The Doncaster Poltergeist.

June and Peter Henderson have lived in the same terraced house in Doncaster for over 10 years, since they moved from Royston, in Lancashire. They bought the property from the relatives of an elderly gentleman who lived there until his death in June 1990, and agree that the house itself has always had a very relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.
Five years passed at their address with nothing untoward happening, paranormal or otherwise, until one day in march 1995. The couple went for a day out in kieghley and read somewhere that there was to be an auction at a house clearance which had been organised by the estate agents. While there they spotted an old cupboard which measured 6ft high by 3ft wide, they couple secured the bargain with a winning bid and had it delivered and placed in in their spare room for extra storage space, the room had been the sons room who had grown up and moved on.
Not long after delivery they soon filled the cupboard with clutter from their own bedroom when things began to happen. June mentioned that she was unable to find one of her old dresses which she was sure she had kept and went to their bedroom to find it, while peter stayed in the spare room.
Peter Hederson will remember that day for the rest of his life. Suddenly, the temperature dropped to a freezing level. It was so sudden and without warning it made him gasp. It was not a warm day, but not a particular cold one either, The windows were closed, and while there was a slight draught from them, he could not attribute the freezing sensation to them. The next thing he heard was the toilet flushing, Funny, he thought. He hadn’t seen June go to the bathroom. He walked out of the room, on to the landing and pushed open the bathroom door. The toilet had indeed been flushed, and was beginning to fill with water again, but June was not there.
Understandable then, that when June appeared behind him and touched his arm, he jumped a little. Peter asked if she had been to the bathroom, but she replied that she hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t She couldn’t have reached the bathroom, or left it without him seeing her. Strange, too, that she hadn’t heard the toilet flush either, although they could both hear the toilet filling up again, but decided not to mention the coldness he had felt and decided there must be something wrong with the plumbing.
About an hour later, as they were watching the TV in the living room, they heard a single bump from upstairs, It wasn’t a loud bang like something had exploded, just a slight, but distinct thud which startled them a little, and they exchanged glances. Without saying a word, Peter got to his feet and went upstairs to take a look with June close behind. What they saw astounded them. A small stool from the spare bedroom was lying on the floor of their own bedroom!
The couple just stood and looked at each other open-mouthed in amazement, They agreed that neither of them had taken the stool from the spare bedroom and put it there, there was no reason for either of them to do so. The stool was always kept by the side of the spare bed and the window in the spare room. June rarely moved it except for when she was cleaning the room, which she had not done for a while. They replaced the stool to its original position and returned downstairs.
For a week nothing else happened. Neither of them went into the spare room over that period for they had no reason to do so. The odd chill which they both noticed from time to time, always around the door of the room, and at the top of the stairs on the landing, did not strike them as strange enough to merit discussion. In fact they only found out about their mutual experiences of the chill, when they experienced it together one day. It was exactly one week since they had bought the cupboard, when they revisited the room, June was the first in and what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks, She shouted for Peter to come upstairs who rushed up to see what was wrong.
All of the clothes and shoes and other belongings which they had put carefully into the cupboard were strewn all over the bed. Their eyes went to where the stool should have been - but it wasn’t and they found it wedged behind the door. The doors of the cupboard were closed - so even if by a ludicrous stretch of the imagination, a heavy traffic vibration or freak earth quake had knocked all of the belongings out from the cupboard, the doors would not have swung shut themselves. It was then that June and Peter told each other of the icy chills they had both been experiencing over the last week. They decided not to move anything, leaving the clothes and stool where they had found them, and hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind them. However ,when they made their way back downstairs, a sudden chill hit Peter, which he later said felt as if someone had shot right through him. June experienced the same thing and the `sensation` whooshed right passed them as if it had sprinted upstairs. Neither Peter or June had ever been religious or spiritual or had the slightest interest or belief in the paranormal, but they could not find any other explanation for what they had experienced. Although the last thing they wanted to do was go telling everyone about it, they new they needed help. A flick through the yellow pages revealed a short list of spiritualist churches in the area and, even though the couple were apprehensive about contacting them, they decided to give it a try.
Following a telephone call to one of the numbers, they welcomed a visitor from the church, who called on them the very next morning. Medium Linda Russell explained that there was no need to be afraid. She assured the couple that there was no record of anyone being harmed by a ghost. She said that dead people don’t hurt you - it’s only the living ones that do that.
Peter and June were about to tell Linda where they had felt the cold spots and suggest that the cupboard was at the root of the disturbances - but before they could say anything she made straight for the stairs and climbed to the top and halted. She asked the couple if she could go into the spare bedroom, though neither of them had told her this was where the disturbances had occurred.
She motioned the couple to follow her in, and they stood there looking at their belongings in disarray on the bed, she closed her eyes and concentrated for a minute. After a while Linda said that the root of the trouble was an elderly lady who had owned the cupboard and that while most spirits attach themselves to places, this lady had felt bound to the cupboard, since the house sale had taken away most of her possessions after her demise.
The medium recited some prayers in the room, during which the chill returned for a moment, and then the atmosphere returned to normal. As Linda sat down with Peter and June over a cup of tea in the living room, she explained that most people don’t become ghosts. Genuine hauntings, she said, are very rare. Perhaps one out of a thousand people who die remain here for a reason.: they have unfinished business; they are afraid to leave; or perhaps in a case of sudden death they are literally shocked out of their bodies and don’t realise they are dead. Linda Russell concluded that people should nor be afraid of ghosts, and the idea that they are to be feared and shunned was absolute nonsense. Death is just a natural part of life, she said.
As Linda was about to leave, June asked if it would be all right to keep the cupboard, since the atmosphere had lifted, and the medium said it would. But peter had second thoughts. He persuaded |June to donate it to a church charity sale, a week later just to be on the safe side!