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Thursday, December 6, 2012

'Ghosts' and Round the Twist

My holiday seems to have marked a return to one of the interests of my youth. When I was 13 or 14 I nagged my mother into consenting to the library giving me an 'adult' ticket. This allowed me to borrow things well within the reading range of someone of that age, the mysteries of Michael Innes, & Dorothy Sayers; but the book which made most impression on me was The Most Haunted House in England by Harry Price. I Believed in a big way then, & ghosts were my introduction to being a weirdo.
I bought today the DVDs of a children's television series called Round the Twist. I'd forgotten how good it was, although when it was first screened in the UK I think I was probably much older than its target audience. I remembered the slapstick elements, but not the supernatural elements.
Also this week I've been reading round on the internet on Borley. It's interesting that from the beginning of this case it has polarised opinion. Obviously I haven't read everything about it but the literature is either pro or con & tends to lack cold judgement.
My own opinion is that Borley was probably too good to be true. *Every* element of a classical ghost story was present in one form or another, when even a few would have more than enough. It is unfortunately associated with Harry Price, who was not rigorous as a scientist. If you take him and Marianne Foyster completely out of the picture the evidence is thin at best.
I was surprised, though, to find this note pencilled in Dennis Wheatley's own copy of one of the (violently pro) Borley works.

Kenneth Allsop, the book reviewer of the Daily Mail, told me that when Borley was in the news he was sent down to do an article on it, and with him he took a photographer. Borley was then being "de-bunked" so that had to be the tone of the article. *But*, when the photographer developed his films, the figure of a nun could be seen quite clearly on one of them. He took it to Allsop, who took it to his Editor, but the Editor said "No, I just daren't print it."
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