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The Battersea Poltergeist

Case Update: It Follows

15 Feb 2021

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 10.952 Dafne Keen

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

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11.101 - 34.594 Paul Sinha

Siksi Vaasan Sähköllä on asiakkaita joka ikisessä Suomen kaupungissa. Ai Vaasan Sähköllä. Just niin. Pitkä historia ja yli hyvä hinta vetää puoleensa. Siis näinköhän. Kurkkaa sopparit osoitteesta. Siis onko Rovaniemellä? Siellä ollaan myös. Tampere? Kyllä. Kurkkaa osoitte. Siis Oulussakin. On, on. Ja osoite on. Vaasan Sähkö.fi

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35.587 - 48.265 Klaas Kicheller

I'm going to go and sit in the shed and write about ghosts.

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48.366 - 65.29

What have you got in your shed? We're going to record...

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65.354 - 67.897 Danny Robbins

I'm going to record about ghosts.

69.599 - 72.181

Daddy, why do you talk about scary things?

74.224 - 81.452 Danny Robins

Well, because I'm investigating it, I'm looking into it at the moment, but you don't need to worry about it at all.

81.472 - 84.475

Because they don't actually assist monsters or ghosts.

87.698 - 114.615 Danny Robbins

I'm Danny Robbins, and as you could hear there, this case is starting to take over my every waking moment. So this is the second of our case updates where we can dig a bit deeper and answer your questions. I want to start with some shocking news though. My wife Eva, who you heard there and in episodes one and five, has still not listened to a single episode because she is too scared.

Chapter 2: What shocking news does Danny share about the case?

411.207 - 412.81 Danny Robbins

So what happened next?

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412.83 - 441.104 Shirley Hitchings

I'd been there, I don't know how long, when the scissors started to disappear. There was about a dozen women in the workroom and they would call out, my scissors are gone, who's had my scissors? And I think in the end there was five or six pairs of scissors missing. And I was sent to the manager's office. And then that's when I spilt the beans that I'm the poltergeist girl.

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441.705 - 477.563 Shirley Hitchings

And I was taken to the resident doctor. And he demanded that if it is, bring those scissors back now. And I said, I haven't got them. They called in this nurse to strip search me. Take my clothes off. And I was searched to see if I had them on my person, you know, tuck down me knickers or in me bra. And I felt really degraded. They never found anything. And I got the immediate sack.

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478.927 - 495.421 Danny Robbins

So another really huge revelation there. If you're a believer that this is a genuine paranormal case, we not only have noises following Shirley, we have objects disappearing. Think back to the key. And if you're a sceptic, what is going on here?

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497.063 - 522.363 Danny Robbins

Certainly around this point, everywhere that Shirley goes, work, neighbours' houses, even on the bus, people are reporting witnessing strange things happening around her. The most public of these moments comes at the height of the media storm when Shirley is asked to appear on the BBC's Highlight programme. It's a live magazine-style show that's broadcast at 7pm, hosted by Cliff Mitchellmore.

523.204 - 530.213 Danny Robbins

He's a future legend of the BBC. In years to come, he'll front the coverage of the moon landings and the JFK assassination.

531.07 - 543.184 Julian Borger

We're now coming to the moment, the last moments of Apollo 13, as it comes in, as it begins its reentry. The best thing we can do now is just to listen and hope.

543.204 - 552.434

The Warren Report said, once again, that Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president from his window in the Texas School Book Depository.

552.454 - 560.503 Danny Robbins

He's a journalistic heavyweight, basically, and he's going to interview Shirley about her poltergeist live at BBC TV Centre.

Chapter 3: How does the geography of Wycliffe Road relate to the haunting?

561.783 - 590.49 Shirley Hitchings

We went up on the bus and the tube. Dad took me. But when we got to the studio, Donald was banging. He followed, he did bang. We were waiting in the green room, is it? And they were asking me questions and Cliff Mitchell, my member, came out to me before the programme started and he said,

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590.707 - 615.972 Shirley Hitchings

introduced himself and told me that he'd be asking me questions and Donald was tapping on they had like little coffee tables and he was tapping quietly on the table you know and they all heard it oh great are you going to come on the television he was saying and I was really really you know nervous

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618.145 - 625.095 Danny Robbins

So there's Shirley there. Now, I'm just going to quickly call my co-producer, Simon, because he's turned up something interesting on this particular bit of the story.

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627.718 - 628.239

Hello, Danny.

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628.439 - 643.24 Danny Robbins

Hello, Simon. Simon, some people are probably thinking that Shirley's exaggerating this or even making it up. But you've done a bit of digging online, haven't you? And you've actually found this quite amazing thing that has Cliff talking about it.

644.562 - 645.423 James Waterhouse

Yeah, it's an old book.

645.443 - 655.554 Danny Robbins

It's called The Television Annual for 1958. So this is back in the days when there were only two TV channels in the UK. Cliff was a pretty big star, wasn't he?

655.574 - 676.359 James Waterhouse

Yeah, and there's a piece here by him about what it's like to do his job. There's a nice picture of him relaxing at home with his wife, Jean. And on page 119, he's talking about how you always have to be on the ball doing live TV. And he says this. You can never be sure, you see, that you may not introduce a film of a political party congress and have the chimpanzees tea party turn up instead.

677.04 - 692.179 James Waterhouse

That someone will not turn up in a suit identical to yours. And, this is the bit, that the poltergeist in whom you've been shown an obvious disbelief will not manifest itself loudly in protest by rapping on the studio floor. These things have happened.

Chapter 4: What theories have listeners proposed about the noises?

836.008 - 850.484

So it could be sometimes arthritic joints can become locked in some ways, you know, because what's happening is they're losing the cartilage in between the joint that helps the joint through a full range of movement. So that could produce a sound.

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850.884 - 868.625 Danny Robbins

So essentially we're saying that if you had a quiet room of people sitting in a focused seance environment and they're expecting a ghost to talk to them, That sound of a bone clicking could potentially trick people into thinking that someone or something is knocking.

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869.366 - 879.627 Danny Robbins

But then in our case, we also have this noise heard by neighbours next door and even out in the street. There's no way on earth that a toe bone could generate that level of noise, is there?

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879.877 - 894.539

No, because if I tell you a bit about my practice, we've got a four treatment room practice. And, you know, certainly if one is doing the procedure on a patient in one room, there is absolutely no way you'd hear it, even in an adjoining room. So that's a bit doubtful.

895.46 - 898.004 Danny Robbins

How loud could a toe bone crack be?

898.905 - 905.435

I'm just trying to think of an example and date of their life so that, you know, people can relate to what it could sound like.

906.056 - 907.318 Danny Robbins

Is it this loud?

908.243 - 909.986

Probably too loud, I think.

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