Episode 7: Dead Letters
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What strange phenomena does the Hitchings family experience?
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Just niin. Pitkä historia ja yli hyvä hinta vetää puoleensa.
Siis näinköhän.
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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Ah!
My notebook! He's thrown it! There's writing, but... It looks like a kid's.
What does it say? Shirley. I come. My Shirley.
I'm back where I began, with that cardboard box of all Chip's files on the case. And spread out in front of me are hundreds of letters, supposedly written by a ghost. The first one is that scrawl in Chip's notebook, ''Shirley, I come, my Shirley.'' I've put a photo of it on the BBC website. The writing's shaky. It's kind of crude, like a child's, and each letter is really wobbly and uncertain. Underneath, Chib's written in his own neat handwriting, 1.15am, 22nd March, 1956, writing by Donald himself. But how can that be possible? These notes will develop from scrawls like this to more detailed letters allegedly explaining who Donald is and what he wants. Prepare yourselves, because this episode, things are going to get very weird.
You've got a Christmas card, Harold.
Huh?
Dear Chib, Merry Christmas. From... Donald. I'm Danny Robbins and this is the Battersea Poltergeist.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Episode 7. Dead Letters. So far we've focused on January to March 1956, those intense early months when the press descend on number 63. We're going to cover a longer period this episode, as the family adapt to their weird new domestic reality, living with Donald. You may have your own theories now of what's causing the strange events at number 63, but what doesn't seem in any doubt is that we have five people here, Wally, Kitty, Ethel, John and Shirley, living in a state of heightened fear. It was like living in a nightmare, that any minute you're going to wake up. So Shirley, tell me about your state of mind at this point. Well, I don't know how words could describe it. I had this sort of tremble.
We all were carrying our demons in our heads, you know, all frightened. My mum really frightened because of her disposition.
Molly, Tib, quick, look in our bedroom. On the walls, the marks.
What is it?
Lead polish. For the fireplace. It's like he's drawn with it. What do those symbols mean? They're fleur-de-lis. Does that mean something to you, Donald? Oh, damn it. I don't know whether I'm imagining things. Did he really speak before? What's going on, Jim? He's becoming more powerful. This could be rather worrying.
I'm with Evelyn Hollow and Ciaran O'Keefe now, our experts. So this is more new phenomena. The family also find painted crosses, not only on the walls, but also on the headboard of Kitty and Wally's bed.
Ciaran, what do you make of this? Well, in my opinion, we can't discount the possibility that somebody in the family did that. There's no environmental or psychological explanation. We've got photographs so we know it actually happened. So it's either somebody in the family or it's a poltergeist.
Evelyn, whatever or whoever is doing this is causing serious levels of destruction. You have rooms being trashed, things piled up and set fire to. If it is someone in the family doing it, exactly how are they getting away with that? I don't know about you guys, but I grew up in a one-and-a-half-bedroomed house. I shared a tiny room with my sister, and if my mother got out of bed in the middle of the night, I could hear her breathing in the kitchen downstairs.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What strange phenomena does the Hitchings family experience?
0:00–6:57
2
How does Harold Chibbett attempt to communicate with Donald the poltergeist?
6:57–16:41
3
What psychological state does Shirley reveal about her family's fear?
16:41–22:31
4
What new developments occur in the poltergeist activity?
22:31–32:45
5
What messages does Donald convey through letters?
32:45–33:17