Susan Hill Susan Hill

We all love a poltergeist story

The press had a field day when heavy mahogany furniture started moving around a suburban Surrey home in 1938, says Kate Summerscale

Alamy 
issue 03 October 2020

There are fashions in the paranormal as in everything else. Since the famous Enfield hauntings of the late 1970s, poltergeists seem to have gone quiet, or at least unreported; but before then they were everywhere. In 1938, poltergeists kicked off in Thornton Heath, Surrey, and a Jewish-Hungarian journalist and psychic investigator, Nandor Fodor, was alerted to strange happenings in the home of a 34-year-old housewife there.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY A MONTH FREE
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Try a month of Britain’s best writing, absolutely free.

Comments

Join the debate, free for a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.

Already a subscriber? Log in