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Chapter 1: What is the story behind 63 Wycliffe Road and its haunting?
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I'm just going down to the shed for a bit. Danny, hiya. How's it going? Alright, how are you? I'm good. I've got the box. The box?
Chapter 2: Who is Harold Chibbett and what role does he play in the investigation?
Yes. I'm just... I've got to take it down to the shed. I can't open it in the house because Eva thinks it's too creepy. Hold on a sec. I'm Danny Robbins and I don't believe in ghosts. Here's what I would have said to you at pretty much any point up until about two years ago, which is when I was first introduced to the contents of this cardboard box in front of me right now.
So inside here are documents that tell a ghost story. It's the story of what I think is Britain's strangest ever haunting. We start back on the 6th of March, 1956, with the previous owner of this cardboard box, Harold Chibbett.
Chapter 3: What evidence supports the claims of a poltergeist at the Hitchings' home?
He's a paranormal investigator and he's walking through Battersea, South London. He's bald, in his 50s, a bit rotund. He rings on the door of number 63, Wycliffe Road. The house is rented by the Hitchings family and it's become famous as the site of an alleged poltergeist haunting. Multiple witnesses have heard strange noises and seen objects move. Chip is shown into the front room.
Sitting there is the person that all the press attention has focused on. The Hitchings' 15-year-old daughter. A thin, brown-haired girl with big, dark eyes. Shirley.
Chapter 4: How did the Hitchings family react to the strange occurrences?
Shirley.
Do you think we're all mad? Surely. We've had a lot of people through. Police, the press.
Clairvoyance.
Well?
I think you're frightened. And fear is a powerful thing. It's what's kept humanity alive for millions of years.
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Chapter 5: What modern investigation methods are being used to explore the haunting?
Here's your tea, Mr Timmett. Please, call me Chip. Do you mind if I take notes? I suppose not.
Will you keep it all? Every single thing I say?
I'm afraid so. I have a little study at home. Endless piles of paper. My wife says I'm obsessed.
Chapter 6: What do experts say about the phenomena experienced by the family?
With what?
The dead.
Dad said you was in the war. The great one.
I flew planes.
Was you scared then?
Every single day.
People think fear's exciting, like a rollercoaster or a horror film. What a load of... Shirley. Rubbish.
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Chapter 7: How did the community respond to the events at 63 Wycliffe Road?
Real fear. It's like a disease. It eats away at you. Till you can't walk or talk or even think.
That's why I'm here, Shirley. To find out what is going on and make it stop.
No, Chip. Not it. Him.
Chibbert will end up devoting his life to this case, but the mystery of what terrorised Shirley and her family will never be solved until now.
Chapter 8: What unanswered questions remain about the Battersea Poltergeist case?
Over the next eight parts, we're going to reinvestigate this paranormal cold case. And I want to say something because... I know that right now, in your head, you're taking a position. You believe in ghosts or you think they're a load of rubbish. But this story is so strange and so unsettling. It just might change your mind. This is the Battersea Poltergeist.
Oh, heart of me
Episode one, 63 Wycliffe Road.
Turn left onto Wycliffe Road.
I'm a writer and journalist, but ever since I was a kid, I've been obsessed with ghosts. Do they exist? And if not, why do people see them? It's those questions that have led me and my producer Simon here on this cold winter's day, looking for a haunted house. You can see there's a few of the old Victorian houses left, just maybe like eight of them, but then everything else has been knocked down.
Lots of newer 1960s council flats. And I think that this is where number 63 was. Let's have a look. If you can hear any rattling, that's my scooter, by the way. I am one of those people who has a child's scooter as a grown-up. Back in the 1950s, Wycliffe Road was a fairly poor street in a working-class area.
Now it's fully gentrified, a stone's throw from swanky gastropubs and artisan coffee roasters. 60, 62, 64... So where's 63? Is it around this corner? 94, 90. Hiya. Excuse me, do you know where number 63 is at all?
63? Yeah.
No, no, these are all even numbers. Fittingly, for a ghost story, number 63, Wycliffe Road, has disappeared. So why are we here? A couple of years ago, I started doing a podcast, and it was all about people who believe they've seen ghosts. And I was introduced to one case that was clearly too big for an episode. It was too weird, too sprawling.
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