Season 6 Episode 4: The Widening Gyre (Pt.2 of 3)

A one faced Peggy greeted him at the door. Though clearly exhausted, she thanked him warmly for coming and promptly showed him through to the kids, where, over a cup of tea, she did her best to fill him in on all the mayhem of the last few weeks. Guy was struck immediately by how resolute Peggy was and how clearly desperate she was to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. If anyone here was in on it, he thought it certainly wasn't Peggy. Afterwards, Guy was introduced

to the children in the living room. Thirteen year old Margaret and seven year old Billy both sat quietly together on the sofa, while in contrast, eleven year old Janet seemed unable to sit still, and when Guy asked her to describe all that had happened in the last twelve days, he could barely keep up as the words tumbled fast

out of her mouth. Then Daily Mirror photographer Graham Morris stepped in to introduce himself and was soon regaling Guy with his own stories about all the peculiar things he'd witnessed so far, though sadly, as he explained, he was yet to capture any of the bizarre activity on film.

Then later, away from the family, he told Guy a little more about what he'd seen, as Maurice Gross had also noticed whatever was happening, he thought seemed to be centered around Janet, but also though much of the activity took place at night in the bedrooms, nothing significant seemed to happen unless everybody except family members were out of the room at the time, all of which sounded more

than a little suspect to Guy. Later that night, Guy and Graham took their places on the landing outside the bedrooms, primed for any unusual activity, while inside the second bedroom, where Janet and Margaret were sleeping, camera and flash had been rigged up to a shutter release cable that Graham could hold outside the door, allowing him to take a

picture the moment anything strange took place. When they were satisfied the girls were asleep, Guy whispered, just loud enough to be heard from inside the bedrooms that he and Graham should head back downstairs. Taking his cue, Graham promptly made his way down, making sure to tread on each step twice, while Guy remained stationed outside the bedroom door. After waiting a moment, Guy stepped silently into the doorway of Janet and Margaret's bedroom and poked his head into

the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could just about make out the girls and their eyes now tightly closed as if in deep sleep. But when the sound of Graham shutting the living room door came up from downstairs, Janet opened her eyes suddenly and slowly lifted her head from the pillow. She hadn't been sleeping at all. After seemingly catching Janet out, Guy headed downstairs

to tell Peggy and Graham what he'd seen. Despite their disappointment, it was agreed not to mention it to Janet, partly because Peggy didn't want to upset her, but also, since it didn't confirm anything necessarily, they didn't want to unduly influence any later behavior by revealing their suspicions about her. Later that night, Graham was unable once again to capture anything definitive when a marble was found to dropped to

the floor just inside the bedroom. Deciding to up the ante, he returned the following day with even more equipment, swiftly rigging up two more cameras and flash guns in Janet's room. As Janet prepared for bed, Graham attempted a quick test run of the new setup, but when he pressed the shutter release button, none of the flashes went off. That's weird, he said, as he examined each of them. All three had been fully charged before he brought them into the room.

Now all of them were completely drained of power. The following day, Maurice Gross, who'd been ill at home with a cold, rejoined Guy at the house. Over the next week, with each taking notes and making tape recordings at the various goings on. Together, they recorded numerous unusual events, from the constant knocking on walls to the shaking of beds, as well as the now ever constant barrage of marbles,

lego and furniture being flung about the place. What was particularly strange about the marbles, according to Morris, was the way they would often just fall from the air and stick to the floor like magnets, not bouncing once and soon, though he still had his doubts about Janet, with the sheer number of incidents taking place, Guy too began to come round to the notion that something truly strange was taking place in the Hodgson's home, and all of it

was entirely consistent with supposed poltergeist activity. On September nineteenth, Guy helped the Hodgsons clear out their third bedroom so he could spend the night there himself. Though the first night was relatively tame, by the second, things got a little bit more interesting, with a small metal chair in Janet's room being repeatedly knocked over by an apparently invisible force. Guy decided to tie it to her bed with some garden wire. Only moments later, however, with Guy back out

on the landing, he heard it tumble over again. Back inside the bedroom, Janet and Margaret appeared to be fast asleep while the chair was once again on its side, having been seemingly tossed into the middle, and the wire tying it to the bed had completely snapped off. Peggy joined Guy in the room as he picked up the chair and placed it once again next to the bed, this time making sure to wrap more wire around it to keep it firmly in place. With it secured once more,

Peggy stayed upstairs as Guy headed back down. Moments later, another loud scuffle was heard coming from Janet's room. Rushing back up, Guy found a stunned Peggy pointing to an arm chair that had now been seemingly pushed over in the corner. I saw it move by itself, said Peggy in startled disbelief. The pair of them then returned downstairs, only for yet another crash to be heard coming from the bedroom. Rushing up once more, Guy struggled to comprehend

the scene before him. Now the bed had been wrenched away from the wall, while in the middle of the room lay that small metal chair, once again ripped free from its wire restraints, as if something had pulled at it so hard it had pulled the bed out with it before being eventually ripped free from the Stepping back outside, Guy suddenly noticed one of the children's books was now lying in the doorway of the third bedroom. He picked it up and read the title with a wry smile,

Fun and Games for Children, it read. Listening back to a recording of the event, Guy marveled at how each thing seemed to happen simultaneously, from the scraping of the bed to the thud of the chair on the floor, to the sound of the book whizzing through the air before clattering to the ground, And not once did he hear the creak of floorboards or the sound of footsteps.

Look at your pillow, mum, came Janet's voice, suddenly from out of the tape machine, referring to the bed that Peggy had made up for herself in the room that had yet to be used that day. A allow impression had suddenly appeared in it, as if a small, ghostly child had rested its head there for just the briefest of moments. Is there something interfering with your happiness or

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wants you to start living a happier life today. Not long after the event with the book, Guy was sent running back to the children's bedroom for a fourth time that night when Margaret screamed out suddenly for her mum after a heavy chest of drawers was tipped over this time, however, when listening back to the tape, Guy could clearly hear the soft sound of footsteps over the carpet just before it happened, though Janet claimed later she'd heard them too

in the darkness, wasn't so sure. With Morris returning the following day, he and Guy agreed that they needed something more substantial than audio tape recordings and Graham Morris's near miss photographs if they were going to convince anyone that the poltergeist activity was genuine. After making a few calls in the morning, Morris managed to convince a team of video experts from Cambridge to come down to Enfield and

try and capture the bizarre activity for themselves. That afternoon, Morris took a moment to himself in the kitchen when he was distracted by a strange clanging sound. The metal teapot next to the stove was now rocking slowly from side to side of its own accord. Morris stood mesmerized watching it for a good seven seconds when it suddenly stopped.

A short time later, the video team, led by A Ron Denny, arrived at the property and swiftly got to work installing the top of the range new vi Con camera in Janet's bedroom, which was then connected by cable to a recording deck and monitor in the living room. With everything ready to go, Ron switched on the monitor and a soft color image flashed up on the screen of Janet lying in bed, her head resting on a

bright orange pillow and her eyes closed shut. Right here we go, then, said Ron, as he switched on the recorder, when suddenly all the lights on the device flashed on at once. That's strange, said Ron. That's never happened before. Ron tried pressing various buttons, but nothing seemed to work, and when he tried to eject the tape, it stayed resolute lee in the machine. With a sigh, Ron pulled out some screwdrivers and promptly set about taking the whole

thing apart. When they were finally able to extract the tape, they found it had become wrapped and jammed around an internal sprocket, almost as Guy and Morris couldn't help thinking as if something invisible had deliberately tampered with it. Though Ron and his team finally got the tape deck to work again after filming for five hours straight, they saw nothing untoward, Just as it was the next three times they returned to the house. To Guy and Morris, the

explanation was obvious. The poltergeist or whatever it was, seemed to know exactly what they were up to, and would only act if it knew it couldn't be seen. Not knowing what they were dealing with exactly didn't help matters, though. At this point both Morris and Guy favored the two main possibilities that either Janet was unwittingly exerting her own paranormal force or it was all an elaborate hoax. But

then came something entirely new. It was late in September that Peggy's brother John was visiting the family when, after heading into the hallway, he stopped suddenly at the foot of the stairs, as he recalled it later, from out of nowhere, a strange twelve inch strip of light appeared, suddenly hanging in the air at the top of the stairs, soft and fuzzy, as if he were seeing it through frosted glass. He watched it for a good few seconds,

then moments later it vanished completely. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to John, at roughly the same time, the Hodgson's neighbor, Vic Nottingham, was out in his garden when he was suddenly distracted by a movement in the Hodgson's top floor window that looked directly over the top of the stairs. Though he couldn't be sure, he was almost certain that for a split second he saw the ghostly image of an elderly,

gray haired lady standing on the landing. Back at his home, after another few weeks of the same banging and flying objects, but still with nothing concrete to show for it, Guy fixed himself a drink and took a seat in his study. Grabbing the tape recorder from his desk, he rewound the tape then pressed play. Guy sipped his drink as the strain of Escape from Planet of the Apes could be heard emanating brashly from the TV while the family chatted

quietly amongst themselves. It was a recording of the Hodgson family at home alone from the evening before that Guy had made in secret after leaving the house to get something to eat, when suddenly a huge bang rang out. What was that, said Margaret. Moments later, a tremendous crash was heard from the back of the room, followed by the sound of Margaret screaming and Peggy, urging them, are not to panic. I was just about to sit on it when it fell over, said Janet, out of nowhere.

After a further flurry of activity, Janet could be heard running to the window. Suddenly, her words just audible on the tape. Hurry up, mister Playfair, wherever you are. Guy stopped the tape and took another sip of his drink. It wasn't conclusive, necessarily, but at the very least, he thought it was hard to deny that certainly, in this instance, no one was deliberately putting on a show for him.

By mid October, the activity had become increasingly violent, with large pieces of furniture like the family's sofa and kitchen table being routinely upended, and as ever, Janet was almost always nearby at the time. Worried that she might be being targeted by a malicious spirit, Guy decided it was time to try something else. After consulting a friend, he was put in touch with two self described mediums who agreed to take a look at the house and see

what they could do. In Playfair's nineteen eighty book about the case, This House Is Haunted, the true story of the Enfield poltergeist. The pair were given the pseudonyms Annie and George Shaw. They arrived at the Hodgson's home the following day after taking some time to speak with the family.

With Margaret and Billy away, they asked for Janet, Peggy, Guy, and Morris to gather with them in the living room while Annie took a seat on a chair in the middle of the room and George took a seat near by. Then Annie closed her eyes and began to sway slightly as George recited a prayer for peace, when suddenly he asked out loud if the spirit could see him go away, screamed Annie in a strange, raspy voice, causing them all to jump. Then a horrible cackle exploded from her lips.

Raising his voice, George dem did the entity stop what it was doing immediately, only for Annie, now seemingly possessed, to spit in his face. Unperturbed, George kept up his demands for the spirit to leave, until finally Annie's face suddenly relaxed and she opened her eyes. After the bizarre session was over, Annie explained that two spirits named Goza and Elvie had become dangerously attached to Peggy and Janet

until draining their uric power. Though Peggy and Janet didn't quite know what to make of it, both agreed to Annie and George's offer to clean their auras, which, if nothing else, seemed to have a calming effect on the pair of them. Sadly, however, it wasn't to last for Janet, especially who'd started a new school in the time since the strange events began. Things were beginning to exert a heavy toll. At times. She'd often be so tired that

she couldn't even make it to school. Later in October, a meeting was called by concerned staff to speak with Guy and Morris about their investigation. A social worker and two welfare psychologists were also invited to discuss the best cause of action for her. In the end, it was agreed that the family should take a week's holiday together to Clacton on Sea, paid for by the council, to see if it could help to calm things down. Before long, however,

things began to take a more sinister turn. One night, while Guy was downstairs in the living room, Janet let out a blood curdling screen from the bedroom. When Guy ran in to check on her, he found her gasping for breath. It was trying to stop me breathe, she said. I could feel its hand over my mouth when it happened again. A short time later, Guy rushed back into the room to find the armchair had now been toppled over and a deeply distressed Janet sitting upright in bed.

There was a man sitting on it, she said between sobs. A few days later, after spending another night with the family, Guy was woken by an ominous thud coming from Janet's bedroom, followed by the sound of screams and Peggy racing out at the room in terror. Rushing in to investigate, Guy could only stare in disbelief at the peculiar sight before him.

The entire frame of the room's gas fire that had been cemented into the wall, was now lying in the middle of the carpet in a pile of dust, the brass pipe that connected it to the mains still sticking out the back of it bent at an angle of thirty degrees. There was nothing for it, thought Guy. It was time they made contact with whatever this was before some one got killed. The following night, with the family now gathered in the main bedroom, since none of them

wanted to sleep in the other room any more. Guy explained his simple plan. As soon as any knocking from the apparent poltergeist was heard, he would attempt to communicate with it by knocking back in reply. As the Hodgsons bedded down together above, Guy was joined in the living room by Peggy's brother John, where together they sat waiting for the first hint of knocking, and before long it

had begun. It was strange, thought John, as they tried to establish where each of the knocks were coming from. Although they seemed to be coming from above in the vicinity of the main bedroom, they also seemed to be coming from numerous parts of the ceiling at the same time. Even stranger was that, despite the floor above being carpeted, the knocks sounded as though they were actually happening underneath, as if knocking directly onto the floorboards upstairs. The family

could hear it too, right, shouted Guy from below. I'm going to knock back. Cover your head, shouted Peggy suddenly to Billy, just in time as a slipper came flying at him through the air. Sh said Janet, Let's see if it answers. Then After two sturdy knocks from Guy below, came the steady reply, knock, knock, knock. It's answering, said Margaret with excitement. Back downstairs, Guy spoke into the air, why are you here? His question was followed by a

flurry of knocks ringing out from above. Guy smiled with satisfaction contact had been made. In early November, the family returned, refreshed and energized from their much needed break to Clacton on Sea. For Peggy, however, it was bitter sweet. Though she couldn't remember the last time they'd all been so happy, she was suddenly overcome with sadness on the train home at the thought of what they were heading back to exactly.

She was soon put at ease by Morris and Guy, however, with their belief that they were finally getting somewhere after Guy's successful attempt to make contact the week before. That night, when the knocking started up again, it was Morris's turn to ask the questions. As the children got ready for bed, Marris took his place in the bedroom, while just outside the door, Guy laid down on the landing with his ear pressed at the linoleum floor. Then, after satisfying himself

that the children weren't responsible. Morris began, now remember, he said, it's one knock for no and two for yes. Did you die in this house? Knock? Knock came the reply, will you go away? Knock? How many years did you live here? Ten knock? More than twenty? Knock knock? Next, Morris asked it to tap out how many years ago it moved away? Fifty three knocks came back in return. Did you die that year? He asked, knock knock? Are

you having a game with me? Just then a box full of cushions flew up from beside the fireplace, hitting Morris on the head. A few days later, Guy invited his friend, physicist Eduardo Balanowski to the house to conduct a series of tests using equipment designed to measure apparent variations in the magnetic field. After setting it up for the night in Janet's bedroom, unusual fluctuations were recorded when a number of items were suddenly thrown about the room. However,

the findings proved inconclusive. Later that night, things then took a further sinister turn when Margaret was heard crying out for help from the stairs. When Morris and Peggy rushed through to help, they found her seemingly unable to move. It's holding my leg, she cried in horror. It was, as Morris said later, as if she'd been glued to the spot, and only after considerable effort were they able

to free her. Early the following morning, Janet was found on the bedroom floor, claiming to have been thrown out of her bed. In what quickly became a new recurring incident. Over the next few days, Janet was found repeatedly on the floor of her bedroom, each time claiming that she

was pulled out of bed by an invisible force. On November fifteenth, with no sign of any let up from the apparent haunting, Peggy Hodgson collapsed from exhaustion, after which she was ordered to rest at a brother's home for a few days while the children were taken into care. With the family out of the house for a few days, Guy made a second attempt to find out more about

the apparent entity with the help of another self described medium. However, much to Guy's surprise, she failed to sense anything there at all. Early in the morning of Saturday, November twenty sixth, Peggy and Vic Nottingham were woken up by a violent knocking coming from the Hodgson's home, only realizing afterwards that

the place was completely empty at the time. Later that day, with Peggy rested and the children back from the care home, Peggy arranged for Margaret and Billy to stay with their uncle while she and Janet went back to Number two hundred and eighty four, accompanied by Morris and photographer Graham. Guy was visiting Margaret and Billy that evening when Peggy suddenly burst into the house, telling him to come quickly. Guy could hear Janet's screams from four doors away as

he rushed toward the house. Running into the bedroom, he found Janet flailing wildly and screaming for Peggy, with Janet seemingly unresponsive to the fact that Peggy was right there with her. Her distraught mother could only watch on helplessly as Morris and Graham did their best to pin Janet

down before she hurt herself. A doctor was promptly called, who arrived just after eleven p m. And, without even examining her, simply gave Janet a shot of valium, with the ten milligram dose being thought more than enough to send her to sleep. Peggy and Morris tucked her back into bed and left her to sleep it off. Thirty minutes later, after hearing yet another crash from the bedroom, they all rushed back up to find Janet in her nightclothes, perched up high on top of a radio set in

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flung out of her bed. A further trip to the hospital resulted in a psychiatric assessment that found nothing wrong with the young girl. As the strange trances continued, however, Guy felt compelled to turn once more to a pair of self described mediums who he'd met during his time in Brazil for help. As Guy wrote in his book, Janet was resting on the sofa in the living room

when Louise and Elsie arrived to begin their session. While the pair headed upstairs to one of the bedrooms to consult their spirit guides, Janet became suddenly restless and fell off the sofa, then started to kick and ride about on the floor. Hearing the commotion, Louise and Elsie quickly burst into the room and held Janet down as Louise urged her to resist the entity, when suddenly Janet opened

her eyes as if nothing had happened. The next morning, while Janet apparently dozed in and out of sleep on the sofa, Peggy watched with alarm when at one point she took hold of a pad and some coloring pens and began to draw a series of pictures in quick succession. Peggy gasped when she saw them. One showed what she took to be a woman with blood drawn crudely in red felt tip pen, pouring out of her throat and the name Wilkins written in large letters across the bottom.

Another was simply the word blood written several times over and over again on the page, with Janet seeming not to know. Peggy took them away as soon as they were drawn and handed them to Guy and Morris when they arrived at the house later that afternoon. With Peggy at a loss to explain it all, Guy asked her to think about anyone they might know called Wilkins. Of course, she said, suddenly remembering the couple who lived in the house before them were called Wilkins. And did they die here?

Asked Guy? The husband, did I think, but not, the wife, said Peggy. She died in a house up the road. And what did she die of exactly, asked Guy, looking down at the picture of the woman and the blood gushing from her throat. Then Peggy's face dropped. She died of throat cancer, she said. As winter began to bite outside by early December, things had never been worse inside

two hundred and eighty four Green Street. By now Janet and Margaret two were seemingly being constantly wrenched from their beds by unknown forces, sometimes up to ten times a night. In the early morning of December third, Maurice was in the living room with Peggy when yet another loud crash from upstairs had them racing to the bedroom to check

on Janet, but she was nowhere to be found. Running back on to the landing, Maurice gasped in horror when he spotted her bizarrely lying face down on the stairs, slowly sliding to the bottom of them, as if something were pulling her down. Margaret too was now having her own strange episodes, having taken to sitting up suddenly in bed from time to time, despite appearing to be completely asleep. On one occasion, Maris took the opportunity to slip a pencil into her hand to see if she might do

anything with it. Then she proceeded to write the numbers one to ten on a piece of paper. With Margaret still appearing to be asleep, Morris asked her to explain what the numbers meant. Then, as also detailed in Playfair's book, she replied, one was a baby, two a little girl, Three was a big girl, four a girl about fifteen, five an old lady, six a young boy, seven a boy of eighteen and eight was an old man. Then she paused, no, I don't know. She said, he hasn't

got a face, and ten has gone away now. Then suddenly, without warning, she shouted the name Joe Wilkins. Who's that? Asked John, who was also present that night the man who died on the chair downstairs, replied Margaret, not once opening her eyes. Then, without saying another word, she lay back down and settled back to sleep. You've been listening to Unexplained Series six, Episode four, The Widening Gyre, Part two of three. The third and final part will be

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