BRITISH TOWNS & CITIES: #1 - A BRIEF, CURIOUS LOOK AT BRISTOL

Broad Street, near to Bristol Bridge - the earliest, historical area of Bristol and from where it gets its Medieval name of Brigstowe, or 'Stone Bridge'.

In recent years the centre of historic Bristol has altered with some key modernisation, yet many parts of my birth city retain an antique atmosphere – including numerous tales of the paranormal. 

    One such location, at the end of cobbled King Street, is the ‘Llandoger Trow’.  Originally built in 1664, this pub lies in King Street, Bristol, right by the river.

There have been many accounts of paranormal activity here since it was built, but the most common occurrence is that of a disabled ghost who walks around the pub.  People have often heard the sound of one foot being placed down on the floorboards, followed by the dragging sound of a lame foot.

Occasionally the footsteps will be accompanied by the sighting of a young boy, who seems not to have the use of both his legs.  Sometimes the limping appears with the apparition of an older man – whether this is the same person as a boy and grown up is debateable – or it could be two separate individuals.

It has been reported that the name of the limping boy is Pierre.

Footsteps have been heard all over the pub and these have often been captured by paranormal teams in recent years. 

Torches and lights have also been turned on and off during investigations.

Security cameras have picked up two men who sit in the pub long after closing hours (usually one in the main bar and another in the Jacobean Bar at the same time). 

The pub has been claimed to house 15 ghosts over the centuries.

The Llandoger Trow

    Further along King Street, the impressive ‘Theatre Royal’, built in the 1760’s, still receives appearances from the famous actress, Sarah Siddons, (1755-1831).  In 2012, eighteenth century manager Sarah Macready showed up during renovations, smiling sweetly at one of the workers before promptly disappearing. Indeed, it may have been one of the Sarah’s who frightened a sceptical security guard in the 1980’s, firstly by causing his Alsatian dog to freeze in panicked terror on a routine patrol, just before the arrival of an overpowering scent of lavender and accompanied by the disembodied words ‘Get out!’ from an insistent, female voice. 

Both terrified guard and dog duly obliged in record time.

 

  Along with the ‘Llandoger Trow’, several Bristol pubs have been known for offering more than liquid spirits. 

The now-demolished ‘Lamb Inn’ in West Street, Bedminster, was subject to an unruly poltergeist throughout the whole of 1761 – hurling glasses and furniture at both patrons and staff. 

Not to be outdone, the medieval ‘White Hart Inn’ near the main bus station, has also experienced poltergeist activity in its time (plates and crockery being the projectiles of choice), alongside a former barman who occasionally makes guest appearances in the cellar.

Meanwhile in the oldest part of the city, near Bristol Bridge, ‘The Rummer’ sees visits from a ‘White Lady’ who roams the upstairs bar, while a young man with dark hair does regular shift-work within the pub’s cellar.

The ‘Post Office Tavern’ on Staple Hill has also attracted attention, due to the arrival of floating lights and odd aromas, complete with phantom footsteps. 

    Away from the bustling city centre, ghostly tales are equally common.  A man approaches strangers in Stapleton Woods, as if to ask a question, before passing right through them.  Perhaps the ghost is trying to ascertain why another spectral man has been seen hanging from the overhanging branch of a tree in the woods? 

Near Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s ‘Clifton Suspension Bridge’ – itself the scene of apparitions from poor, suicidal souls who have leapt from its 331 feet height – lies the eleventh century Ashton Court.  Now, best-known for the annual Balloon Festival, until 1946 it was the ancestral home of the Smyth family.  Here, the apparition of a young lady with a knife protruding from her chest (possibly also the young lady who wanders through the Great Hall) joins forces with odd, misty figures hanging motionless from surrounding trees, a tool-throwing poltergeist (objecting to some improvements in the main house during 1960) and a headless horseman, roaming freely amongst the 850 acre grounds.

In Clifton, a monk in black wanders around All Saint’s Church in Pembroke Road (one of many monks still seen in Bristol), while, in 1840, an adjoining house was so badly haunted by the spirit of an elderly man that the owners tried jumping out of an upstairs window to escape the spectre.

Nearby, a horrific haunting was inspected by the prominent Bristolian paranormal investigator, Montague Summers (1880-1948), when a large Clifton house was terrorised by the apparition of a young, hunchbacked girl, who had spent a pitiful, tormented life in the house, working as a maid. When a family of five bought the house in the early twentieth century, they were subjected to a frightening series of visitations from the hunchbacked girl throughout the house, attired each time in a dirty, pink dress and wearing a hideous smirk.  Once, chased by a braver-than-average daughter, the search ended in an empty, lower room.  Returning upstairs, the daughter was horrified to see the pale, floating head of the girl through a window, some thirty feet above the ground and grinning back at her.

Needless to say, the family soon left. However, future occupants fared no better.

My home city is also responsible for my personal interest in the paranormal, as it provided a pair of key locations to peak my interest during my much younger years; namely two of the houses I grew up in during the 1970’s & 80’s.  Firstly, a shop at the lower end of St. Michael’s Hill, opposite the church caught my attention as a child, when an older man would tend to walk up from the old cellar and wander around the house; including my bedroom.  While his introduction was lengthy (a lot of footsteps and tuneless whistling) his disappearance was instant.  Furthermore, a house in Downend Road, Horfield – not far from the current home of Bristol Rovers FC – yielded several interesting experiences, including apparitions, footsteps and disembodied voices.  At one time, the land was owned by a religious order, which may have explained the partial apparition of a happy-looking monk. 

Over towards the southern bit of the city, at Arnos Vale cemetery, the apparitions of two separate ladies have been spotted over the years, along with the sound of mournful crying.  Meanwhile, back in the upmarket area of Clifton, a house in Bellevue has been party to odd movements of a poltergeist style, complete with eerie noises, while Durdham Downs in the same area of Bristol was once well-known for appearances from a highwayman and a dwarf…perhaps the same person in the spectral form of an 18^th century outlaw called Jenkins Protheroe.   

Like any large city with a long history, Bristol has many more curious tales to discover and these tales are merely a taster of my favourite city.  

And yes, I am totally biased. 

Looking towards 'The Portway', beneath Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Suspension Bridge.  Leigh Woods is to the left, said to have witnessed Brunel's apparition in former years.

A CURIOUS GLANCE AT HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF 'ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOMENA' (E.V.P.) - PART I: TESLA TO JURGENSON (1890'S - 1950'S)

WHAT IS E.V.P., WHAT IS ITS HISTORY AND WHAT DOES IT INVOLVE?

E.V.P. is an abbreviation for 'Electronic Voice Phenomenon'.  

It is also a part of I.T.C. - 'Instrumental Transcommunication' - which basically covers every form of attempted communication between the living and the physically dead that can be recorded upon a machine.

E.V.P. is the part that focuses purely upon audio recordings, claiming to have captured the voices of people who have passed away.

So, how far back can E.V.P.s be traced?  

It's probably common for people to associate E.V.P.s with more recent technology, especially as most of them currently appear to originate from modern voice recorders, as seen often on paranormal television programmes.

However, there is evidence to suggest that the first disembodied voices were picked up much earlier, as far back as the 1890's, when pioneering, curious minds were engaged in the exploration of early radio.

If we examine the notes made by two prominent and gifted scientists - namely Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla - there is mention of unusual, disembodied voices by both parties.

Although an originally strong sceptic of all things spiritual and other-worldly, Tesla persisted with experiments to discover the source of such voices. 

In 1918, Tesla wrote:

'The sounds I am listening to every night at first appear to be human voices, conversing back and forth...I find it difficult to imagine that I am actually hearing real voices from people not of this planet...there must be a more simple explanation that has so far eluded me'.

Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943)

As fierce rivals, Edison discovered that Tesla had been 'hearing voices' and publicly denounced him.  In truth, Edison and his assistant, Dr. Millar Hutchinson, had also heard similar disembodied voices during their own experiments. 

Dr Hutchinson wrote:

'Edison and I are convinced that in the fields of psychic research will yet be discovered facts that will prove of greater significance to the thinking of the human race than all the inventions we have ever made in the field of electricity.'

Around the same period during World War I, disembodied voices were heard on early radios and also recorded as faint whispers on magnetic tape. While these were noted, not too much emphasis was placed upon them.  After all, it's a tough scenario - you're dealing with the latest technological advances in communication so it's easy to imagine the head-shaking as unusual sounds and voices emerge from the recent invention of a radio.

Even Tesla himself was never able to fully understand the source of the voices. His estimated guess was they probably originated from an extraterrestrial source; a not too unreasonable assumption at that time, with no real comparisons at his disposal.

During the 1920's, Thomas Edison also experimented with E.V.P. - guided by a predominant belief that it was theoretically possible to build a machine that could act as a communication device between the physically living and people who had passed on.  
He named his planned device 'Spiricom' and although his blueprints for the machine exist, Edison never lived to see his instrument built.

In the 1930's, an unusual event occurred during a spiritualist demonstration at Wigmore Hall, in London, England in front of a few hundred witnesses.  A stage microphone began to suddenly 'pick up' disembodied voices, which began talking through the speakers.  Despite a strict technical examination by the makers of the equipment, no logical reason could be established as to how 40-50 individual voices had been talking, when no-one was standing near to the microphone.

Another early pioneer of E.V.P. was an American photographer, Attila von Szalay.  Originally, von Szalay had experimented with the possibility of recording 'spirit voices' in 1941, but with minimal success.  In 1956, after discarding the process of using 78 rpm records and replacing them with reel to reel tape recorders, von Szalay began working with the psychologist, Raymond Bayless in Los Angeles.  During these experiments, the pair recorded several odd whispers, noises and odd mechanical voices. 

In 1952, two eminent Roman Catholic dignitaries - Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti and a former physician, Father Agostino Gemelli - were attempting to record a live, musical performance of a beloved Gregorian Chant.  When Father Gemelli's recording equipment chose to start misbehaving, he became frustrated at the bad timing.  Becoming increasingly frustrated at the machine's resistance to work, Gemelli verbally asked for spiritual assistance from his deceased father.  Later, when the priests listened to the results of the partially-successful recording, Father Gemelli was astonished to hear his father's voice amongst the music.  Gemelli was referred to by a childhood nickname and apparently told: 

'Zucchini, it is I...it is clear...do you not know it is I?  I am always with you and help you.'

Concerned at what exactly they had captured on the tape recorder, the priests took the bold step of approaching their highest source and went to ask the Pope - at that time, Pope Pius XII (1876-1958).  Thankfully, instead of merely branding the voices as 'demonic' or hateful, Pius XII listened to the recording and declared:

'Dear Father Gemelli, you really need not worry about this.  The existence of this voice is strictly a scientific fact and nothing to do with spiritism.  The recorder is totally objective...it receives and records only sound waves from wherever they come. This experiment may perhaps become the cornerstone for a building of scientific studies which will strengthen people's faith in a hereafter.'

Friedrich Jurgenson (1903-1987)

A man considered by many to be the 'Grandfather of E.V.P.' became immersed in its study during 1959.

Friedrich Jurgenson (1903-1987), an artist and film maker, was preparing a wildlife documentary. While walking through woods and using a tape recorder to capture birdsong, he was astonished on hearing the playback to discover an odd noise, followed by a loud burst of trumpet, as if to grab his attention.  This was immediately followerd by a male voice, speaking in Norwegian about different birds...becoming even more surprised when the voice of his mother appeared on the tape.

As with Father Gemelli, the voice used a childhood name known only to Jurgenson and his mother, who had died four years earlier:

'Friedel, my little Friedel...can you hear me?  It's Mammy.'  

Both encouraged and mystified by these voices, Jurgenson ceased his painting work and decided to focus his energies on research and experimentation.  In 1964, in a book titled, 'The Voices From Space', Jurgenson commented how his life had been changed by the discovery of the E.V.P. voices.

'I heart-searchingly asked myself if it was the right thing for me to abandon the art of painting, a creative occupation that I had submitted my whole life to...instead I was sat here with an enormous jigsaw puzzle, brooding in despair over the problem of whether one could assemble a more complete picture from all these 'fragments'.  I had never before been so touched and captured by any other urgencies, than by these 'mystical connections', literally floating in the ether'.

Jurgenson's style of recording was initially simple, utilising a tape recorder and microphone.  While he sometimes had to experiment with the speed of the playback, Jurgenson collected thousands of voices.  All of the disembodied voices were in languages that Jurgenson could speak, including English, German, Russian, Swedish and Italian.  However, in 1960, he was encouraged by a recorded voice to experiment with radio.  Via this method, Jurgenson discovered that the voices became more 'natural' and rapid, meaning that there could also be potential two-way dialogue between himself and voices coming out of the radio.   

In later life, Jurgenson continued to experiment with E.V.P., giving it his own title of 'Audioscopic Research'.  He also expanded his experiments out into wider forms of I.T.C., such as using television to receive messages, voices and images.  (More on I.T.C. in a forthcoming article)

Jurgenson's work was examined by others, including prominent parapsychologists such as Hans Bender and his team of scientists.   

Jurgenson died in 1987, leaving hundreds of audio tapes, full of E.V.P. recordings.  While certainly an important 'cog in the wheel', Jurgenson's research served not only to satisfy his natural curiosity, but also created an inspirational path for others to follow.

More of that in Part II.  

Friedrich Jurgenson with some of his recording equipment, used to capture Electronic Voice Phenomena.