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Chapter 1: Who is the new witness introduced in this episode?
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Hello?
Hello, Pam, it's Danny Robbins. Oh, hello. I got your email. I'm recording, if that's OK. Can I ask you to introduce yourself?
My name is Pam Ashton and I used to live at 61 Whitecliffe Road, which is next door to 63.
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Chapter 2: What memories does Pam Ashton share about living next door to the haunting?
How old were you in 1956?
I was five, so in some ways I was kept away from what was going on because obviously I don't think they wanted to frighten me, but I used to spend an awful lot of time in Shirley's house.
What can you remember?
I can remember there was a lot of noise. Obviously it's fragmented because I was so young, but I can remember that in those days you could lock every room door. They used to lock the doors and I used to go out with them. And when you come back, things will be in a different place than where it was when we'd gone out. I can remember people being outside the house.
a number of times, and I can remember the house being on fire.
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Chapter 3: What significant events does Pam recall from 1956?
Pam, is there one memory that sticks with you most?
Well, this was from my mum, and she didn't say a lot, I think because she thought I was little, but she said that they were in what is classed as the front room, and there must have been a crowd of them in there, and Shirley was sitting on an ottoman. An ottoman is like a square box. that you would keep blankets in and things like that.
It started to rise in the air and it took four men to pull it down. And I think that scared my mum.
Welcome to the last of our case updates. And you heard it there. We have a new witness, Pam Ashton. Now, throughout this investigation, we've been trying to track down anyone else still alive who witnessed the event 65 years ago.
Chapter 4: How did the investigation evolve after Pam's testimony?
And then the other day, out of the blue, I get an email from Pam. And it feels like a huge moment.
Obviously, my whole family knew about the ghost next door to me. And my cousin phoned me up and said, the podcast is coming on. You've got to listen to the podcast.
So, Pam, your mum must have been Lil, who we heard in episode one.
Hello? Shirley, it's Aunty Lil. And Mrs Gameroor. Oh, Lil, I'm glad it's you.
Chapter 5: What theories are discussed regarding the noises experienced during the haunting?
What the bloomin' heck's going on, Kit?
Was it strange for you to hear people that you knew so well brought to life?
Yeah, slightly, slightly surreal. My mum and Kitty and all the other people down the street were just normal, working-class people.
What do you remember about the Hitchings?
They were a lovely family. I mean, Kitty was very frail. She had arthritis and she was very slim, very frail. And Wally was sort of like this person who looked after her all the time. The family became very famous.
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Chapter 6: How do listeners perceive the credibility of the evidence presented?
I mean, they couldn't go anywhere because there was always people pointing fingers at them. I wouldn't have liked to be Shirley for any a normal 15 year old girl I mean I know on one of your podcasts you said that Kitty missed Donald when he went how would you feel if he's gone well good I suppose wouldn't you yeah of course it's just odd isn't it that silence
because for them, it became their life. They didn't have any other kind of life.
We're at this point in the case, Pam, where we're trying to find answers. And one of the hardest things to explain away sceptically is the noises. Can you give us a sense of what it was like next door?
Yeah, well... Our house was halls adjoining.
Chapter 7: What new insights do recent emails provide about the case?
I don't know if you know what that means. It just means that the two front doors were next to each other. So you basically, each house had a hallway and a front door. So you didn't actually have rooms next to... But it was still really, really loud.
There's this accusation that Shirley did it with her toe. What do you think about that?
Well, unless she had mega speakers and, you know, boomboxes going on around everyone, I don't think that's possible.
So what would you say to people who are starting to think that this might be a hoax?
Take it from me, it wasn't.
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Chapter 8: What conclusions can we draw from the latest witness accounts?
I witnessed it. I'm 70 years of age now and everybody that knows me knows about the ghost. I know what I saw. I know what I witnessed. I know what I was involved in. So I can only tell you it's true.
Just one last question, if it's OK. How frightened do you think the family were at the height of this?
Very. Absolutely terrified.
So really interesting to hear from another person who was there at the time. Some people I know will say that she was too young to know what was going on. But remember, this spans 12 years. Pam was 17 by the time the case finished. Donald soundtracked her entire childhood and adolescence. Does hearing Pam's testimony in any way confirm or change what you've been thinking?
Thanks again for all your emails, the brilliant questions and theories. Things are clearly hotting up in the debate between Team Believer and Team Skeptic. I've got an email from Holly Dowse here. She asks if the family benefited from the press interest. Could they have been doing this for financial gain?
Well, I think it's important to say that no, this definitely wasn't the era of checkbook journalism and they actually financially suffered as Wally had to take time off and Shirley wasn't working. Lincoln Hamilton from Ohio in the US emailed me to tell me about a poltergeist case in Baltimore in 1960. He says objects would float around the room and then fling themselves to the floor.
There were several people brought into the house to explain the occurrences, including the well-known parapsychologist Nandor Fodor. He insisted that repressed energy from the teenage grandson caused the disturbances. Interestingly though, says Lincoln, the occurrences stopped after a plumber visited the house and instructed the family to open the dining room windows.
The plumber said the family's hot water boiler was causing a pressure buildup in the house, which was responsible for moving the objects about the place. Crucially, all the activity stopped after this was done. Lincoln suggests that unexplainable hauntings can sometimes have mundane solutions.
Nancy Bottomley has been doing phenomenal detective work, sending me lots of newspaper articles from 1956 about extreme cold weather in January that year. Apparently, it was so cold that the pigeons in Trafalgar Square froze. There's an amazing photograph of them here, all sitting on the ground, their wings too stiff to fly. And Nancy sent me another article about how plumbers
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