I don't believe in ghosts either, or poltergeist activity neither, but Sydney author Paul Cropper's search for the Browns formerly of Gordon Street, Mayfield, is worth telling you about for its novelty. Mr Cropper's next book, due out early next year, is about poltergeist activity in Australia and he believes that the goings-on reported in 1977 by George and Jan Brown at their Mayfield home was a classic account of such activity. The Browns appeared in The Newcastle Sun, the now-defunct afternoon paper, in late 1977 appealing for information that might explain the tapping and thumping in the walls of the home and the careful removal of paintings and other things from the walls.
Mr Cropper tells me that poltergeist activity might not involve a ghost, and that he favours the theory that it is due to energy emitted subconsciously by a particular person. The activity, he says, is typically things being moved, tapping and other noises, perhaps stones being thrown, and it is usually intense and shortlived and much more definite than a haunting that may extend over decades.
On Friday I spoke to quite a few residents of Mayfield's Gordon St, and while I found two who lived there in 1977 they could not remember the Browns or the goings-on. Can you offer any clues?
Longtime readers of my column in the Newcastle Herald may recall that the Corbett home had a ghost I didn't believe in. This entity made its presence known in many ways, among them playing with the children's toys in an empty room, moving stuff about on our rolltop desk, rattling door handles and somehow making its presence known to our children. My wife felt strongly that the ghost, which is an unfriendly term for a presence that was not at all unfriendly, is or was a child of about 10, although she didn't know the sex.
One memorable night, in the wee hours, my wife and I heard footsteps approaching our bedroom, and we knew that such footsteps meant one of our two youngest children was on his or her way to ask for a drink or a few words of sympathy. I heard the footsteps enter our room and turn right to my wife's side of the bed, and later my wife told me she felt a hand on her arm. "Yes, what's wrong?" I heard her ask, as she had done so many times. But this time there was no-one there. We turned on the light, we checked the children, who were all sound asleep, and my wife is convinced she was approached by the child.
We haven't had any manifestations of this child for some years, and I wonder if that's because our children have grown. This child had always seemed eager to establish a relationship with our young children.
It is kind of sad, don't you think? Not that I believe in ghosts or poltergeist activity, of course. Have you had an experience that can be explained as one or the other?
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