Archive

Department 18
 

CASE D18 – 231 - (1977) UNITED KINGDOM

BACKGROUND

Suffolk, England. Bury St Edmunds area. No previous reported occurrences.

Supernatural manifestations seemingly related to a baby’s bassinet.

CHARACTERS

Helen Whitwell, described as ‘one of life's true aesthetics’, married and part of a young couple, with –

Matt Whitwell, obsessed with his work as junior partner in a small law firm in Suffolk.                                      

John Denning, a man rapidly approaching retirement age, a business entrepreneur.

They first met at a hotel in Austria.  ‘I was there taking a long overdue holiday; they were newly married and on their honeymoon.  It was late in the year, near the end of the season.  The hotels only other guests were a middle-aged couple from Bruges who spoke no English, thus, Matt, Helen and I found that we naturally gravitated towards each other.  They had made a home from a converted farmhouse which nestled just inside the boundary of a tiny village a few miles outside Bury St Edmunds.’ (taken from an account of the matter by John Denning) 

Amy Whitwell, a seven pound three ounce baby girl newly born baby to Helen and Matt. (Amy, after Matt's grandmother.)

INCIDENTS

Conversation reported between Helen and John.

"It's the nursery," she said suddenly, pulling away from me (Denning)

"There's something in there, something evil."

John talks to Matt about Helen’s deterioration since the birth.         

"The doctor said it's just depression. 

"What's this about the nursery?  Helen said there was something evil in there.  Do you believe that?"

“She says that she hears things, sounds.  That Amy's not safe to be alone in there."

John talks to Helen and agrees to visit the nursery – the apparent source of the manifestations – with Amy at night.

‘I looked at my watch; three minutes past twelve.

"What's wrong?" I said softly.  I noticed she was trembling.  I put my dressing gown around her, but the trembling continued.

"I can't leave Amy in there, John.  It's no good, it's started again."

"The sounds?"

She nodded.

"Wait here," I said, and walked along the landing to the nursery.

I put my ear to the door and listened.  Silence.  I opened the door and put my head round, peering into the darkness of the room.  My hand fumbled for the light switch, found it and pressed it down.  The room was bathed in the gentle orange glow of an electric night-light.  The room was faultlessly tidy, a neat row of shelves on the wall held nappies and other infantile miscellany.  The bassinet stood in the centre of the room, a chair, the twin of the one in my room, at its side.  I had never seen a less menacing sight in my life.  I switched off the light and closed the door quietly not wishing to wake Matt.

I turned to walk back to my room, and just as I did so I heard it.  So soft as to be almost inaudible, but in the country silence of the night it was definite.  A low murmured chuckle.  I cannot be called a coward, but that sound made my skin crawl.  I turned on my heels and threw open the nursery door, snapping on the light.  Nothing, the same picture of calm as before.  

“Was it singing?"

"Singing?"

"Yes, sometimes it makes sounds as if it's singing, a sort of crooning if you can imagine it.  Not a hum and yet not a song with words.  I can't describe it very well, you've got to hear it to understand."  She shivered in my arms.  "What is it, John?  I've been so frightened."  Her voice was tiny.  I held her close, not wanting to lose the moment.

Denning believes Helen can feel a presence but has doubts about the origin.

He investigates the nursery but finds nothing apparent in the room.

He is fascinated by the main piece of furniture in there. Something Matt had bought before the problems began.

“He took himself off to an auction over Long Melford way and came back with the most gorgeous bassinet.  Varnished wicker with a hood, on a cane stand.  It will be ideal for the first few months, until the baby starts moving around;

"Auction rooms.  I think Matt said it was a firm of estate agents who organised it.  Wait here, there might be a bill of sale in the bureau.  Matt keeps most of his papers in there."  She left the kitchen and returned a short while later holding a flimsy pink document.  "Here it is," she said, handing it to me.  I read it quickly. 

Denning visited the auction rooms

‘Once in the wide high street of Long Melford I had little difficulty in locating the offices of Jarvis and Glossop, the name on the billhead, but to my annoyance I found them closed.  I could see a figure moving about inside and so I rapped loudly on the door.  A faint voice sounded through the plate glass.  "We're closed."  I rapped again, louder, making the door rattle.  It suddenly opened and a large man wearing tweeds glared menacingly at me from the doorway.

"Didn't you 'ear?" he said, in an uncultured voice.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," I said.  "I've come about this."  I thrust the bill into his hands.  He read it and passed it back to me, his demeanour changing from one of ire to that of long suffering resignation.  He looked over my shoulder at my car parked in the kerb behind me, as if he expected to see the bassinet protruding from the boot.

"You'd better come inside," he said, and ushered me into the office.’

Armed with information that has given him an idea Denning concludes he must spend a night in the nursery to ascertain the truth behind the sounds.

‘The clock in the drawing room had just chimed eleven when it began.  I was almost dozing and it took a few seconds before I realised what was happening.  For the second time that weekend I cursed my age, and rose quietly from my bed.  I crept stealthily from my room and along the landing, pausing at the nursery door to listen.  The sounds that came from the room chilled me.  It was a voice, deep and sonorous, it crooned, it pleaded, finally it sang, an obscene droning lullaby that hung in the air.  Gathering up my courage, I crept silently into the room.  I pressed my back against the wall and edged slowly along until I reached the corner.  There I stood and peered into the darkness.

Something was sitting in the chair, leaning forward over the bassinet.  The merest shadow of a thing, with no substance to its being, just the hint of an outline.  It was from this that the sounds emanated, as it nursed the baby in its crib like a doting parent.  It was a figure of pale mist, unquestionably maternal in aspect, but also sinister in intent.  I made as if to move forwards to rescue Amy from her hellish guardian, but my legs were leaden and I looked on, helplessly unable to move.

Then suddenly the night erupted into a frenzy.  A hysterical mother appeared in the doorway, screaming at the top of her lungs.  "Get away from my child!"  Helen rushed forward, arms outstretched to take her baby away.  The thing seemed to rise from its seat, and a bestial roar filled the air.  A shadowed arm crossed Helen's face and she reeled backwards as if she had been struck a savage blow.  The thing was the size of a large bull, grey, the lines of its body indistinct.

From then on events became blurred.  The noise in the room filled my head, throbbing at my temples, the pressure causing my nose to bleed.  The bassinet was lifted in the air and came crashing down towards me.  Again and again it came, each time missing me by a fraction, but hitting the wall so hard that tiny splinters of wicker sheared off and drove themselves into my face.  The fourth or fifth time this happened I managed to grasp it by one of its cane legs.  Securing my hold I ran with the bassinet on my shoulders the entire length of the room, the shadow mother figure clinging to it desperately, and hurled it through the window, onto the concrete path below.  The noise in the room rose to an awesome crescendo then, with a final shriek, ceased abruptly, leaving silence.  I staggered to the door, clutching my bleeding face and fell out of the room, landing in a heap at Helen's feet.  She stood pressed up against the wall, holding Amy securely, her mouth uttering silent prayers.  My vision clouded and I knew no more.’

Denning believes the bassinet was the core source of an evil entity.

"Five times that accursed cot had come back from different owners.  Each of them told a story similar to yours.  If it hadn't been for that man's blessed greed, his determination to make a profit by constantly re-selling it, this whole affair could have been avoided.  The couple who built the bassinet for their own child lost their baby before she was a year old.  The mother never accepted the death and killed herself soon after."    

The bassinet was burned and no further incidents were reported

This incident connects to others in the Norfolk/Suffolk area.

Each appears to be linked by an overlay of an event that occurred many years, occasionally centuries, earlier, which manifest itself into an object such as a bassinet or wardrobe or window, and through this physical portal evil encroaches from the dark side.

An interesting sub test to this case is that it was written as a piece of fiction by known supernatural writers L H Maynard (Leonard Hugh 1953 Enfield Middlesex but currently resides Hertfordshire. Lapidary by profession but also writer of ghost fiction) & M P N Sims (Michael Philip Norman 1952 born London and currently resides in Hertfordshire. Banker by profession but writes in partnership with Maynard) as THE BASSINET and included in their 1979 collection of ghost stories SHADOWS AT MIDNIGHT. (update 2000 – this book has been reprinted, with revisions, in 1999 by Sarob Press – searches reveal no ulterior motives) and the story has been revised but not fundamentally changed.)

 A letter to Sir George Logan from John Denning is on file. Here.

See www.maynard-sims.com