by John Pinkney
One witness to the unsettling activity was the newspaper’s delivery controller, Rex Anthonisen. He told me that he and a young assistant had, on one occasion, seen what they believed to be the murdered father and daughter.
‘We were in the final stages of preparing our batches of papers – and the lad asked me for some rubber bands.
‘I said I’d show him where they were for future reference – and led the way to a pair of glass swinging doors. That’s when we got the shock of our lives. Reflected in the glass were an extremely tall man in grey clothes and a woman in a long white dress. You could see straight through them both.
‘The boy screamed – and they vanished. He followed suit by bolting from the building. I had to ring his mother to make sure he was OK.
‘That wasn’t the first time I’d seen the male ghost. In 1984 the floors were torn up for renovations. Around 5.15 one morning I went to the tearoom for coffee – and saw that same grey-clothed figure, remarkably tall, striding toward one of the offices, which I knew to be locked.
‘I watched him put his hand on the knob, then heard the door open and close.
‘But the chilling thing was that it remained shut. The figure simply disappeared through it.’
The newspaper’s ghosts seemed to dislike renovations. One morning workmen, using 15-centimetre nails, attached pineboard to a series of heavy interior oak beams. Next day a female reporter, sitting at her desk, narrowly escaped serious injury when a large sheet suddenly hurtled from the wall toward her. When maintenance staff checked, they found the nails still intact and the flying pineboard undamaged.
Poltergeist activity was particularly intense in the production department. A senior employee, Norm Robinson, was working at night in the draught-free area when a stack of papers began slowly to rise from a worktable. The stack was floating several inches in the air when he left the room.
Many of the venerable publication’s journalists were sceptical about the spectres. But others muttered that their resident bank manager had overdrawn heavily on his reserves of goodwill.
WINDOW ON THE PAST Dr Ted Walker, chairman of Radio Fremantle, recalls that while travelling along a rural road he and his family were confronted by an eerie spectacle. It was a re-enactment, in total silence, of events which possibly had occurred more than a century before.
What Did the Rappings Mean?
Julie Peters of Ivanhoe, Victoria, was only three months old when her grandfather completed the beach house he had spent eight years building.
As Julie grew she and her family spent most of their holidays in the house. She loved the place – just as she adored her grandfather.
In 1983 he died. The following year, an exceptional event occurred.
‘I was driving to our beach house along the Geelong highway, planning a long weekend,’ Julie told me. ‘I’d passed the Werribee turnoff and was moving along the stretch I’ve always found boring. I’d begun to daydream and lose concentration. With traffic all around me my mind was wandering. Then, in the strangest way, the accelerator moved away from my foot, back to my foot, and away from it again – making the car jerk violently.
‘This startled me so much I was jolted out of my daydream and began watching the road again. I remembered my mother telling me that my grandfather had fallen asleep while driving along that highway. I think he was looking after me that day.
Another very strange thing happened a considerable time later when my mother began to talk about selling the beach place. Shortly after the discussions started, strange knockings began on the walls of my parents’ house in Ivanhoe – and also on the walls of my unit. My brother insisted it was possums, but it was too loud for that – rather like a sharp rapping with the knuckle. But the ultimate proof was my Labrador, who’d never react to the possums when they ran across the roof or jumped into the tree outside. When this knocking began, however, he’d jump to his feet and bark – just as he would when someone came to the door. Of course, every time we heard the knocking we’d immediately check outside – but there was never anyone there. After the beach house was sold in March 2000 the rapping ceased. I’ve never experienced anything like it since.’
OVER THE YEARS I have spoken and corresponded with thousands of Australians who received ‘messages’ – often cryptically expressed – after a loved person died.
In 2006 Jo Burgess of Singleton, NSW, wrote: ‘My father passed away on January 19 1997. He was one in a million and he and I were very close. A day or two after he died I was alone in our house. My husband was away working and my youngest son started his job at midnight.
‘I was not sleeping well and decided to shower before going to bed. While I was getting towels from the linen room I noticed a movement from the corner of my eye. In his room my son had model aircraft of every shape and size hanging on fishing line from the ceiling.
‘Every one of those planes was moving – swinging in different directions, with none touching or crashing into the other. They were going around in circles, back and forth, sideways, each doing something different.
‘I slammed the door. I was terrified. The house was locked. No draught. And those planes had been there, virtually motionless, for years. Although I was scared I forced myself to go back a couple of times and peer again into that room. The planes were still in motion. Finally I realised it must be Dad letting me know he was in the house. The whole episode lasted about half an hour.
‘Next day my brother (who is a total nonbeliever) and his young son, who were staying at the time, told me they had seen a pot-plant “dancing”. No draught. No explanation. Several months later his daughter, who was then staying, ran to me looking alarmed. I knew, before she said a word, what had happened. The plant had “danced” again.’
A Cancer-stricken Uncle, ‘Healed’ by Death
The term ‘crisis apparition’ first appeared in the publications of Britain’s Psychical Research Society. It describes the spirit of a person which appears to relatives or friends at, or near the moment of that individual’s death.
In several occurrences reported to me, the ‘ghost’ seemed to have regained its youth and cast off all physical afflictions. An Adelaide witness recalled how her brother, who had lost an arm in World War Two, appeared in her kitchen at about the time he died in a repatriation hospital. He was whole again: the missing limb restored.
Some of these paranormal contacts occur in dreams -their reality later validated by external events. One case of this kind was described to me in 2006 by Alicia Gottardo, 25, of Zillmere Queensland:
‘Several years ago my uncle learned he had cancer. The doctors told him he didn’t have very long; however, we weren’t sure how much time that was.
‘I wasn’t particularly close to my uncle and hadn’t seen him in a few years. One night, though, I went to bed and something strange happened.
‘I dreamed that I was back in the 1960s and was in a café dancing near a jukebox. Outside, a classic shiny car pulled up and my uncle got out. He looked young and healthy. He danced with me, then told me he was very happy because he had beaten the cancer and was free. He then gave me a big hug – and I remember feeling warm and protected. He said goodbye and left.
‘I then woke to the sound of the phone ringing. I got up and answered it. The caller was my aunt, telling me that my uncle had just passed away.
‘I’m not sure what happened to me – but I do feel it was a message, and will never forget it.’
Phantom in a Cardboard Box
In 1991 Federal Police officer Paul Clacher finished his training in Canberra and was posted to Melbourne. He moved with his family into a pleasant Californian bungalow in suburban Glen Iris.
While living in the house the Clachers experienced a series of unnerving events.
‘Everything was normal for the first six months or so,’ Paul told me in 2006. ‘But then, around early 1992 we began, quite regularly, to hear footsteps through the house. We’d often see doors opening and shutting by themselves: a
n event that was always preceded by the footsteps.
At first nothing was visible. But one night I woke to see, hovering about two feet above me, a woman wearing a long, loose-fitting nightgown. She had wavy chest-length black hair and was in a sitting position. I got a real start and closed my eyes, very tightly, for at least 30 seconds. But when I reopened them she was still there. I tried it again for a longer period – and this time, when I looked, she was gone.
The ‘haunted house’ (now demolished) in Glen Iris, Victoria.
‘The night before we left Melbourne, in August 1994, my wife and I heard movement around the house, and a noisy rummaging through the packed – yes, packed! – cardboard cartons. Next, we both heard a thin whispering voice say, ‘Please don’t go.’
‘It was said twice and we both heard it twice.’
Was the entity taunting the couple? Or was it genuinely distressed that they were leaving? Whatever the truth, the bungalow was subsequently torn down and replaced by another house.
A Sinister Conversation
Earlier in this chapter Alan Ketley of Redcliffe, Queensland, recalled a residual haunting on a NSW road. He also told a darker story, which merits inclusion here.
‘In 1985 my sister, her husband and their two-year-old daughter moved into their first home at Redbank in Ipswich. Their first inkling of something strange in the house occurred during the winter of that year.
‘My sister was sitting on a beanbag in the living room, feeding her daughter, when suddenly the child’s rubber ball rolled of its own volition across the floor. No breeze could have pushed it, as all the windows and doors were closed because of the cold.
‘My sister would also feel cold spots in the air and hear footsteps moving through the house when nobody but her and her sleeping child were at home.
‘On one occasion she heard her daughter (who was in bed in her own room) talking to someone. She went into the room and said, “Hello sweetheart – you been having a dream?”
‘The little girl replied, “No – I was told.” And, pointing to the end of the bed said, “The man told me.”
‘Unpleasant things would happen while they were out. Once, returning home from the shops they saw that the plastic bags stored in the broom cupboard had been scattered across the kitchen floor.
Another time they found that the electric stove had been switched on and the rings were red-hot. On both of these occasions the house had been securely locked up and there was no sign of a break-in.
‘My mother also disliked the house – saying that whenever she slept in the spare room she had the strange feeling that someone was there with her. Finally my sister and her husband decided to move away. My mother helped them to clean the house. While she was at work in the spare bedroom she again had that horrible feeling that there was someone else in the room, watching her.
‘This time, though, she sensed that the person was standing right next to her, staring. It made her flesh creep.’
There is a widely held theory about belligerent hauntings of this kind. In some cases, the hypothesis suggests, a discarnate entity might not realise that its physical life has ended. It will continue to occupy the house or apartment it used in life – and will aggressively defend it against the new owners, whom it regards as intruders. On numerous occasions, in Australia and elsewhere, this problem has been solved, at least apparently, by a rescue seance.
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The Dying Man and the Ghostly Nurse
My friend Ian Jones has created and produced many of Australia’s most successful television dramas, among them the internationally syndicated Against the Wind, The Sullivans and The Last Outlaw. Only a few people know that these series almost failed to reach the screen. When he was a youthful student of TV production, Ian lay in a London hospital bed, his life swiftly ebbing away. During those crucial hours an extraordinary event occurred.
He has kindly agreed to describe it: ‘In January 1956 I went to London to study television. And like most young Australians in those days, I travelled by ship – the P and O liner Strathaird. After three hectic years as a journalist with Melbourne’s Sun News-Pictorial the month-long voyage was pure indulgence: tropical days and balmy nights.
‘Foolishly I spent much of my time walking around the decks barefoot. A blood blister -formed under a callous on one of my toes – became badly infected and despite penicillin injections by the ship’s doctor I arrived in London with a painfully swollen foot.
‘I settled into digs near Earls Court and almost immediately became an outpatient at St Mary Abbots Hospital, a rambling brick building that had been a workhouse in the 19th century. During that period I suffered two mysterious attacks, involving agonising back pain every time I took a breath. The hospital admitted me for treatment to the infected foot. I had barely settled into a men’s ward when I had a third, and even more severe, attack of back pain.
‘A nurse gave me a shot of morphine and I was trundled into a nearby room with a single bed. Euphoric from the painkiller I suspected nothing when the chaplain offered Communion ‘any time you’d like it’. I recall being amused by my flatmate Trevor and his girlfriend looking positively aghast when they visited me. With wonderful care by the hospital staff and a regime of antibiotics and painkillers I quickly came good. I was told I had pleurisy – the theory being that I had a spot on my lung that had become infected.
‘No one suspected how dangerously ill I was.
‘One evening I declined painkillers and sleeping tablets, which I hated – and said I’d try to sleep naturally. The room was in darkness, but there were lights in a courtyard below. They shone up through the curtains and rinsed the room in a gentle glow.
‘I was feeling relaxed and had just reached the point where thoughts take control of themselves and drift toward dreaming. Suddenly, however, I was aware that there was someone in the room. I opened my eyes and saw a nurse, a little way past the foot of my bed. My impression was that she had come into the room to see if I was asleep. She seemed to be preparing to leave, half-turned to the door in the far-left corner and glancing back at me.
‘I was just about to say, “It’s all right – I’m not asleep”, when several things struck me in a clock-tick of thought. This was not a nurse I recognised. She was blonde, attractive and did not wear the starched and folded headgear seen at Mary Abbots. No apron. None of the usual nursing paraphernalia. Her uniform, which seemed to be navy-blue, had light-coloured piping or facings, creating an almost military effect.
‘But one detail, above all, caught my breath and stilled my tongue. Only the nurse’s head and shoulders were visible. And they were almost level with the top of the slightly open door. As I registered all this, she was gone.
‘Staring at the space the nurse had occupied I reached out and switched on the light. Of course, nothing. I listened, heard someone coughing. No footsteps in the corridor. So I checked the time, recorded it in my diary with the confident heading, ‘Ghost Nurse’ and settled back to weigh what I had seen. Remembering that lovely face, the gentle concern, the near-smile. After a time I drifted off to sleep.
‘Next morning I asked the day sister, Sister Brady, whether St Mary Abbot’s was haunted. She smiled and enquired in her lilting brogue, “And which one have you seen, Mr Jones?”
St Mary Abbot’s Hospital, London: troubled by several spectres, one of which appeared above the bed of a gravely ill Australian TV director.
‘The hospital, she told me, had several ghosts, including an old man in a nightshirt who was seen wandering through the wards. He was often reported by new nurses. Senior staff didn’t want to worry the girls on night duty, so usually said that they knew who he was and would see to him.
‘When I described my visitor of the previous night, Sister Brady shook her head with what seemed to me a curious expression: “No one has ever spoken of seeing her before, Mr Jones. But the interesting thing is that you have described a girl — an auxiliary – who was killed here in an air raid in 1944.”
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br /> ‘I was left with a new mystery. If what I had seen was really the ghost of this girl, why should I be the only person to have reported seeing her in the 12 years since her death?
‘A conceivable answer came within the week. An eminent specialist, Sir Russell Brock, examined my case and came up with a new diagnosis. My pleurisy had been caused by infected material from my foot that had entered the bloodstream. Three times it had forced its way into my left lung, causing agonising pain and almost killing me. “You have been in great jeopardy,” the specialist said.
‘My survival had, in fact, been a remarkable fluke – possibly brought about by my new-found enthusiasm for skindiving in the weeks before I left Australia. My lungs had never been in such good shape.
‘To me, it seems eminently possible that my young auxiliary, who lost her life caring for others, continued her vocation after death. Perhaps she dedicated herself to helping St Mary Abbots patients make the transition from this life to a new level of existence. And why did the other patients who saw her never speak of their experience? Because, I assume, they were dead.
‘Ever since that encounter I have thought of death in a new light. I can still see that young woman’s expression. The gentleness, the kindness, the calm. Complete and transforming calm.
‘St Mary Abbots Hospital was demolished many years ago. I wonder if its dedicated auxiliary has continued her work elsewhere. I’d like to see her again – when the time is right.’
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The Day that Evil Stalked Adelaide Oval
A Nation Numbed
The crime was so hideously cruel it reduced veteran detectives to tears. During a football match two girls, aged 11 and 4, were abducted from Adelaide’s major sports ground. They were never seen again. Police worked desperately to trace the fiend who had stolen the lives of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon. But in a grim echo of the search for the Beaumont children seven years earlier, all their efforts failed. It was not until decades later that fresh investigative minds discovered clues pointing in a direction no one had considered. But by that time, it was too tragically late to act...