Episode 22 Haunted Objects Part 1

[00:00:00] - [Speaker 0]
Hello, everyone. My name is Graeme Milne.

[00:00:03] - [Speaker 1]
My name's Karen Swanston.

[00:00:05] - [Speaker 0]
Welcome to Lights On, Still Scared. Today's episode features haunted objects. Karen, how have you been?

[00:01:02] - [Speaker 1]
I've been very well. How have you been?

[00:01:04] - [Speaker 0]
I've been alright. Any... Anything excitement to report?

[00:01:08] - [Speaker 1]
No. Don't think so. No. Can't think of anything.

[00:01:11] - [Speaker 0]
Apart from recording this?

[00:01:12] - [Speaker 1]
Apart from recording this. Yeah. It's probably the exciting thing that I've been doing.

[00:01:17] - [Speaker 0]
Well, I hope it's very exciting. I do like a good haunted object. We've got some, I think, quite interesting stories today from all across the country and yeah, haunted objects, good and bad of course.

[00:01:30] - [Speaker 1]
Indeed.

[00:01:31] - [Speaker 0]
Curses, that kind of thing. So what have you got for us to kick off today?

[00:01:36] - [Speaker 1]
I have got the crime boy.

[00:01:38] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, blame me. Though I know a little bit about that and it fills me with dread. Is it? Slightly, yeah.

[00:01:44] - [Speaker 1]
Okay. So during the nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies, reproduction of the paintings showing tearful children become extraordinarily popular in Britain and across Europe. I do remember these pictures. I do think someone had them on, like, hanging on their wall. I can't think of the life of me.

[00:02:03] - [Speaker 0]
It was. Do remember them too, I must admit. They they were... I used to see them in junk shops and things like that, which is quite interesting. Yeah.

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So the best known image was known simply as the crime boy.

[00:02:14] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

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They were inexpensive mass produced prints rather than individual original paintings and thousands hung on British homes, particularly in working class communities.

[00:02:26] - [Speaker 0]
Yes. Those working classes, you know, no taste in art.

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Without attracting anything more sinister than the occasional question, why would anyone want a picture of a crying child on their walk?

[00:02:38] - [Speaker 0]
That's a very good question indeed.

[00:02:40] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. That dramatically changed in 1985 when newspapers began connecting the pictures with a series of devastating house fires.

[00:02:49] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:02:50] - [Speaker 1]
The paintings are originally attributed to an Italian painter, Bruno Emado, who signed his work under the name of Giovanni Bragolin. Other names include Angelino Bragolin and Francois Seville. I do apologize if I pronounced those names wrongly, but you can Google them and see for yourself which is the right pronunciation.

[00:03:16] - [Speaker 0]
Of course. And he obviously wasn't very proud of those pictures given his... Made them other multiple pseudonyms.

[00:03:23] - [Speaker 1]
So, yes, so several of those names were associated with pictures added to the confusion surrounding his identity. Mhmm. So he was an academically trained painter and art restorer who worked on postwar Venice. He reportedly reproduced sentimental paintings of the tourist market, including a substantial series featuring tearful children.

[00:03:46] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:03:46] - [Speaker 1]
The Crying Boy was therefore not necessarily one particular painting. It was numerous portraits or reproductions by Bregelin and other artists were sometimes grouped together under the same name. Mhmm. So it wasn't necessarily him that painted them all. Was Yeah.

[00:04:02] - [Speaker 1]
Other artists.

[00:04:03] - [Speaker 0]
A kind of movement as it were.

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So they were particularly popular. Estimated vary, but at least 50,000 were reported to be sold in Britain.

[00:04:13] - [Speaker 0]
That's a lot.

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And with many more distributed throughout Europe. So, yes, so there's a lot of them going around. They're probably still around as well, which is even more frightening. Indeed. So on the 09/04/1985, The Sun, well known paper, must be true then.

[00:04:31] - [Speaker 0]
Well, of course. Of course course it it is.

[00:04:33] - [Speaker 1]
Published the story under the neurotic head load Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy. The report concerned Ron and May Hall, whose home in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, had been badly damaged in fire. According to the story, the fire began with a chickpang caught alight and spread throughout the house. Much of the property was destroyed, but the reproduction of the crying boy reportedly survived, virtually undamaged. Ron's brother Peter was a firefighter, and another firefighter, Alan Wilkinson, claimed that this was not the first time that Cruise had encountered one of the pictures at scene of a serious fire.

[00:05:14] - [Speaker 1]
Wilkinson reportedly said that he had attended numerous house fires in which crime boy painting survived while much of the room or building around it was destroyed. Although he did not necessarily declare the picture was supernatural, the newspaper presented his experience as evidence of a possible curse.

[00:05:33] - [Speaker 0]
Okay.

[00:05:34] - [Speaker 1]
So there you go. So it must be true, it's the sun. Following the original article, readers began contacting the sun with their own stories, and they claimed that the fires had begun shortly after the Crying Boy picture was brought into their home. Pictures survived fires that destroyed almost everything else surrounding them. Attempts to burn or destroy the prints sometimes failed.

[00:06:01] - [Speaker 1]
Misfortune appeared to stop after the pictures were removed, and the firefighters refused to keep pictures in their home. So the firefighters were obviously supernatural

[00:06:12] - [Speaker 0]
Or art connoisseurs, one or the other.

[00:06:14] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm. And some owners felt uncomfortable around the images or believe the children's eyes followed them around across the room. Oh, don't like that. One report concerned an Italian restaurant or pizzeria destroyed by fire where a crying boy picture was alleged among the few recognizable objects recovered. Another family reportedly blamed a fire on the print, even though the investigators identified an ordinary source of the ignition.

[00:06:43] - [Speaker 1]
Several much more darker stories later become attached to the painting. One claimed that the original boy that was in the painting was a Spanish orphan called Don Bonilio. I really must brush up on my names.

[00:07:02] - [Speaker 0]
Who was that? So he was maybe real boy. He was the inspiration

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But his nickname was Deblow. The devil.

[00:07:12] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, Diablo. Diablo. Diablo. Yeah.

[00:07:15] - [Speaker 1]
That's easy. You should be reading this one.

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That's the only one I knew.

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His parents had supposedly died in a fire, leaving the child traumatized and unable, unwilling to speak.

[00:07:26] - [Speaker 0]
Oh my god.

[00:07:27] - [Speaker 1]
According to the ledger, priest warned the artist that mysterious fires followed the boy wherever he went. He ignored this warning and took Don, as he was known by then, into his home and painted his portrait. Not long afterwards, the artist's home and studio supposedly burned down. He blamed Dawn for the disaster and turned him out. Well, that's not nice.

[00:07:50] - [Speaker 0]
I think I should think not. And if he has got any supernatural powers, that's gonna really cheese him off.

[00:07:55] - [Speaker 1]
Indeed. So years later, the badly burned body of a young man was allegedly discovered after a car crash into into war and burst into flames near Barcelona. The body was set to be almost impossible to identify, but an undamaged driving license was reportedly recovered from the vehicle. And it was the boy.

[00:08:17] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. Is that true?

[00:08:18] - [Speaker 1]
Well, that's...

[00:08:21] - [Speaker 0]
It's terrifying. It's it's... It'd be a damn good film. Really good. Indeed.

[00:08:27] - [Speaker 1]
So the implication that was that the spirit or suffering of the boy had somehow entered the paintings, causing the fires, were allowing the pictures themselves to survive. Mhmm. But there's no no evidence to say existed

[00:08:45] - [Speaker 0]
Right.

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And that the studio caught fire. There's no evidence or anything to say that there The painter has never said Yeah. Anything at all.

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But that'd be interesting to hear what his take on it all was.

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But unfortunately, he passed away in 1981, so...

[00:09:00] - [Speaker 0]
Natural causes? We hope so. Crikey.

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But Christian and Freud have read as contacted newspapers. Obviously, they've got the Yeah. Bejesus.

[00:09:14] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. And if there's 50,000 paintings in the market, you know, there's a lot of them, so loads of people would have had them.

[00:09:20] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. So The Sun offered to take the supposedly cursed pictures away. Readers were encouraged to send their prints to the newspaper so that it could destroy them, and thousands reportedly arrived filling part of the newspaper's offices. The paper then organized a mass bonfire around Halloween nineteen eighty five. Firefighters supervised as approximately 2,500 crime boy pictures were reportedly burned.

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The sun subsequently announced that the curse had been broken.

[00:09:55] - [Speaker 0]
Good. Glad to hear it.

[00:09:56] - [Speaker 1]
The event was essentially a publicity stunt, but it just shows how widely the fear had spread. Yeah. People voluntarily surrendered pictures that they had owned for years because a newspaper report and convinced them that the images might destroy their home. So

[00:10:14] - [Speaker 0]
They might be worth a bit of money to a collector of of true of the gene now.

[00:10:18] - [Speaker 1]
Yes. But, I mean, if there were 50,000 and Yeah. Two and a half thousand were destroyed, then there's a huge amount of them still hanging around so to speak.

[00:10:29] - [Speaker 0]
Literally. Literally. Or lurking in garages or attics. But there was a whole pile of paintings like that back in the day that were recognizable. Remember the blue faced lady.

[00:10:40] - [Speaker 0]
Oh yes. Remember the one with the black hair. That was a very famous one.

[00:10:43] - [Speaker 1]
I do know that picture. I do think that someone someone I know had that picture on their wall.

[00:10:49] - [Speaker 0]
It was a Spanish, a senorita type one. They were like three staples of of, you know, of mass appeal art for the for the bereft of taste. I

[00:11:03] - [Speaker 1]
was gonna say this... Weren't, well, weren't... Taste, but there you go.

[00:11:07] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah. I mean, they weren't my thing at all. I mean, snobby, I'm not being snobby about it, but I would hate to be able to that thing look at me in my room, that'd freak me out. It just looked depressing, didn't it? I mean, the subject matter alone, crying child.

[00:11:21] - [Speaker 0]
Well, each to their own.

[00:11:22] - [Speaker 1]
Indeed.

[00:11:24] - [Speaker 0]
Anyway, I've got something much more cheery. I don't. I've got something called the Hexham Heads. So the Hexham Heads is a really famous story which began, I guess, the public view around 1972. So Hexham's like a wee town in Northumberland and this story revolves around these two, I don't know how to describe them, so like hardened clay concrete little heads, the size of oranges.

[00:11:56] - [Speaker 0]
They've been passed around at various museums for years, people have claimed they've got Celtic origins, some people claim they were made in the fifties. It's a really odd story but with it comes a story of an elemental type haunting, a werewolf type creature, which is actually I must admit, when I heard this when I was young, I thought it was terrifying. Did. Anyway, begins in 1972 at the home of the Robson family, where the new home owner's children uncovered this pair of carved stone heads. They've got kind of rudimentary faces on them, so they were playing with them essentially, took them in the house.

[00:12:33] - [Speaker 0]
Several nights after the discovery, their neighbour, who's called Ellen Dodd and her daughter were terrified when a half man half beast type figure entered their bedroom. Despite them screaming the place down, the strange creature did not seem to notice them and went about its business as well. Then leaving the room went downstairs and when they eventually had the nerve to go down and investigate they found that the front door was open. The beast appeared to be walking on two legs which gave the appearance of a werewolf like figure. Stone heads, they thought were Celtic of origin, so I don't know, I guess the conversation had happened, you know, the phenomena that was happening when these things came into the house.

[00:13:21] - [Speaker 0]
So it was decided to hand them over to a collector called Doctor Anne Ross who claimed to have similar items in her collection and she wished to compare them, so she took them in and that was all very well and good, but a few nights later her inquisitive nature backfired when she was walking in the early hours of the morning with a feeling of dread and on glancing towards her bedroom door she was shocked to see what was described as the very same creature. It was, this is the quote, about six feet tall, slightly stooping and it was black against the white door. It was half human, half animal. The upper part I would have said was a wolf then the lower part was that of a man. I would have said again that it was covered in kind of black, very dark fur.

[00:14:09] - [Speaker 0]
It went out and I saw it clearly and then it disappeared. Now something made me run after it. That is something I would not normally have done but I felt compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and gave chase and I could hear it going down the stairs then disappeared towards the back of the house. So not long after this incident, Doctor Ross came home with her husband only to find her daughter in a terrified condition.

[00:14:32] - [Speaker 0]
She had allegedly entered the house only to witness the large black form of the creature running downstairs before it vaulted over the banister and landed with a soft thud. It was believed that the stone heads for some reason were attracting this entity and accordingly Doctor Ross passed her collection onto other interested parties. Eventually the British Museum attained them and the story drifted over time from the public consciousness until a former owner of the Robsons' residence appeared out of the woodwork. Now this guy had lived there in the 1950s and he claimed that he'd made those stones himself. He was a dealer in, you know, concrete and he made these things as some sort of plaything for his kids, so it didn't

[00:15:19] - [Speaker 1]
have

[00:15:19] - [Speaker 0]
any ancient connection to anything, it was 1950s. But it's really strange, I mean it's been hotly debated. Did he come out the woodwork and make the story up? Were they really modern? I mean a lot of the antiquarians that looked to them seemed to think they were Celtic, I guess they would know.

[00:15:37] - [Speaker 0]
Anyhow, theory is that the actual creature represents or looks a little like the Norse god Fenris, which is half wolf I believe. That is the description. What connection it has to a modern 1950s conquer head if that's the case is, I'm not sure, but they vanished apparently. The story's going to be a bit cold, people, I don't know who's got them, where they ended up, They were passed around to so many different people. There are various reports online, a lot of them contradict each other but as far as we know at the moment they are, they are missing in action as they say.

[00:16:16] - [Speaker 0]
Very strange story, very, very creepy. Was it them? Were they the haunted objects? Were they cursed objects or some weird coincidence? But why a werewolf?

[00:16:26] - [Speaker 0]
Makes no sense. It's become one of, I suppose, most enduring mysteries we have. But anyway, that's the Hex some Heads.

[00:16:34] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm. That's very eerie. A werewolf?

[00:16:37] - [Speaker 0]
A werewolf.

[00:16:37] - [Speaker 1]
A werewolf.

[00:16:38] - [Speaker 0]
A werewolf. They're wolf. Sorry. That was a quote from young Frankenstein there.

[00:16:43] - [Speaker 1]
Oh, yeah.

[00:16:44] - [Speaker 0]
That was rather good.

[00:16:45] - [Speaker 1]
Yes. Very good indeed. Used to be a werewolf but I'm alright now.

[00:16:51] - [Speaker 0]
Another classic.

[00:16:54] - [Speaker 1]
I'm a hero, mate.

[00:16:56] - [Speaker 0]
I've got me a list of werewolf jokes on me back pocket pocket here. Gonna break them out in a minute. Oh, dear.

[00:17:03] - [Speaker 1]
Right. Well, my next story, we're off across the pond. We're off to Louisiana

[00:17:09] - [Speaker 0]
Okay.

[00:17:10] - [Speaker 1]
To the Myrtles Plantation.

[00:17:12] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:17:13] - [Speaker 1]
So apparently, it's the Myrtles Plantation Mirror

[00:17:17] - [Speaker 0]
Right. Okay. That we're

[00:17:18] - [Speaker 1]
going to be discussing now. And the mirror remains one of the plantation's best known attractions and is frequently discussed by visitors interested in paranormal. Yes. Myrtle's Plantation was built in 1796 and has long been regarded as one of America's most haunted historical homes. Mhmm.

[00:17:39] - [Speaker 1]
Among the many ghost stories connected with the house, none is more famous than the large mirror located in one of the rooms. So unlike many haunted object stories, the mirror is still in its original setting and can be seen today.

[00:17:55] - [Speaker 0]
Right. Yeah.

[00:17:56] - [Speaker 1]
So you can go up and see it should you feel the need.

[00:17:59] - [Speaker 0]
I definitely do not feel the need. I've heard about this.

[00:18:04] - [Speaker 1]
So according to local legends, members of the Woodruff family died in the house during the nineteenth century. A popular version of the story claims that after their death, the household mirror was never covered.

[00:18:16] - [Speaker 0]
Right.

[00:18:17] - [Speaker 1]
In many traditions, mirrors were covered after a death to prevent the departed souls from becoming trapped. Because this mirror allegedly remained uncovered, some believed the spirits became attached to

[00:18:30] - [Speaker 0]
it. Hard to say.

[00:18:31] - [Speaker 1]
Hard to say.

[00:18:32] - [Speaker 0]
But they do see that.

[00:18:33] - [Speaker 1]
They do say that indeed. Visitors have claimed to see handprints appearing on the glass, faces reflecting behind them, figures standing in the room that disappeared when they turned around.

[00:18:46] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm.

[00:18:47] - [Speaker 1]
Children looking out from within the mirror.

[00:18:49] - [Speaker 0]
Right.

[00:18:50] - [Speaker 1]
Strange photographs showing unusual reflections. Many visitors also describe an overwhelming feeling that someone is watching them while standing in front of the mirror.

[00:19:01] - [Speaker 0]
Yeah.

[00:19:01] - [Speaker 1]
And despite repeated cleaning, some people claim that faint handprints continue to reappear. So that's a bit of a spooky one.

[00:19:11] - [Speaker 0]
It's... I watched a documentary about the plantation a few years ago, and I do remember there was a few images they showed that had been taken by visitors which were a bit unusual, you know, but you could always argue it's reflections or whatever, but they did seem quite odd and I know there's been a lot of stories about it and it's meant to be very haunted because it's obviously history. Yeah. And it's kind of a place that's got a lot of baggage in a sense of...

[00:19:38] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah. And it's a bad bad

[00:19:41] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, yeah. Blood. Yeah. You think about what went on there. Was very off putting.

[00:19:46] - [Speaker 1]
Indeed. So, yeah, I mean, some I mean, some would say perhaps he was scrying.

[00:19:51] - [Speaker 0]
Maybe so. Maybe so. Interesting, though. I like that. A wee bit closer at home for this one.

[00:20:00] - [Speaker 0]
This is a mummy's curse. Oh. A mummy's curse.

[00:20:04] - [Speaker 1]
A mummy's curse.

[00:20:05] - [Speaker 0]
With a with a question mark because we don't know if it's a mummy's curse or it's a thing.

[00:20:09] - [Speaker 1]
Oh, okay.

[00:20:11] - [Speaker 0]
So as I am as I am describing this, I am literally sitting 500 yards from the very house.

[00:20:18] - [Speaker 1]
Really? Yeah.

[00:20:19] - [Speaker 0]
Just around the corner.

[00:20:20] - [Speaker 1]
Just around the corner? Yeah.

[00:20:21] - [Speaker 0]
Lermont Lermont It's actually like a flat, it's flat, so I think there's about three flats in it now, but it was a house and it was owned by a guy called Lord Seaton who in the 1930s was, you know, a bit of a lad about town, him and his wife Zeila had quite a nice lifestyle I think, living in this house with servants and travelling the world and, you know, I found a grand time as you did in the 1930s if you had the money. Indeed. It's a three storey sandstone building. The chap we're going to talk about, Mr Seaton, passed away in 1963 and claimed at the time, or just before his passing, should say, that he had been cursed and had misfortune piled upon him because of one of his wife's indiscretion. Let me explain, it wasn't anything like that.

[00:21:11] - [Speaker 0]
It was literally she had gone to Luxor and they employed a local guide to show them around some of the, you know, historic sites and the pyramids, etcetera, etcetera, which was all very well and good. They had a chap in charge, who was a local guy called Abdul, and he was supposed to be taking them afterwards to this tourist area where one could buy souvenirs but I mean I'm suspecting in those days a tourist souvenir wasn't the kind of tart one we'd get today, it probably was literally stuff that had been robbed from graves, I think, potentially at least, but anyhow, Lord Seine's wife, Seela, wasn't keen on the idea and insisted they go back to the hotel. He thought this was unusual, know, because she was a collector of things but anyway, back they went and there's a grand old time over there and eventually they returned to Edinburgh. So when they got back, all was good and well and they were having, you know, settling back in after the holidays and she made this big announcement that she had a gift for him and presented him with a small glass case containing what was described as something that looked like a heart shaped digestive biscuit, which in fact was the backbone of a mummy.

[00:22:30] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, nice. Now, yeah, so this is a pre bandage mummy if you like, so basically the deceased was laid on a slab to, you I suppose decompose but they weren't wrapped in bandages but anyway, this tomb they'd gone into had what was a high born lady, that was the description, lying on a slab and Lord Seaton had gone out for a cigarette and Zeila had a wee bit of, you know, pinching and took it.

[00:22:58] - [Speaker 1]
How did she do?

[00:22:58] - [Speaker 0]
He had no idea, I know. Know.

[00:23:01] - [Speaker 1]
Naughty naughty.

[00:23:02] - [Speaker 0]
Naughty naughty. Took it back and then when it was presented, all hell broke loose. Now, he made the classic mistake, according to him, of going to the newspapers and of course it became big news and he felt humiliated because he felt like, yeah, he was thinking he was making this up. I mean, he may well have been paid for the story, don't really know. Mhmm.

[00:23:22] - [Speaker 0]
But he wrote about it in a book later on. Yeah. Confessions of a baronet. Oh. So one of the first things that happened was that they would hear this awful cacophony broke out in the room when things were being smashed and thrown around and they would go down to the dining room which was on the Ground Floor I believe and that's where the bone was kept in the case and of course the room was utter turmoil.

[00:23:44] - [Speaker 0]
This would happen during the night. On other occasions, there'd be noise, smashing, crashing, they'd go investigate and nothing had moved, which was really, really unusual. So this was the start of it all. They had a party and something fell from the roof like a large slump, slab of masonry and nearly hit one of their guests. Of course, that could be put down to dodgy masonry.

[00:24:09] - [Speaker 1]
It could be.

[00:24:09] - [Speaker 0]
Could be. However, many, many other things began to happen, including sightings of figures. Oh. Yes. So basically what we're seeing was this guy, well, guy and woman at different times, but the guy was seen wearing what was described as robes of some description.

[00:24:27] - [Speaker 0]
So, of course, the Scottish Daily Express is recounting all this and they're, you know, interviewing people and Lord Seed's fallen ill and his daughter's fallen ill and somebody's got really bad ear issues that's come out nowhere and so this has all become a big thing, it's all tied in together and, so they have a nine year old boy staying with him and I think if I remember correctly it was his nephew and in the middle of the night, this is a quote by the way, we heard him screaming and found him cowering under his bed clothes. He said that he'd been to the bathroom and on the way had seen a figure and what he said was a big dressing gown going into the drawing room. I went there and I switched on the light and found no one. So it was a terrifying experience for everyone. On another occasion, a female friend with a cop were invited to stay over.

[00:25:15] - [Speaker 0]
In the middle of the night, she was woken by the sound of someone moving around. And think it was her hostess, she arose and went to speak to her, only to see the figure disappear into the drawing room. She plainly saw the figure standing at the table in which the bone had rested and flicking on the light found it completely empty. This led to another sleepless night. She wasn't sure as to whether it was a man or a boy or a woman because it was a small in stature, which is ironic in street...

[00:25:42] - [Speaker 0]
Well, not ironic, it's strange because the figure on the slab that the bone had been obtained from was described as being very, very small in stature.

[00:25:48] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm.

[00:25:50] - [Speaker 0]
Anyway, scene continued, I asked her, I asked a friend if it was a man or a woman, but she could not see his face, though she described it as small. So soon after I took the bone to a surgeon I knew, who after examining it said it belonged to someone small. It definitely was. They then had a nephew called Alser Blacksday. Same thing.

[00:26:09] - [Speaker 0]
A funny man dressed strangely walking down the stairs. Scene began to get very alarmed at this point. Zeoly used to wake up screaming in the middle of the night saying she'd seen somebody walk in the drawing room. Again, room was found empty, sometimes untouched, sometimes touched. The servants were scared, wouldn't go in the room, didn't want anyone to work there.

[00:26:33] - [Speaker 0]
One of the maids quit. You know, the stories have gone on and on. And then, of course, it became more violent. Terrific crashes heard. On one occasion, the boomers found chartered itself.

[00:26:44] - [Speaker 0]
So at his wit's end, he then passed on or wrote secretly to an acknowledged expert, Doctor Carter, who had been involved in the Tutankhamen exhibition or discoveries around that period, and he assured seeing that this phenomena was unlikely to stop unless the bone was returned. So he was bagged in a corner by this and with no reprieve in sight contact, his uncle, who believe it or not was a Benedictine monk at Fort Auguste Sabi, and on receiving the news, his uncle agreed to visit Zeila in Zeila's absence. Zeila had gone off from one of our frequent revisits and he came and performed a blessing and then he burnt the bone in the back garden. Oh. Which I have to say wasn't a particularly wise move because it was in the aftermath of the blessing that the whole family suffered prolonged periods of illness and there's nothing they could do because the bone had gone.

[00:27:42] - [Speaker 0]
The baronet's final words on the mire were, I still think it was one of most horrible experiences I've ever been through and it happened both day and the night. Anyhow, the bone at one point was apparently gifted or loaned to two reporters who both suffered very serious accidents and it seemed that everybody would, you know, there was a receipt of the bone ended up in having some sort of strange misfortune like a car crash or whatever. So in more recent times there have been a few stories. You know, recently we spoke to John, who is a friend of ours, he did tell me a really interesting story from someone who visited the house in more recent times who was a Reiki instructor and he used to go there and work with a client and on one occasion the client had gotten up after the, you know, the treatment as well, the session and gone to get some water, leaving the practitioner in the room and when he looked round, there was a figure wearing robes, like really ancient looking robes. He couldn't get a good look at them because he just ran from the buildings, absolutely terrified and was interviewed online on an episode of North Edinburgh Nightmares and looked very, very upset about it and agreed that to do further sessions would have to be, you know, a mutually agreeable place but not in that building.

[00:29:10] - [Speaker 0]
I think he got a very, very bad scare. People say it's still haunted. I've heard half rumours. So the occasional local person will say, well, it's a strange house or whatever. I really don't know.

[00:29:21] - [Speaker 0]
I don't wanna go knocking on somebody's door and tell them it's creepy. They may have experienced nothing but certainly for that period... And at last thirty years of really odd stuff was happening in that building. Was it a mummy's curse? I don't know.

[00:29:34] - [Speaker 0]
But they destroyed the bone which was really not. No. Have... The wisest of moves.

[00:29:39] - [Speaker 1]
They're not. Yes. Like they were told.

[00:29:41] - [Speaker 0]
Indeed. But that's that. That's the mummy's curse of Learnmouth Gardens.

[00:29:47] - [Speaker 1]
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Join us next time for Haunted Objects Part two. In the meantime, keep the lights on, still scared.