Speaker 1: With season eight due to return next Friday, it's back
Speaker 1: to the archive of one more time. This week we're
Speaker 1: heading to the seventies, to a quiet housing estate in
Speaker 1: southeast London. Considering there have been settlers based around the
Speaker 1: area comprising present day London for over five thousand years,
Speaker 1: it's hardly surprising that under all that concrete we find
Speaker 1: remnants of those that have come before us. But what
Speaker 1: comes of those whose remnants have been disturbed? This is unexplained,
Speaker 1: Season three, episode three, Under the Asphalt. That night, Zoe
Speaker 1: was restless, lying in bed with her boyfriend's stand fast
Speaker 1: asleep beside her. She had noticed a strange, diffuse light
Speaker 1: that appeared to be emanating from just inside the bedroom window.
Speaker 1: Nudging Stan awake, she gestured toward the far end of
Speaker 1: the room. Seeing it now too, he sat up, trying
Speaker 1: to comprehend what he was looking at. Before he had
Speaker 1: time to think, Zoe was already up and flicking on
Speaker 1: the main light, nervously looking about the room, before turning
Speaker 1: it off again. With the room shrouded once more in darkness,
Speaker 1: the peculiar light appeared to have gone. Must have been
Speaker 1: something from outside, said Stan as he rolled on to
Speaker 1: his side and closed his eyes. Zoey rubbed her arms,
Speaker 1: suddenly feeling a little cold, and moved over to the window.
Speaker 1: Peering down through the curtains to the quiet street below,
Speaker 1: she could see the soft sodium glow of a street
Speaker 1: light illuminating the pavement on the far side of the road.
Speaker 1: That must have been it, she thought. She pulled the
Speaker 1: curtains tighter and got back into bed. Before she could
Speaker 1: get comfortable, however, she saw once again that the strange
Speaker 1: light had returned. Stan whispered Zoe. He opened his eyes
Speaker 1: for a moment before turning away again on to his side.
Speaker 1: I told you it's just something from outside, but Stan
Speaker 1: said Zoe. It's moving. Stan paused before turning to look
Speaker 1: at Zoe and then towards the end of the room.
Speaker 1: What at first seemed like a light was more like
Speaker 1: a misty white shadow now, and it was moving away
Speaker 1: from the window and further into the room. Stan's hands
Speaker 1: gripped tighter on the covers. The pair froze as the
Speaker 1: amorphous shadow of light continued to move around the room
Speaker 1: before stopping at the end of the bed. Stan shot
Speaker 1: under the covers in terror, but Zoe couldn't take her
Speaker 1: eyes off it, she reached out her hand, drawing closer
Speaker 1: and closer until she was near enough to touch it,
Speaker 1: and then as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard mc lean smith.
Speaker 1: The following morning, Zoey and Stan weren't quite sure what,
Speaker 1: if anything, they had seen. An embarrassed Stan left early
Speaker 1: for work, leaving a perplexed Zoe to explain the events
Speaker 1: to her housemate Rosemary. The two of them lived together
Speaker 1: in Flat number twenty four of Frankombe House, a five
Speaker 1: story red bricked council housing block built in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. It was located on the corner of frankom
Speaker 1: Street and Deptford Church Street in southeast London, forming part
Speaker 1: of the area's Crossfield Estate. The estate had been built
Speaker 1: over a ten year period as part of a major
Speaker 1: regeneration drive to improve housing in the local area, but
Speaker 1: had itself in recent times come under threat of demolition.
Speaker 1: In early nineteen seventy three, builders had moved in to
Speaker 1: widen the adjacent road, and now the council were considering
Speaker 1: the partial removal of some of the housing blocks on
Speaker 1: the estate. To make way for it. It was shortly
Speaker 1: after builders moved in that Zoe's peculiar experience had taken
Speaker 1: place that morning. However, recounting the story to Rosemary, she
Speaker 1: couldn't help but feel a little bit stupid. Most likely,
Speaker 1: as Stan had suggested, it really was just a trick
Speaker 1: of the light. Twenty one year old Zoe had moved
Speaker 1: into the flat the previous year, shortly after giving birth
Speaker 1: to her baby, Natalie. The pair shared the apartment with
Speaker 1: the twenty eight year old Rosemary and three year old
Speaker 1: daughters Donna and Jennifer, and her seven year old son Mark.
Speaker 1: Though neither was particularly superstitious, with their young children also
Speaker 1: living in the flat with them, they could be forgiven
Speaker 1: a slight sense of apprehension at the thought of something
Speaker 1: strange happening inside their home. They had soon forgotten the incident, however,
Speaker 1: until a few weeks later, when Zoe, who worked as
Speaker 1: a nurse, returned to the flat after a long shift
Speaker 1: to find a putrid smell filling the apartment. She had
Speaker 1: come across that smell before at work. It was the
Speaker 1: smell of rotting flesh. Rosemary had recently adopted a puppy.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it had brought something into the flat, thought Zoe,
Speaker 1: yet despite scouring the place from top to bottom, she
Speaker 1: found no obvious source. When Rosemary returned with the children
Speaker 1: later that day, they spent the evening pulling back furniture
Speaker 1: and disinfecting the pro even spraying air freshener everywhere, but
Speaker 1: it was to no avail. Nothing could shake it. The
Speaker 1: following day, the stench persisted. Being Saturday, the families took
Speaker 1: the opportunity to get out for the day, hoping the
Speaker 1: odour would dissipate by the time they had got back.
Speaker 1: Returning later that evening, they were somewhat disappointed to find
Speaker 1: it still very much lingering. Zoe took little convincing to
Speaker 1: stay at stands for the night, leaving the others to
Speaker 1: deal with it alone. Doing their best to ignore it,
Speaker 1: the family would eventually bed down for the night and
Speaker 1: find some sleep. It was sometime around one a m.
Speaker 1: When Rosemary awoke with a start. The room was pitch black,
Speaker 1: but as her eyes slowly adjusted, she could just make
Speaker 1: out the figure of a man standing at the foot
Speaker 1: of her bed, watching her. Assuming it to be her
Speaker 1: boyfriend Lloyd, who had mentioned possibly heading over that night,
Speaker 1: Rosemary watched in silence as the figure turned and walked
Speaker 1: straight out at the bedroom without saying a word. Lloyd
Speaker 1: whispered Rosemary into the night, but there was no reply.
Speaker 1: Feeling suddenly unsure, she stepped from the bed and peered
Speaker 1: into the darkness of the corridor, looking down to the
Speaker 1: far end. Although the living room door was closed, she
Speaker 1: could see the room's light was on, softly shining out
Speaker 1: from under the door. Lloyd she whispered again, but still
Speaker 1: there was no response. After checking to make sure that
Speaker 1: there was no one in the kitchen, Rosemary cautiously made
Speaker 1: her way toward the living room, stopping outside the door,
Speaker 1: she could just make out an airy, scratching sound coming
Speaker 1: from within. Slowly she opened the door, but there was
Speaker 1: nobody inside the room. The sound, she now realized, had
Speaker 1: been coming from the record player, which had inexplicably been
Speaker 1: turned on. She watched for a moment, mesmerized by the
Speaker 1: empty table as it spun round and round, listening to
Speaker 1: the scratch of the needle as it dragged against the
Speaker 1: empty plate. With a rising sense of panic, she hurried
Speaker 1: to check on the children in the other rooms and
Speaker 1: found them all sound asleep, with no sign of an
Speaker 1: intruder or Lloyd, for that matter, anywhere. Finally making her
Speaker 1: way to the front door, Rosemary double checked the locks,
Speaker 1: finding them just as she had left them earlier that night.
Speaker 1: Now thoroughly spooted, Rosemary switched off the living room light
Speaker 1: and returned to bed. After eventually getting back to sleep,
Speaker 1: she was woken just before seven by an unexpected brightness,
Speaker 1: surprised to find her bedroom light had been switched on.
Speaker 1: In fact, as she would discover soon after, every light
Speaker 1: in the house had been turned on again. There was
Speaker 1: no sign of anybody else other than her children, who
Speaker 1: were still sound asleep in their beds. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: while helping her daughters get dressed, Rosemarie went to the
Speaker 1: spare room to get clean clothes. She opened the door
Speaker 1: and let out a stifled cry. The room had been
Speaker 1: completely smashed up. The bed had been stripped and the
Speaker 1: mattress tossed to the bottom of the room. All her
Speaker 1: children's clothes had been wrenched from their drawers and scattered
Speaker 1: across the floor, And in the middle of the room
Speaker 1: sat a small rocking horse, which until that morning had
Speaker 1: been perched high on top of the wardrobe. Then she
Speaker 1: spotted something else lying on the floor, a golliwog doll
Speaker 1: of her daughter's, its head torn off and the stuffing
Speaker 1: ripped out of it. Although quite popular with many white
Speaker 1: families at the time, the dolls designed in the image
Speaker 1: of a black face minstrel have since been broadly recognized
Speaker 1: as racist and offensive depictions of black men. All other
Speaker 1: dolls in the room had been left curiously untouched. There
Speaker 1: was something else too. The window was wide open. However,
Speaker 1: as Rosemary looked down at the sheer drop two flights below,
Speaker 1: it was clear that nobody could have climbed in or
Speaker 1: out of it. Later that day, having confirmed that her
Speaker 1: boyfriend Lloyd had been nowhere near the flat, a deeply
Speaker 1: shaken Rosemary, accompanied by her three small children, made her
Speaker 1: way up the road to Saint Paul's Church. Terrified that
Speaker 1: she was going mad, She relayed the events to Canon
Speaker 1: David Diamond, who listened with patience and concern to her story.
Speaker 1: Though he wasn't free to see the flat for himself,
Speaker 1: he gave her a crucifix to install in the apartment.
Speaker 1: A short time later, Rosemary returned home, joined by friends
Speaker 1: and neighbours Linda and the aptly named Missus mystery. Stepping
Speaker 1: into the damaged bedroom, Mystery was immediately gripped by a
Speaker 1: profoundly unsettling sensation. Blood drained from her face and the
Speaker 1: hares rose on the back of her neck. Certain that
Speaker 1: whatever had been here was violently angry. Together, the friends
Speaker 1: cleaned up the room and placed the crucifix on the
Speaker 1: wall at Linda's suggestion, The nervous Rosemary also scattered garlic
Speaker 1: throughout the room to ward off any evil spirits. That night,
Speaker 1: with Lloyd staying over this time, Rosemary slept soundly with
Speaker 1: no repeat of the previous night's disturbances. The next day,
Speaker 1: Priest Diamond arrived and, sensing something of an unquiet spirit,
Speaker 1: he offered up a solemn requiem Mass, also known as
Speaker 1: the Mass for the Dead. The Mass, as the Catholic
Speaker 1: Rosemary knew well, was usually given at funerals in an
Speaker 1: effort to bring rest to the souls of the deceased.
Speaker 1: But Rosemary was confused. Why would he need to say
Speaker 1: it in her apartment, she asked, As Diamond explained this
Speaker 1: wasn't the first time he had given the Mass at
Speaker 1: frankm House. In fact, he had been hearing reports for
Speaker 1: some time that the place was haunted. As it would transpire,
Speaker 1: there had been another building here before the council knocked
Speaker 1: it down to build the estate. It was a church
Speaker 1: demolished in the nineteen thirties, and Frankom House had been
Speaker 1: built right on top of its cemetery. Perhaps the recent
Speaker 1: building work had disturbed something in the soil, but Rosemary
Speaker 1: shouldn't worry, said Diamond. The spirits wouldn't be bothering her now,
Speaker 1: and he was right for a short time at least.
Speaker 1: Hattie Smith and husband Jim had lived at Number sixteen
Speaker 1: for twenty seven years when they accepted the council's offer
Speaker 1: to move out as part of their redevelopment plans for
Speaker 1: the US area, and they couldn't have been happier for
Speaker 1: the opportunity. All six of their children had at some
Speaker 1: point grown up in the frankem House flat, and all
Speaker 1: had strange stories to tell. The family had always kept
Speaker 1: it to themselves, not ever quite sure of what they
Speaker 1: had experienced, but also concerned with what others might think.
Speaker 1: Hattie had often sensed a presence when alone in the apartment,
Speaker 1: and at times had even felt something touching her or
Speaker 1: pulling at her clothes. Lights would frequently turn off and
Speaker 1: on of their own accord. Hattie's daughter Shirley saw shadows
Speaker 1: moving about the flat and heard odd noises late at night,
Speaker 1: as if furniture was being moved around, only to find
Speaker 1: the next morning that nothing had been touched. Another daughter, Sylvia,
Speaker 1: had spent an entire night staring with horror at her
Speaker 1: bedroom door as the handle moved up and down the door,
Speaker 1: seemingly being opened and shut by something unseen. One time,
Speaker 1: a neighbor late one evening thought she caught sight of
Speaker 1: Hattie's husband, Jim, standing at one of the windows just
Speaker 1: inside their apartment. Only the flat had been empty at
Speaker 1: the time. The strange events seemed to have abated until
Speaker 1: that final year before they moved and the workmen moved
Speaker 1: into the area. It was late one Tuesday night when
Speaker 1: Hattie returned home from playing bingo, with Jim away for
Speaker 1: work and the children having left home many years before.
Speaker 1: Hattie was completely alone when she put a pile of
Speaker 1: dirty washing in the bath to soak overnight before retiring
Speaker 1: to bed. The next morning, she was woken at seven
Speaker 1: thirty a m. By the sound of fast running water
Speaker 1: racing into the bathroom. She found it gushing out of
Speaker 1: the tap. With the tub almost full, Hattie hurriedly turned
Speaker 1: it off and looked down at the water. It was
Speaker 1: the strangest thing. At the very bottom were her clothes
Speaker 1: soaking in a layer of dark, dirty water, but then
Speaker 1: on top an entirely other layer, completely clear. Whatever it was,
Speaker 1: it was back a few weeks later, Hattie was cleaning
Speaker 1: the bathroom when the door suddenly closed behind her. Turning
Speaker 1: to pull it open, she found it had stuck fast,
Speaker 1: as if it had been locked from the outside. Hattie
Speaker 1: called out to Jim for help, pulling furiously at the handle.
Speaker 1: Looking down, she screamed in terror at the sight of
Speaker 1: a hand sticking out from under the door. Jim arrived
Speaker 1: moments later, opening the door with ease. It had been
Speaker 1: unlocked the whole time the Smiths left their apartment in
Speaker 1: February of nineteen seventy four. It was around the same
Speaker 1: time that Hattie's friend and neighbor, Beatrice Goringe, first experienced
Speaker 1: her own peculiar happenings. Beatrice lived next door at Number seventeen,
Speaker 1: and things had never been quite the same since her
Speaker 1: husband died the year before. It started with the knocking,
Speaker 1: short quiet taps that seemed to come from within the walls.
Speaker 1: Then other sounds were heard, like something being dragged across
Speaker 1: the floor. One night, early in the new year, the
Speaker 1: fifty six year old Beatrice had just said good bye
Speaker 1: to her daughter, who had come to visit, when she
Speaker 1: turned back into the flat and noticed the bath from
Speaker 1: door swinging closed. She called out, but received no reply,
Speaker 1: hearing only voices coming from the radio in the living room.
Speaker 1: Tiptoeing down toward the bathroom, she felt the temperature drop suddenly.
Speaker 1: She pushed open the bathroom door, but found nobody inside.
Speaker 1: Now feeling very cold, she listened with alarm as the
Speaker 1: volume on the radio in the other room was suddenly
Speaker 1: turned down. Hello, she said, but again there was no reply.
Speaker 1: Moving slowly into the living room, she headed to the
Speaker 1: radio and turned the dial back up, but the volume
Speaker 1: wouldn't shift. When Beatrice stepped out of the room a
Speaker 1: moment later, the radio blared out at full volume. Rushing
Speaker 1: back in, she wrenched the cord from the wall and
Speaker 1: stood for a moment in the silence. That night, Beatrice
Speaker 1: awoke in the dim light of the late evening to
Speaker 1: find what appeared to be the faint outline of a
Speaker 1: figure standing at the end of her bed. Too terrified
Speaker 1: to move, Beatrice waited until morning before packing a bag
Speaker 1: and racing to her mother's, where she would spend the
Speaker 1: night For the next few weeks. Friends suggested the figure
Speaker 1: she had seen was her recently deceased husband, but she
Speaker 1: insisted it wasn't. Her husband had been quite short, but
Speaker 1: this figure was something else, entirely tall and oddly shaped.
Speaker 1: Back inside number twenty four. A few nights later, Rosemary
Speaker 1: was woken by the sound of the baby crying. With
Speaker 1: Zoe out for the evening, she was just getting up
Speaker 1: to see to her when she heard the cry of
Speaker 1: leave me alone coming from her daughter's bedroom, but when
Speaker 1: she entered, there was no one there except for Donna
Speaker 1: and her sister Jennifer. I'm frightened, said Donna, as her
Speaker 1: mother tried to comfort her. For the next few days,
Speaker 1: the family are plagued by doors in the property that
Speaker 1: continually open and close on their own. When a friend
Speaker 1: hears of the latest events, she convinces Rosemary and Zoe
Speaker 1: to try out a wigi board in an attempt to
Speaker 1: communicate with whatever is haunting their home. One night in
Speaker 1: early March, with the children fast asleep. Rosemary, Zoe, and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend Stan sit themselves around the kitchen table, having
Speaker 1: crudely constructed their own numbers and lettering, and placed them
Speaker 1: in a circle around a glass. With their fingers on
Speaker 1: the vessel. Rosemary asks quietly if anybody is there. Slowly,
Speaker 1: the glass begins to move, stopping next to the word yes.
Speaker 1: Are you a good or bad? Spirit cuts in Zoe.
Speaker 1: Rosemary gasps as the glass makes its way across the table,
Speaker 1: first to the letter B, then to the A, and
Speaker 1: finally to the D. Cut it out stand, says zoey.
Speaker 1: But I'm not doing anything, he says. To prove it,
Speaker 1: he takes his finger from the glass and asks a
Speaker 1: question that neither of the others could possibly know. What's
Speaker 1: the first initial of my brother's name, he says, with
Speaker 1: a deep breath. Slowly, again, the glass begins to move,
Speaker 1: sliding across to the letter J. Zoe looks to Stan,
Speaker 1: whose face has already gone white. Another session ends with
Speaker 1: the glass repeatedly spelling out goodbye and shooting off the
Speaker 1: table into Rosemary's lap. One evening, after a particularly fraught session,
Speaker 1: Zoe was too scared to sleep alone and spent the
Speaker 1: night with Rosemary. The following morning, she returned to her
Speaker 1: room to find it completely trashed, with everything from the
Speaker 1: top of her dresser swept onto the floor, including a crucifix,
Speaker 1: bottles of perfume, and her nurse's book. The chair in
Speaker 1: her room had been moved next to the book, as
Speaker 1: if someone had just recently been sitting in it. Zoe
Speaker 1: moved out the following month. Shortly before Zoe left, a
Speaker 1: local journalist caught wind of the strange events taking place
Speaker 1: at Frankom House. A series of short articles printed in
Speaker 1: the Southeast London Mercury in turn caught the attention of
Speaker 1: Society of Psychical Research member Hugh Pincott, who promptly made
Speaker 1: arrangements to speak with some of the residents. Pincott found
Speaker 1: Rosemary and her family deeply traumatized by the recent events. However,
Speaker 1: despite holding a number of further seances together with Rosemary
Speaker 1: and Zoe, Pincott was unable to gleam any substantial information
Speaker 1: about what exactly had been taking place. One night, soon
Speaker 1: after Rosemary is woken by her daughter Donna's screams, there
Speaker 1: had been a tall man with a large beard standing
Speaker 1: at the back of her room, she said between sobs
Speaker 1: as her mother looked on aghast. Not long after, the
Speaker 1: building works taking place around the property finally came to
Speaker 1: an end, and so too did the strange occurrences within
Speaker 1: the walls of Frankom House. Despite everything that had happened,
Speaker 1: the seemed no trace of the apparent haunting that had
Speaker 1: taken place at the property, except for one thing. When
Speaker 1: Hugh Pincott eventually managed to track down Hattie Smith, she
Speaker 1: was keen to finally be able to share her experiences.
Speaker 1: Taking a picture from a family photo album, she passed
Speaker 1: it to mister Pincott. It had been taken by one
Speaker 1: of her grandchildren, a portrait of Hattie and one of
Speaker 1: her daughters standing side by side, and there in the background,
Speaker 1: to the left of the door stood the dark, shadowy
Speaker 1: shape of a tall figure lurking just behind them. In
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, the Population Reference Bureau estimated that since the
Speaker 1: appearance of modern Homo sapiens sometime around fifty thousand BCE,
Speaker 1: just over a hundred billion of us have lived and
Speaker 1: died on this planet. London, like all major cities of
Speaker 1: the world, has buried its fair view. Considering that humans
Speaker 1: have lived in the area for over five thousand years.
Speaker 1: It's a wonder that there is any space there at
Speaker 1: all that doesn't somewhere adjacent or directly below it contain
Speaker 1: remnants of those who have come before us. And considering
Speaker 1: the frequency with which even those who are still living
Speaker 1: here will be ripped from their communities and involuntarily resettled
Speaker 1: as if they were mere ghosts themselves, perhaps we should
Speaker 1: not worry or feign surprise when we find bones amid
Speaker 1: the foundations. In some ways, it is strange to think
Speaker 1: for those lucky enough to have a place to call
Speaker 1: their own, or a piece of land, perhaps, how desperately
Speaker 1: we cling to the notion that it is ours, the
Speaker 1: thought of its being invaded the ultimate violation. But this ownership,
Speaker 1: of course, can only ever be a legal fiction, a
Speaker 1: reality only as long as there are enough people to
Speaker 1: believe it. So, in truth, land belongs to no one.
Speaker 1: The idea that ghosts remain attached to the land long
Speaker 1: after their bodies have gone has also always seemed problematic
Speaker 1: to me, much like the question played out to wonderful
Speaker 1: and mournful effect in David Lowry's two thousand seventeen film
Speaker 1: A Ghost Story. I Find myself wondering just where would
Speaker 1: these ghosts go when the earth is swallowed by the
Speaker 1: massive giant Our sun is destined to become. It too
Speaker 1: fated to die and perhaps one day vanish from existence.
Speaker 1: But perhaps one way or another, as long as it
Speaker 1: and people are here to keep it so, the land
Speaker 1: will always be haunted, something of it, always to be
Speaker 1: trespassed upon, or, in the words of the poet Philip Frenaut,
Speaker 1: thou stranger, that shalt come this way, no fraud upon
Speaker 1: the dead to commit, observe the swelling turf, and say
Speaker 1: they do not lie, but here they sit. Unexplained is
Speaker 1: an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard mc lean smith.
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
Speaker 1: also produced by me Richard mc lean smith. Unexplained. The
Speaker 1: book and audio book is now available to buy world wide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, water Stones
Speaker 1: and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can find
Speaker 1: out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us
Speaker 1: online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast, attatatatatas