In 1938 Kay had become – in the slang of the time – a Bolter.
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| Kay Hill: Filey 1939 |
At first they lived in Filey, where he kept his horses at Foords Hotel Stables and exercised them on the sands, but when war broke out and the beaches were closed, they moved away from the coast to live and work at a moorland farm.
Racing continued through the war, though much reduced, because the government decided it was a boost to the country's morale.
I don't know that the current owners would want me to name the farm, so I haven't. (Do contact me if you think you know which one it was). And I didn't feel it right to identify Kay's partner and his sons. I've called him Alfred and his sons Brian and Peter. I knew Peter well; a lovely man. The boys lived with their grandparents after they lost their mother when they were very small, aged only 2 and 4. Kay was Katharine Stubbs, only daughter of Major Duncan Stubbs and his wife Madge Buchannan.
Kay refers to Alfred as "the farmer" in this account and she doesn't explain him at all. This seems to be because she always intended to share the story, which she finally sent to the Incorporated Society for Psychical Research in 1977. She kept her married name throughout her long life – she died aged 100 – she wrote under that name, and she was well known as Kay Hill in the world of Siamese cat breeding.
The Poltergeist at Moor Farm: 1940-1950
by Kay Hill
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| Moor Farm, painted by Kay Hill |
War Years
Note
There was no electricity supply on the farms up the Moor Road until after the War.
The blackout was in force and we had paraffin lamps and candles
When I first came to the farm in the late spring of 1940, I had my own furniture with me, and was given the choice of two rooms, as my bedroom. I moved my furniture into the lighter of the rooms, and the other became the spare room.
Within a week of moving in, I had to make the enormous effort of changing over the furniture in both rooms. It was a busy time of year on the farm, and I only had the Land Girl to help me. My reasons for moving seemed ridiculous, and the whole thing was most unpopular. I made an excuse that the room over the kitchen, which I still occupy, was the drier of the two; and after a day of violent effort I made my escape from the thing that had frightened me.
I had been woken up by the sound of something flying round the room, and could hear the beat of its wings. I had the horrifying thought that it might be a bat, so I shone my electric torch, and the flying stopped.
As soon as I put the torch out, the flying started again.
I got out of bed, shut the window, and put up the blackout. I lit the lamp and searched the top of the wardrobe, and all round the room, and under the furniture. I opened the wardrobe door and shook the clothes.
When I went back to bed and turned the lamp out, the flying started again. I was not at all afraid, but extremely annoyed at being kept awake. I sat up in bed with my torch on the sheet, and when the thing was in mid flight switched it on. The flying stopped instantly.
The flying made a sound like the beating of wings of considerable power. As when a woodpigeon passes low overhead at dusk, you can hear the air passing through the feathers of the wings.
This went on for some considerable time, until I lit the lamp, and went to sleep with the light on.
The next night it all started again, and continued in the same way for five successive nights. By this time I was short of sleep, and rather frightened. I talked about it to other people, but it sounded ridiculous and was put down to starlings, or rats, with which opinion I was inclined to agree; although I knew that I had not satisfied myself with such an easy explanation.
The last night in the room there was no flying. I was kept awake by a carthorse on the road outside, which went up and down with a steady clop clop clop of hooves on the macadam. I went to the window with the idea of going out and putting the horse back in the field. I could hear no horse on the road, and our own horse was in the field near the water trough, a few yards from the house. When I went back to bed the horse started walking again. It was then that I realised that the sound was in the room – but like a ventriloquist throwing it about, so that it was impossible to tell from where it came.
By this time the room frightened me, and I made up my mind to move, however much trouble it caused.
From this time the noisy room became the spare room. An endless succession of visitors slept in it. My friend Mrs Macfarlane came for weeks on end, during the school term, & Brian the farmer's son came in the school holidays.
No one ever made a complaint, and the whole thing was forgotten. I never associated the sounds with poltergeists, because I thought of them as some sort of German forest thing, like an Irish leprechaun. It was not until I read Sacheverell Sitwell's book on Poltergeists that I realised that the flying and the clucking were very ordinary manifestations.
When Peter, the farmer's younger son, first spent his school holidays at the farm, the whole thing was forgotten. He was about thirteen years old, and was living with his grandparents during the time he was at Coatham School.
I found that he was burning candles in the night to such an extent, that I guessed that he was frightened. As he had been badly bombed I put it down to this, and thought it better not to say anything to him. At that time he was very much the ardent Boy Scout, and would rather have died than admit to any sort of fear.
I tactfully provided him with a box of nightlights and a saucer of water. About this time he started taking the dog to his room at nights, and would search the farm rather than go to bed without him. He was burning a night light through every night, and I began to be rather worried.
One morning he called to me, "Come and look at this." I went into his room. Down at the bottom of the bed by his feet were broken pieces of lamp glass and his leg was cut and bleeding. There was a stable light standing upright on his chest of drawers minus its glass, but with the wire guard still intact around it. It was the glass from this lamp down his bed – yet his hands were not marked.
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| Kay's sketch of the stable lamp |
I decided to ask him to tell me his opinion of the matter. He poured out a story of terrified nights when he dare not move in bed, because he knew there was something in the room. Of sounds he could not account for – "I took Laddie to bed because when there was a queer noise, I would say "That was only Laddie.""
After this he was moved out of the room, and he shared a bedroom with his elder brother and there was no more trouble.
One thing that interested me – he never heard either flying or clucking.
Peter at this age was a violently active intelligent but unimaginative boy. He never read a book, except on a technical subject, such as aircraft, motor cars, or horses. He was extremely truthful, and would face punishment rather than tell a lie. Since then he has become a very promising amateur jockey in point to points, and "over the sticks" and is physically afraid of nothing. The only way in which I consider him unusual, is his intuition about people, which is sometimes so accurate as to be almost psychic.
By the summer of 1947 we had all decided that the poltergeist, if it was one, had gone for good. Alfred (the farmer) was occupying the room, and had at various times slept with his door wide open "To let it fly out"; but he never would discuss the matter, and said that in any case he was not frightened.
At the time of the heat wave, he was away in Ireland. I was changing the bed linen in all the rooms, and found that whereas my room over the kitchen was intolerably hot – the other room was cool. That night I decided to sleep there. I fell asleep not at all afraid, as it was midsummer and not dark. I was awakened by a thunderous rap on the chest of drawers about a yard from my head, where the stable lamp had stood in Peter's day. I did not wait for any more trouble, but went downstairs and spent the night on a sofa in the sitting room.
In the past winter months we have had endless trouble, and a variety of manifestations which became more alarming.
Alfred reluctantly admitted that something flies; that it clucks "like a broody hen"; that it plucked at his sleeve – and gave him a sharp rap on the ankle in bed. That it opens and shuts a door in the bedroom that isn't there, and lets in a draught. As he sleeps with his door wide open I have at various times heard him say out loud, "Stop it" to something that is annoying him. (He is so concerned with the horses in the yard he seldom sleeps with the door shut and seems to hear the slightest sound of anything wrong in the stableyard)
I always come out of the "ghost" room backwards, whether in daylight or at night. I would never turn my back on that presence. Peter and I are sometimes quite happy about going to bed, and sometimes dare not go upstairs even together. One night I was asleep, when I felt a cat jump on my bed, and thinking it was my own, took no notice. As I became more awake I remembered that my cat had run away months ago. I lit a lamp, there was no cat in the room – the door was shut, and the window only open a fraction. I called to Peter, and he came into the room. As I was talking to him a loud wailing "Meow" came from under the bed, making us both jump. We searched the room (which is tiny) but there was nothing there.
That was the first time we had a fright outside the usual room. Then we both heard sounds on the landing from time to time, thumps, and a clicking noise like a parrot cracking sunflower seeds in its beak.
Sitting in the kitchen on winter evenings I frequently felt that I had just missed seeing a cat come from the bottom of the stairs and flash out of sight.
One night sitting with Peter, I saw him jerk his head round, and asked him what was the matter. He said, "I just missed it, you know what I mean."
On one occasion when I said that I wished my cat were back to sleep on my bed and keep me company, he said, "They are no good – they are hand in glove with the other side; in league with it."
This remark coming from a boy of Peter's type is more impressive to one who knows him than to an outsider.
On the night of the Hurworth Hunt Ball early this year [1948], we were all dressed and ready to go. Peter was in the kitchen, with the door at the bottom of the stairs closed. I was in my bedroom with the door open, just ready to put the light out and go downstairs. Alfred was in his room with the door open, and the light on.
There was a sliding sound on the banisters, and something that seemed like a heavy coat or a rug slid off and swished down the stairs, hitting the door at the bottom, bursting it open, and landing with a soft thump on the floor.
Peter called up to me, "What are you trying to throw at me?" Alfred and I went out onto the landing to see what had fallen. There was nothing to be seen either on the landing or at the bottom of the stairs. Peter said the door flew open, and he heard something land on the floor with a thump. The door has an old fashioned latch, and will not stay shut at all unless this is in place. It is impossible to burst open. (The door is tilted, like most of the house, and swings open into the kitchen unless the latch is firmly home)
One night I heard slow heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, as if someone were carrying a heavy tray. I realised that Peter and Alfred had gone to bed when I did, and that both were in light slippers, and not in outdoor boots. I dare not go out, or call out. The footsteps went into the room with the open door called the attic.
Winter 1948. A few weeks ago Peter and I were sitting in the kitchen listening to the racing results on the wireless at 6.25 (part of the job in a racing stable). I had scribbled them down on a piece of paper, and he was checking them off from the runners in the daily paper. We were both talking and laughing.
Suddenly he looked at me and turned crimson. Then he said, "Stand up". I stood up, and he stared behind me at the cushion at the end of the sofa. He went white, and said, "A cat clawed itself on to the sofa and went across your knees to the cushion behind you. It was a nearly white cat with tabby markings on its back and tail. I didn't see its head because it was moving away from me. I have just realised that we have no cat like that, and never have had."
At this time we were both shut in for a winter evening by the fire, and there was no cat in the room. Neither of us was thinking of anything but racing, and I could tell by the colour of Peter's face that he was deeply distressed. I felt nothing, and saw nothing.
Finally, a week or so ago, I was reading in bed. Alfred was in his room and came into mine, saying "The damned thing is there." My lamp was on a very heavy Victorian chest of drawers. He had no sooner spoken than there was a terrific knock in the chest of drawers. I said, "That sounded like a sledge hammer", and he said, "If you or I had picked up a hammer and hit that thing as hard as we could, we could not have made a noise like that."
The power of this noise was indescribable. Enough to crack a chest of drawers in two. Like a burst of thunder. The flame of the light on the dressing table never flickered.
I have tried to trace the record of this house. No one in the village has ever heard of it being haunted. There is a farm record book, which people have seen, dating the house back to the 16th century.
Summing up
When I first heard the flying and the clucking I was one night alone in the house, and Peter was not there on any night. The influence, whatever it is, comes and goes for no apparent reason, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. The Land Girl never heard it. Peter and I seem together to make it worse and together know when it has returned. Someimes we have been afraid to go upstairs even together.
Alfred is not afraid but hates to talk about it. If he can be persuaded to talk he admits its existence.
Peter tells me that when he slept in the room at the time the lamp glass was broken – he lay night after night rigid with fear and soaked in sweat, and convinced of a presence in the room. He kept the light on, as he found that light put a stop to the thing.
1949
After the incidents in 1948 nothing happened, and it appeared that the trouble was over, and my account of it finished.
November 1949 – I heard someone feeling their way along the landing wall until they came to my door, when the groping (over the wood of the the door) changed its sound. I thought someone was trying to go to bed without a light. Went out, and no one was there.
A week after, the same sound halted at my door, and the feeble effort of someone trying to turn the brass door knob. Like a child whose hands are slipping and very weak. I was too frightened this time to go out. I saw the handle turn half way several times. Next morning took a look at door handle which is below door centre and possible for a child to reach.
Peter coming back from Bedale Hunt Ball 1949 saw lights moving in upper bedrooms. I was alone in the house and in bed. Had been terrified, and was awake when I heard the car come in. I remembered then that on walking up from the bus in the dark I had seen lights on the ground floor pass through the 3 front rooms as if someone were carrying a faint lamp. Was surprised to find front and back doors locked and the house empty. I did not think much about this at the time, as hauntings were, I thought, over.
There is no doubt that this winter the feeling is back again, but much fainter than before. I am frightened to sleep alone in the house again, and scared of the room - although it is nothing like as bad as before. The gropings at my door have shaken me, and I would not like this to happen if I were alone. The thing was always malicious and rather evil.
Postscript
1950. Had Brian staying. Peter and I in kitchen doing racing entries. Heard whispering voices arguing urgently and violently in next room. They went on and on and we couldn't concentrate or catch what they were saying. I shouted, "Will you two shut up" and dashed into the telephone room to slam the door. No one there and Brian had gone with his father to the pub.
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