. Slowly, again, the glass begins to move,
(21:51):
sliding across to the letter J. Zoe looks to Stan,
whose face has already gone white. Another session ends with
the glass repeatedly spelling out goodbye and shooting off the
table into Rosemary's lap. One evening, after a particularly fraught session,
(22:14):
Zoe was too scared to sleep alone and spent the
night with Rosemary. The following morning, she returned to her
room to find it completely trashed, with everything from the
top of her dresser swept onto the floor, including a crucifix,
bottles of perfume, and her nurse's book. The chair in
her room had been moved next to the book, as
(22:35):
if someone had just recently been sitting in it. Zoe
moved out the following month. Shortly before Zoe left, a
local journalist caught wind of the strange events taking place
at Frankom House. A series of short articles printed in
(22:58):
the Southeast London Mercury in turn caught the attention of
Society of Psychical Research member Hugh Pincott, who promptly made
arrangements to speak with some of the residents. Pincott found
Rosemary and her family deeply traumatized by the recent events. However,
despite holding a number of further seances together with Rosemary
(23:19):
and Zoe, Pincott was unable to gleam any substantial information
about what exactly had been taking place. One night, soon
after Rosemary is woken by her daughter Donna's screams, there
had been a tall man with a large beard standing
at the back of her room, she said between sobs
(23:40):
as her mother looked on aghast. Not long after, the
building works taking place around the property finally came to
an end, and so too did the strange occurrences within
the walls of Frankom House. Despite everything that had happened,
the seemed no trace of the apparent haunting that had
(24:02):
taken place at the property, except for one thing. When
Hugh Pincott eventually managed to track down Hattie Smith, she
was keen to finally be able to share her experiences.
Taking a picture from a family photo album, she passed
it to mister Pincott. It had been taken by one
(24:24):
of her grandchildren, a portrait of Hattie and one of
her daughters standing side by side, and there in the background,
to the left of the door stood the dark, shadowy
shape of a tall figure lurking just behind them. In
(24:48):
twenty fifteen, the Population Reference Bureau estimated that since the
appearance of modern Homo sapiens sometime around fifty thousand BCE,
just over a hundred billion of us have lived and
died on this planet. London, like all major cities of
the world, has buried its fair view. Considering that humans
(25:12):
have lived in the area for over five thousand years.
It's a wonder that there is any space there at
all that doesn't somewhere adjacent or directly below it contain
remnants of those who have come before us. And considering
the frequency with which even those who are still living
here will be ripped from their communities and involuntarily resettled
(25:36):
as if they were mere ghosts themselves, perhaps we should
not worry or feign surprise when we find bones amid
the foundations. In some ways, it is strange to think
for those lucky enough to have a place to call
their own, or a piece of land, perhaps, how desperately
(25:57):
we cling to the notion that it is ours, the
thought of its being invaded the ultimate violation. But this ownership,
of course, can only ever be a legal fiction, a
reality only as long as there are enough people to
believe it. So, in truth, land belongs to no one.
(26:21):
The idea that ghosts remain attached to the land long
after their bodies have gone has also always seemed problematic
to me, much like the question played out to wonderful
and mournful effect in David Lowry's two thousand seventeen film
A Ghost Story. I Find myself wondering just where would
(26:41):
these ghosts go when the earth is swallowed by the
massive giant Our sun is destined to become. It too
fated to die and perhaps one day vanish from existence.
But perhaps one way or another, as long as it
and people are here to keep it so, the land
(27:03):
will always be haunted, something of it, always to be
trespassed upon, or, in the words of the poet Philip Frenaut,
thou stranger, that shalt come this way, no fraud upon
the dead to commit, observe the swelling turf, and say
they do not lie, but here they sit. Unexplained is
(27:34):
an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc lean smith.
All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained. The
book and audio book is now available to buy world wide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, water Stones
(27:55):
and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show
wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get
in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
of your own you'd like to share. You can find
out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us
online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook
(28:19):
dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast, attatatatatas
With season eight due to return next Friday, it's back
to the archive of one more time. This week we're
heading to the seventies, to a quiet housing estate in
southeast London. Considering there have been settlers based around the
area comprising present day London for over five thousand years,
it's hardly surprising that under all that concrete we find
(00:21):
remnants of those that have come before us. But what
comes of those whose remnants have been disturbed? This is unexplained,
Season three, episode three, Under the Asphalt. That night, Zoe
(00:48):
was restless, lying in bed with her boyfriend's stand fast
asleep beside her. She had noticed a strange, diffuse light
that appeared to be emanating from just inside the bedroom window.
Nudging Stan awake, she gestured toward the far end of
the room. Seeing it now too, he sat up, trying
(01:10):
to comprehend what he was looking at. Before he had
time to think, Zoe was already up and flicking on
the main light, nervously looking about the room, before turning
it off again. With the room shrouded once more in darkness,
the peculiar light appeared to have gone. Must have been
(01:30):
something from outside, said Stan as he rolled on to
his side and closed his eyes. Zoey rubbed her arms,
suddenly feeling a little cold, and moved over to the window.
Peering down through the curtains to the quiet street below,
she could see the soft sodium glow of a street
light illuminating the pavement on the far side of the road.
(01:53):
That must have been it, she thought. She pulled the
curtains tighter and got back into bed. Before she could
get comfortable, however, she saw once again that the strange
light had returned. Stan whispered Zoe. He opened his eyes
for a moment before turning away again on to his side.
(02:17):
I told you it's just something from outside, but Stan
said Zoe. It's moving. Stan paused before turning to look
at Zoe and then towards the end of the room.
What at first seemed like a light was more like
a misty white shadow now, and it was moving away
(02:39):
from the window and further into the room. Stan's hands
gripped tighter on the covers. The pair froze as the
amorphous shadow of light continued to move around the room
before stopping at the end of the bed. Stan shot
under the covers in terror, but Zoe couldn't take her
(02:59):
eyes off it, she reached out her hand, drawing closer
and closer until she was near enough to touch it,
and then as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.
You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mc lean smith.
(03:25):
The following morning, Zoey and Stan weren't quite sure what,
if anything, they had seen. An embarrassed Stan left early
for work, leaving a perplexed Zoe to explain the events
to her housemate Rosemary. The two of them lived together
in Flat number twenty four of Frankombe House, a five
(03:45):
story red bricked council housing block built in the late
nineteen thirties. It was located on the corner of frankom
Street and Deptford Church Street in southeast London, forming part
of the area's Crossfield Estate. The estate had been built
over a ten year period as part of a major
regeneration drive to improve housing in the local area, but
(04:09):
had itself in recent times come under threat of demolition.
In early nineteen seventy three, builders had moved in to
widen the adjacent road, and now the council were considering
the partial removal of some of the housing blocks on
the estate. To make way for it. It was shortly
after builders moved in that Zoe's peculiar experience had taken
(04:32):
place that morning. However, recounting the story to Rosemary, she
couldn't help but feel a little bit stupid. Most likely,
as Stan had suggested, it really was just a trick
of the light. Twenty one year old Zoe had moved
into the flat the previous year, shortly after giving birth
(04:53):
to her baby, Natalie. The pair shared the apartment with
the twenty eight year old Rosemary and three year old
daughters Donna and Jennifer, and her seven year old son Mark.
Though neither was particularly superstitious, with their young children also
living in the flat with them, they could be forgiven
a slight sense of apprehension at the thought of something
(05:15):
strange happening inside their home. They had soon forgotten the incident, however,
until a few weeks later, when Zoe, who worked as
a nurse, returned to the flat after a long shift
to find a putrid smell filling the apartment. She had
come across that smell before at work. It was the
(05:36):
smell of rotting flesh. Rosemary had recently adopted a puppy.
Perhaps it had brought something into the flat, thought Zoe,
yet despite scouring the place from top to bottom, she
found no obvious source. When Rosemary returned with the children
later that day, they spent the evening pulling back furniture
(05:58):
and disinfecting the pro even spraying air freshener everywhere, but
it was to no avail. Nothing could shake it. The
following day, the stench persisted. Being Saturday, the families took
the opportunity to get out for the day, hoping the
odour would dissipate by the time they had got back.
(06:20):
Returning later that evening, they were somewhat disappointed to find
it still very much lingering. Zoe took little convincing to
stay at stands for the night, leaving the others to
deal with it alone. Doing their best to ignore it,
the family would eventually bed down for the night and
find some sleep. It was sometime around one a m.
(06:49):
When Rosemary awoke with a start. The room was pitch black,
but as her eyes slowly adjusted, she could just make
out the figure of a man standing at the foot
of her bed, watching her. Assuming it to be her
boyfriend Lloyd, who had mentioned possibly heading over that night,
(07:10):
Rosemary watched in silence as the figure turned and walked
straight out at the bedroom without saying a word. Lloyd
whispered Rosemary into the night, but there was no reply.
Feeling suddenly unsure, she stepped from the bed and peered
into the darkness of the corridor, looking down to the
(07:34):
far end. Although the living room door was closed, she
could see the room's light was on, softly shining out
from under the door. Lloyd she whispered again, but still
there was no response. After checking to make sure that
there was no one in the kitchen, Rosemary cautiously made
(07:57):
her way toward the living room, stopping outside the door,
she could just make out an airy, scratching sound coming
from within. Slowly she opened the door, but there was
nobody inside the room. The sound, she now realized, had
been coming from the record player, which had inexplicably been
(08:20):
turned on. She watched for a moment, mesmerized by the
empty table as it spun round and round, listening to
the scratch of the needle as it dragged against the
empty plate. With a rising sense of panic, she hurried
to check on the children in the other rooms and
found them all sound asleep, with no sign of an
(08:42):
intruder or Lloyd, for that matter, anywhere. Finally making her
way to the front door, Rosemary double checked the locks,
finding them just as she had left them earlier that night.
Now thoroughly spooted, Rosemary switched off the living room light
and returned to bed. After eventually getting back to sleep,
(09:12):
she was woken just before seven by an unexpected brightness,
surprised to find her bedroom light had been switched on.
In fact, as she would discover soon after, every light
in the house had been turned on again. There was
no sign of anybody else other than her children, who
(09:33):
were still sound asleep in their beds. A few hours later,
while helping her daughters get dressed, Rosemarie went to the
spare room to get clean clothes. She opened the door
and let out a stifled cry. The room had been
completely smashed up. The bed had been stripped and the
(09:55):
mattress tossed to the bottom of the room. All her
children's clothes had been wrenched from their drawers and scattered
across the floor, And in the middle of the room
sat a small rocking horse, which until that morning had
been perched high on top of the wardrobe. Then she
spotted something else lying on the floor, a golliwog doll
(10:19):
of her daughter's, its head torn off and the stuffing
ripped out of it. Although quite popular with many white
families at the time, the dolls designed in the image
of a black face minstrel have since been broadly recognized
as racist and offensive depictions of black men. All other
(10:40):
dolls in the room had been left curiously untouched. There
was something else too. The window was wide open. However,
as Rosemary looked down at the sheer drop two flights below,
it was clear that nobody could have climbed in or
out of it. Later that day, having confirmed that her
(11:02):
boyfriend Lloyd had been nowhere near the flat, a deeply
shaken Rosemary, accompanied by her three small children, made her
way up the road to Saint Paul's Church. Terrified that
she was going mad, She relayed the events to Canon
David Diamond, who listened with patience and concern to her story.
(11:23):
Though he wasn't free to see the flat for himself,
he gave her a crucifix to install in the apartment.
A short time later, Rosemary returned home, joined by friends
and neighbours Linda and the aptly named Missus mystery. Stepping
into the damaged bedroom, Mystery was immediately gripped by a
(11:45):
profoundly unsettling sensation. Blood drained from her face and the
hares rose on the back of her neck. Certain that
whatever had been here was violently angry. Together, the friends
cleaned up the room and placed the crucifix on the
wall at Linda's suggestion, The nervous Rosemary also scattered garlic
(12:11):
throughout the room to ward off any evil spirits. That night,
with Lloyd staying over this time, Rosemary slept soundly with
no repeat of the previous night's disturbances. The next day,
Priest Diamond arrived and, sensing something of an unquiet spirit,
(12:32):
he offered up a solemn requiem Mass, also known as
the Mass for the Dead. The Mass, as the Catholic
Rosemary knew well, was usually given at funerals in an
effort to bring rest to the souls of the deceased.
But Rosemary was confused. Why would he need to say
(12:53):
it in her apartment, she asked, As Diamond explained this
wasn't the first time he had given the Mass at
frankm House. In fact, he had been hearing reports for
some time that the place was haunted. As it would transpire,
there had been another building here before the council knocked
(13:14):
it down to build the estate. It was a church
demolished in the nineteen thirties, and Frankom House had been
built right on top of its cemetery. Perhaps the recent
building work had disturbed something in the soil, but Rosemary
shouldn't worry, said Diamond. The spirits wouldn't be bothering her now,
(13:39):
and he was right for a short time at least.
Hattie Smith and husband Jim had lived at Number sixteen
for twenty seven years when they accepted the council's offer
to move out as part of their redevelopment plans for
(13:59):
the US area, and they couldn't have been happier for
the opportunity. All six of their children had at some
point grown up in the frankem House flat, and all
had strange stories to tell. The family had always kept
it to themselves, not ever quite sure of what they
had experienced, but also concerned with what others might think.
(14:24):
Hattie had often sensed a presence when alone in the apartment,
and at times had even felt something touching her or
pulling at her clothes. Lights would frequently turn off and
on of their own accord. Hattie's daughter Shirley saw shadows
moving about the flat and heard odd noises late at night,
(14:46):
as if furniture was being moved around, only to find
the next morning that nothing had been touched. Another daughter, Sylvia,
had spent an entire night staring with horror at her
bedroom door as the handle moved up and down the door,
seemingly being opened and shut by something unseen. One time,
(15:10):
a neighbor late one evening thought she caught sight of
Hattie's husband, Jim, standing at one of the windows just
inside their apartment. Only the flat had been empty at
the time. The strange events seemed to have abated until
that final year before they moved and the workmen moved
(15:31):
into the area. It was late one Tuesday night when
Hattie returned home from playing bingo, with Jim away for
work and the children having left home many years before.
Hattie was completely alone when she put a pile of
dirty washing in the bath to soak overnight before retiring
(15:53):
to bed. The next morning, she was woken at seven
thirty a m. By the sound of fast running water
racing into the bathroom. She found it gushing out of
the tap. With the tub almost full, Hattie hurriedly turned
it off and looked down at the water. It was
(16:14):
the strangest thing. At the very bottom were her clothes
soaking in a layer of dark, dirty water, but then
on top an entirely other layer, completely clear. Whatever it was,
it was back a few weeks later, Hattie was cleaning
(16:34):
the bathroom when the door suddenly closed behind her. Turning
to pull it open, she found it had stuck fast,
as if it had been locked from the outside. Hattie
called out to Jim for help, pulling furiously at the handle.
Looking down, she screamed in terror at the sight of
(16:54):
a hand sticking out from under the door. Jim arrived
moments later, opening the door with ease. It had been
unlocked the whole time the Smiths left their apartment in
February of nineteen seventy four. It was around the same
(17:18):
time that Hattie's friend and neighbor, Beatrice Goringe, first experienced
her own peculiar happenings. Beatrice lived next door at Number seventeen,
and things had never been quite the same since her
husband died the year before. It started with the knocking,
short quiet taps that seemed to come from within the walls.
(17:42):
Then other sounds were heard, like something being dragged across
the floor. One night, early in the new year, the
fifty six year old Beatrice had just said good bye
to her daughter, who had come to visit, when she
turned back into the flat and noticed the bath from
door swinging closed. She called out, but received no reply,
(18:06):
hearing only voices coming from the radio in the living room.
Tiptoeing down toward the bathroom, she felt the temperature drop suddenly.
She pushed open the bathroom door, but found nobody inside.
Now feeling very cold, she listened with alarm as the
(18:28):
volume on the radio in the other room was suddenly
turned down. Hello, she said, but again there was no reply.
Moving slowly into the living room, she headed to the
radio and turned the dial back up, but the volume
wouldn't shift. When Beatrice stepped out of the room a
(18:51):
moment later, the radio blared out at full volume. Rushing
back in, she wrenched the cord from the wall and
stood for a moment in the silence. That night, Beatrice
awoke in the dim light of the late evening to
find what appeared to be the faint outline of a
(19:12):
figure standing at the end of her bed. Too terrified
to move, Beatrice waited until morning before packing a bag
and racing to her mother's, where she would spend the
night For the next few weeks. Friends suggested the figure
she had seen was her recently deceased husband, but she
insisted it wasn't. Her husband had been quite short, but
(19:38):
this figure was something else, entirely tall and oddly shaped.
Back inside number twenty four. A few nights later, Rosemary
was woken by the sound of the baby crying. With
(20:00):
Zoe out for the evening, she was just getting up
to see to her when she heard the cry of
leave me alone coming from her daughter's bedroom, but when
she entered, there was no one there except for Donna
and her sister Jennifer. I'm frightened, said Donna, as her
mother tried to comfort her. For the next few days,
(20:22):
the family are plagued by doors in the property that
continually open and close on their own. When a friend
hears of the latest events, she convinces Rosemary and Zoe
to try out a wigi board in an attempt to
communicate with whatever is haunting their home. One night in
(20:43):
early March, with the children fast asleep. Rosemary, Zoe, and
her boyfriend Stan sit themselves around the kitchen table, having
crudely constructed their own numbers and lettering, and placed them
in a circle around a glass. With their fingers on
the vessel. Rosemary asks quietly if anybody is there. Slowly,
(21:06):
the glass begins to move, stopping next to the word yes.
Are you a good or bad? Spirit cuts in Zoe.
Rosemary gasps as the glass makes its way across the table,
first to the letter B, then to the A, and
(21:26):
finally to the D. Cut it out stand, says zoey.
But I'm not doing anything, he says. To prove it,
he takes his finger from the glass and asks a
question that neither of the others could possibly know. What's
the first initial of my brother's name, he says, with
a deep breath. Slowly, again, the glass begins to move,
(21:51):
sliding across to the letter J. Zoe looks to Stan,
whose face has already gone white. Another session ends with
the glass repeatedly spelling out goodbye and shooting off the
table into Rosemary's lap. One evening, after a particularly fraught session,
(22:14):
Zoe was too scared to sleep alone and spent the
night with Rosemary. The following morning, she returned to her
room to find it completely trashed, with everything from the
top of her dresser swept onto the floor, including a crucifix,
bottles of perfume, and her nurse's book. The chair in
her room had been moved next to the book, as
(22:35):
if someone had just recently been sitting in it. Zoe
moved out the following month. Shortly before Zoe left, a
local journalist caught wind of the strange events taking place
at Frankom House. A series of short articles printed in
(22:58):
the Southeast London Mercury in turn caught the attention of
Society of Psychical Research member Hugh Pincott, who promptly made
arrangements to speak with some of the residents. Pincott found
Rosemary and her family deeply traumatized by the recent events. However,
despite holding a number of further seances together with Rosemary
(23:19):
and Zoe, Pincott was unable to gleam any substantial information
about what exactly had been taking place. One night, soon
after Rosemary is woken by her daughter Donna's screams, there
had been a tall man with a large beard standing
at the back of her room, she said between sobs
(23:40):
as her mother looked on aghast. Not long after, the
building works taking place around the property finally came to
an end, and so too did the strange occurrences within
the walls of Frankom House. Despite everything that had happened,
the seemed no trace of the apparent haunting that had
(24:02):
taken place at the property, except for one thing. When
Hugh Pincott eventually managed to track down Hattie Smith, she
was keen to finally be able to share her experiences.
Taking a picture from a family photo album, she passed
it to mister Pincott. It had been taken by one
(24:24):
of her grandchildren, a portrait of Hattie and one of
her daughters standing side by side, and there in the background,
to the left of the door stood the dark, shadowy
shape of a tall figure lurking just behind them. In
(24:48):
twenty fifteen, the Population Reference Bureau estimated that since the
appearance of modern Homo sapiens sometime around fifty thousand BCE,
just over a hundred billion of us have lived and
died on this planet. London, like all major cities of
the world, has buried its fair view. Considering that humans
(25:12):
have lived in the area for over five thousand years.
It's a wonder that there is any space there at
all that doesn't somewhere adjacent or directly below it contain
remnants of those who have come before us. And considering
the frequency with which even those who are still living
here will be ripped from their communities and involuntarily resettled
(25:36):
as if they were mere ghosts themselves, perhaps we should
not worry or feign surprise when we find bones amid
the foundations. In some ways, it is strange to think
for those lucky enough to have a place to call
their own, or a piece of land, perhaps, how desperately
(25:57):
we cling to the notion that it is ours, the
thought of its being invaded the ultimate violation. But this ownership,
of course, can only ever be a legal fiction, a
reality only as long as there are enough people to
believe it. So, in truth, land belongs to no one.
(26:21):
The idea that ghosts remain attached to the land long
after their bodies have gone has also always seemed problematic
to me, much like the question played out to wonderful
and mournful effect in David Lowry's two thousand seventeen film
A Ghost Story. I Find myself wondering just where would
(26:41):
these ghosts go when the earth is swallowed by the
massive giant Our sun is destined to become. It too
fated to die and perhaps one day vanish from existence.
But perhaps one way or another, as long as it
and people are here to keep it so, the land
(27:03):
will always be haunted, something of it, always to be
trespassed upon, or, in the words of the poet Philip Frenaut,
thou stranger, that shalt come this way, no fraud upon
the dead to commit, observe the swelling turf, and say
they do not lie, but here they sit. Unexplained is
(27:34):
an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc lean smith.
All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained. The
book and audio book is now available to buy world wide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, water Stones
(27:55):
and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show
wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get
in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
of your own you'd like to share. You can find
out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us
online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook
(28:19):
dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast, attatatatatas
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