The Enfield Poltergeist: Done to Death (But With Good Reason)
How it started for me…
I can’t remember the first time I came across the story of the Enfield Poltergeist, but I know I was young. Growing up in England, I had probably overheard or seen a news article about it, even though I was only 8 years old; it was sensational news at the time. Regardless of how I came to know about it, the story always sat in the back of my mind, scaring the living daylights out of me whenever I thought about it.
The Events
The Enfield Poltergeist is a troubling account of a family beset with alarming paranormal events which centered around two of four children, Margaret Hodgson, 13 and her sister Janet, 11. They lived with their mother Peggy Hodgson and two younger brothers Johnny, 10 and Billy, 7, in a rented semi-detached council house in Green Street, Enfield in the late 70’s. Life wasn’t easy for single mother Peggy and things got even tougher with the onset of paranormal events in their home in the late 70’s that lasted almost two years. Recollecting those events, Janet Hodgson has stated that she and Margaret were mucking about with a Ouija board which is what set things off in the first place…
On that night of August 30, 1977, Peggy thought her daughters were playing a prank when they called out to her that their chest of drawers was moving about. Annoyed that her daughters weren’t going to sleep, she went upstairs to berate them, only to witness a solid oak chest of drawers in the girls’ room move of its own accord. Attempting to push it back in place, she realised that it was being driven towards the door by an invisible force. Now completely terrified (as you would be), the family escaped to their next door neighbours’ Vic and Peggy Nottingham. Vic, a builder, wasn’t one to scare easily at all according to Margaret Hodgson, but when he entered the house and heard strange noises and knocking on the walls, he even admitted to getting a bit frightened.
Peggy Hodgson subsequently called in the police. WPC Carolyn Heeps witnessed a solid armchair levitate about half an inch off the floor and move approximately 4 foot across the floor without any apparent explanation, having looked for hidden wires and finding nothing. The police concluded that it wasn’t a police matter because no-one was breaking the law, and the family was once again left on its own to deal with the situation.
The Press
Peggy decided to call the Daily Mirror newspaper to see if they could shed any light on what was going on. Journalist Doug Bence and photographer Graham Morris were dispatched to report on the alleged events and of course, much like any dodgy electrical appliance that suddenly behaves perfectly when you’ve called out a technician, nothing happened. Upon leaving however, neighbour Vic ran out to the duo stating that the activity was happening again and when they went inside the house, Graham Morris got smacked above the eye with a flying Lego brick and bore the mark for several days afterwards. Morris later recounted that the house was absolute chaos with things flying around and people screaming. He started snapping away with his camera but nothing of note was caught that time.
The BBC went to report on the phenomena, but following their initial enquiry, the internal components of their recording equipment were found to be twisted and destroyed, with all recorded evidence ruined. The BBC did, however, manage to go back and interview the family for a special episode of its current affairs show Nationwide which can be seen on YouTube. It makes for fascinating viewing, no matter what you believe. The Daily Mirror journalists, upon witnessing such activity and the distress of the family called up on the Society of Psychical Research (SPR) to investigate what was happening.
The Investigation
Maurice Grosse from the SPR arrived initially, shortly followed by Guy Lyon Playfair, also from the SPR. Together, they spent months with the family documenting all manner of phenomena; water appearing spontaneously on the floor, household items such as a box of matches or an oven mitt igniting suddenly then extinguishing just as suddenly, furniture and objects moving or being thrown of their own volition, levitation, family members getting ripped out of their beds and dragged down the stairs, a curtain wrapping itself around Janet’s neck (which she has since said was the most frightening thing that she experienced, and rightly so) and marbles and Lego bricks flying through the air from an unseen source and hot to touch afterwards. Playfair recalls one instance where a marble appeared out of nowhere and dropped dead at his feet without bouncing at all. In another incident he heard a huge vibration and upon investigating, discovered a fireplace in one of the rooms had been completely ripped out from the wall. Playfair states the fireplace was an old Victorian one that ‘must have weighed about 60lb and was so heavy even I couldn’t pick it up.’
A lollipop lady (for non UK readers, this is a person – usually a woman – employed to assist children to cross busy roads before and after school, and named as such by the big bright stop sign she carries, shaped like a lollipop) and a local baker out on the street both witnessed Janet in her room, floating past her bedroom window, swinging around and banging into the window. Janet herself recalls thinking the window would break and that when she found herself levitating she was always terrified because she never knew where she would land.
Playfair went on to write a book about his experiences ‘This House is Haunted’ and to this day, at more than eighty years of age, is discussing his experiences at the Enfield house at organised events in the UK. What I wouldn’t give to sit in on one of those!
The Deception
Janet freely admits that she and her sister faked about 2% of the incidents that happened to see if they could trick Grosse and Playfair, acknowledging that they always got caught out by them. She maintains however, that the rest of what happened is absolutely real. Playfair admits himself that the girls had a go at trying to deceive him and Grosse as well as other witnesses, explaining that the girls may well have felt pressured to give witnesses what they came to see.
The case was reviewed by barrister Mary Rose Barrington on behalf of the SPR and she re-interviewed, cross-examined and checked all of the evidence to conclude that there was no ‘wider conspiracy’ from the SPR’s investigators, believing them to have been comprehensive and truthful in their investigation.
The ‘G.H.O.S.T’ Bill Wilkins
Things really cranked up a notch when Janet starting going into a trance-like state and speaking in a very gruff, old man’s voice. In one communication, the old man identified himself as “Bill” and said in a broad Cockney accent “Just before I died, I went blind and then I ‘ad an hemorrhage and then I fell asleep and I died in a chair in the corner downstairs.” Bill stated that he was invisible because he was a g.h.o.s.t. and he also came out with some pretty crude language too. Bill was apparently upset at other people living in his house; a common enough complaint from many a ghost! The SPR in their subsequent research found that a man by the name of Bill had lived at the house and had died, in exactly the same manner in which he had described through Janet. Bill’s son Terry was tracked down and confirmed this, also recognising his father’s voice upon hearing a recording of it.
My Name is Bill Wilkins…
How did it Stop?
According to Janet, the activity settled down the following autumn in 1978 after a priest visited the house, although it didn’t stop altogether, with Janet’s mother Peggy maintaining right up until she passed away that she heard strange noises in the house. Janet’s brother who stayed on after Peggy passed said there was something still there making him feel like he was being watched as well.
Despite skeptics reporting that no other phenomena occurred after the family had all left the property, subsequent inhabitants of the house are actually on record as having experienced their own incidents. Clare Bennett and her four sons moved in after the Hodgsons and reported hearing voices from downstairs as well as feeling like they were being constantly watched. The family lasted just two months there, leaving the day after one of Clare’s sons saw a man walk into his room the previous night.
The Story’s Resurgence
Not that it ever truly went away, but the Enfield Poltergeist has once more been cast into the spotlight in the past year or so, with a British TV miniseries released in October 2015 and more recently, the Hollywood production of The Conjuring 2, released earlier this year, both productions of which are based on the events that occurred in Enfield.
Janet Hodgson has said that while her mum Peggy was alive, she didn’t want to talk about it as it upset her so much, but now that her mother has passed away, Janet has given a few interviews wanting to give her side of the story. She maintains that what happened really is true and that the events of that time still haunt her. I believe her.
In My Humble Opinion…
From all the reading I’ve done about the Enfield Poltergeist, I’ve found that skeptics are all too happy to jump on the fact that because Janet admitted to her and Margaret faking several incidents they believe they can call the whole thing a hoax. I’m not convinced it can be explained away so simply. How did Janet know the way that Bill Wilkins died? A police officer, professionally trained on how to examine evidence, couldn’t work out how a chair moved independently 4 feet across the floor despite inspecting it – and signed an affidavit stating as much; an 11 year old girl is able to ‘mimic’ the raspy voice of an old man for hours at a time without any damage to her vocal chords. Google that and see how possible that actually is. And why would over 30 witnesses lie? The police, the lollipop lady, the baker, et al; to what end? To go public has resulted in many witnesses having their story splashed across the papers and opened up for public ridicule. The Hodgson family were widely ostracized in their own community; hardly fun or a money spinner for the majority involved, especially the family, quite the opposite.
I also believe that calling the phenomena which occurred in the Enfield house a Poltergeist is a simplistic misnomer. While much of the activity was poltergeist in nature, with objects appearing from nowhere, spontaneous fires, loud unaccounted for noises and moving furniture, it was also a full blown haunting – and channeling through Janet – of the lingering spirit of grumpy and at times, incredibly crude, Bill Wilkins.
While the story might have been done to death almost 40 years later, it’s a thought provoking one that just refuses to go away and I would hazard a guess it will continue to be recounted in more documentaries, interviews and movies in the future; perhaps in 2017 on the 40th anniversary of those events…
So. Who’s up for a sesh with the Ouija board…
Sources:
- http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/story-behind-enfield-haunting-mirror-5610970
- http://www.people.com/article/inside-conjuring-2-real-story
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfield_Poltergeist
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-440048/Suburban-poltergeist-A-30-year-silence-broken.html
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054842/Enfield-Poltergeist-The-amazing-story-11-year-old-North-London-girl-levitated-bed.html
- Abbot, A., Leven, R., Producers, Jones, N. Director (2007) Interview with a Poltergeist [documentary] Channel 4
