Doris Birch is a resident of Margaret Court on King’s Road in the Canterbury town of Herne Bay. The 73-year-old became so frightened and frustrated at an apparent petering poltergeist that she went to the local papers for help.
It seems that the ghost has a thing for groping people.
In This is Kent, Birch notes;
“It’s like an octopus. It started four months ago. I was lying in bed when I felt this creepy pair of hands.
“I kicked frantically and it went away. Next time it came I hurled the duvet on to the floor!
“But the ghost keeps coming back. I’ve tried sleeping without the duvet. But it started shaking my mattress.
“I even threw the mattress off the bed and bought a new one but it has made no difference.
“I told my 16-year-old granddaughter and she was gobsmacked. She said I must be joking.
“People are going to think I am mad but it is as real as the day to me. I’m not lonely. I love living alone.
“But this is very creepy and is giving me the jitters. It’s harassing me. I need to call in the Ghostbusters.
“I told the vicar and he said it is a lost spirit. What I want to know is, why has it got lost in my flat?”
Doris’ experiences sound very similar to the symptoms of hypnagogia but the local press makes no mention of a doctor being involved.
King’s Road appears to be in a modern area of Herne Bay. As you would expect it’s not far from the sea and it’s near the Kavanagh Cinema and Herne Bay Junior School. Google Maps doesn’t reveal any nearby graveyards or Churches although King’s Road does include the entrance to Memorial Park.
Herne Bay Memorial Park was completed in 1930 as a memorial to those that lost their lives in the First World War.
Methodist Minister Hugh-Nigel Sheehan of Mortimer Street’s United Church admits the grandmother approached him for help.
“I was approached by Mrs Birch but I fear I am not in a position to help. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
“I have no expertise in this at all. I am neither a trained counsellor nor from a church with a tradition of exorcism such as the Catholic Church. It is very difficult to know how to respond.”
It does not sound as if the Methodist Church was much good to Birch.
However, reporters at This Is Kent contacted the husband-and-wife team of Ray and Beryl Herne who have experience as ghost-hunters and mediums. They plan to use a ‘vortex of light’ in order to send the spirit back to the other side.
In the paper, Beryle Herne said;
“Sometimes spirits need to be here. There is usually a reason. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes we have to alleviate some stress.”
In Pure Spirit
Do you have any experience of paranormal activity in or around this area?
Do you think this is just a case of hypnagogia and the local media bringing in ghost-busters in order to sell papers?
Creative Commons Credit: Pam Fray.
We live in kings road we have nothing like that but we always lose things and then they will appear in random places or you can hear the kettle flicking on at night and you can feel a prescence a lot in the bathroom but it's nothing malicious.
I owned a cottage in the village of Herne which had lots of 'activity'. I rented it out many times to tenants who all experienced unexplained things in different proportions. Some tenants were so frightened that they felt unable to stay whilst others tolerated and were even amused by the 'guest or 'guests'. At one stage after a request from a tenant, I asked the help of the local church St. Martin and the vicar at the time performed a service in the cottage which did help for a while but after a year or so the paranormal activity returned. This was approximately 20 years ago.
Hi, where abouts in Herne was this please, I’m about to move into a cottage up there.
If you want to get rid of unwanted spirits only the catholic church ritual will work for a permanent cure. Many churches have tried but they always return. I'm training to be a medium who can clear problem places & I am also catholic maybe this will be an advantage. Time will tell.
As a long term sufferer of sleep paralysis, including hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, I feel really sorry for this lady. It is genuinely terrifying because it feels so real. You do think you are awake, and that some evil entity is attacking you. I really hope she found help.
I was too embarrassed to tell anyone outside my immediate family, because I thought they’d think I was lying or losing my mind. The only media I could find on what was happening to me, suggested I was being attacked by a demon, and made me feel even more scared and isolated. I suffered two years of almost nightly attacks, before finding out there was such a thing as these sleep disorders. I then told my doctor, who treated it with hypnosis. That worked perfectly, and the attacks stopped dead.
I still have sleep disorders and hallucinate frequently waking up or going to sleep, but none of the attack dreams. I took part in a sleep study, and even their questionnaire about sleep paralysis made me feel a million times better, because I realised that everyone suffering from the condition was experiencing exactly the same symptoms and feelings as I had. Knowing what is happening in your brain robs any hallucination of the power to scare you.
I was surprised how common hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are. Everyone experiences them to some degree at some time or another. They happen when you are either falling asleep or waking up. Hearing your name called when no one in the house called you, or seeing a dark figure beside your bed or in the corner of the room that disappears in a moment, or hearing strange sounds or rythmns or words is really common and very normal. It’s just your brain switching from sleep to being awake, and visa versa. During that gap between being fully awake and fully asleep, however awake you may think you are, anything out of normal that you see, feel, hear, smell or taste is part of your dream world, not the real world. Please don’t be afraid of it.