In January 1956, 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings was living a typical life with her family in their modest Victorian home at 63 Wycliffe Road, Battersea, Southwest London. But everything changed one morning when an ornate silver key mysteriously appeared on Shirley’s pillow. Puzzled, Shirley ran her fingers over the cold, unfamiliar object, but no one in the family recognized it. The key didn’t fit any of the locks in the house, and its sudden appearance would mark the beginning of one of Britain’s most chilling and enduring poltergeist hauntings.
That very night, a series of disturbing phenomena began, forever altering the Hitchings family's peaceful existence. Loud banging and thumping noises reverberated throughout the house, and eerie scratching sounds seemed to emanate from inside the furniture. Lights flickered on and off at will, and the disturbances were so intense that neighbors came over to complain. As Shirley, now 80 years old, recalls, "It was as if the noises came from the bowels of the earth. It went on until daylight. We were traumatized."
The relentless banging continued for nights on end, shaking the entire house and leaving the family in a constant state of terror. But the bizarre events were only just beginning. The mysterious silver key that had appeared so suddenly disappeared just as inexplicably, never to be seen again. Over the next 12 years, the Hitchings family would endure one of the longest and most infamous hauntings in British history.
The Hitchings gave the entity a name: Donald, after Donald Duck, the temperamental Disney character. But Donald’s antics were far from humorous. Soon after the noises started, objects in the house began to move. Pots and pans floated through the air, sometimes crashing into walls, and Shirley herself was not spared. She was dragged from her bed, and in one terrifying instance, she levitated several inches above her mattress. Messages began to appear on the walls, and fires would inexplicably start, seemingly out of nothing.
The haunting quickly captured the public's imagination, becoming a national news story. As it gained media attention, experts and paranormal investigators were drawn to the Hitchings home, hoping to explain the unexplainable. Among them was Harold Chibbett, a ghost hunter whose detailed records of the case would later become central to the BBC’s 2021 podcast, The Battersea Poltergeist.
Chibbett, affectionately known as "Chib," devoted much of his life to the Battersea haunting, spending years investigating the events in the hopes of proving that there was life after death. For the Hitchings family, Chibbett was a reassuring presence, offering guidance as they struggled to cope with the terrifying manifestations that had taken over their lives. As Shirley herself recalls, the relentless activity left her in a state of constant fear. “I was floating above the bed,” she remembers. “When my brother John pulled me down, I was rigid. My nan, who was Catholic, thought I might be possessed by the devil. I thought I was going mad.”
The poltergeist activity was witnessed by numerous people, including neighbors, family friends, and even the police, who were called to investigate the strange occurrences. Despite their efforts, no rational explanation could be found. The house remained under siege, with objects flying through the air and mysterious scratches appearing on family members. Shirley’s father, Wally, suffered a burn after putting out one of the spontaneous fires, and beneath the burn were deep gouge marks, as though he had been clawed.
As news of the haunting spread, the Hitchings family faced increasing scrutiny from the press and the public. Some accused Shirley of faking the disturbances, but those who knew the family well dismissed the idea. Still, Shirley became the center of attention, a reluctant participant in a phenomenon that would leave an indelible mark on her life. She was even exorcised by a part-time medium named Harry Hanks, a London Underground worker and acquaintance of her father. However, the exorcism was interrupted when the police, acting on a tip-off about alleged black magic, raided the house. The case became so well-known that it was even mentioned in Parliament, with Hanks’s MP calling for an apology for the police intrusion.
Determined to understand what was happening, Chibbett suggested the family attempt to communicate with the entity. Using letter cards, they began a crude form of communication, spelling out words based on taps from the poltergeist. The spirit claimed to be French and frightened, though this revelation did little to comfort the family. More bizarrely, Donald eventually claimed to be Louis Charles, the lost dauphin of France, the ten-year-old heir to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who had died during the French Revolution. The letters from Donald contained obscure historical details that were later verified by Chibbett through research in Parisian archives.
As disturbing as these revelations were, they were far from the most unsettling part of the haunting. Fires continued to start around the house, objects floated and flew, and at one point, Shirley’s grandmother, Ethel, suffered a stroke after hearing what she believed to be the voice of her own deceased mother. Ethel passed away shortly after, adding yet another layer of tragedy to the Hitchings family's ordeal.
Over time, the activity became less intense, though it did not stop entirely. Shirley, now in her twenties, struggled to live a normal life. She lost her job at Selfridges after scissors mysteriously disappeared from the store and, as she told her manager, “I was the poltergeist girl.” Even after moving to a new house in Latchmere Road, just a short distance from Wycliffe Road, the disturbances followed her.
For Shirley, the haunting left a lasting scar. “It ruined my life,” she says. “It took my teenage years. I was 21 before I could get anything near normality. And even then, he interfered in my life.” Shirley’s personal relationships were affected as well, with one boyfriend fleeing in terror after Donald tipped a bowl onto his head. Messages continued to appear, even after she married and moved to West Sussex with her new family. The last communication from Donald came in 1968, when Shirley found a note stating that he was leaving. After 12 years of chaos, Donald was finally gone.
While the disturbances had ceased, the memory of the haunting lingered. In the 1980s, a medium approached Shirley at a craft fair, claiming to see a young boy in fancy dress following her, wearing blue satin and sporting red hair – a description that matched the image of Louis Charles that Chibbett had once shown her. The medium’s message reinforced what Shirley already knew: Donald had been a presence in her life for more than a decade, shaping her experiences and forever altering the course of her existence.
In 2021, the story of the Battersea Poltergeist captivated a new generation through Danny Robins’ podcast, which explored Chibbett’s detailed records and interviewed surviving witnesses, including Shirley herself. For Robins, the case is "the closest I’ve come to proof that there is something more: that ghosts exist." Parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O’Keeffe, who served as the podcast’s resident expert, remains cautious, acknowledging that while some aspects of the haunting can be explained, others remain a mystery. “It’s arrogant not to keep an open mind,” he says.
For Shirley, the haunting remains as vivid today as it was in 1956. As a great-grandmother, she looks back on those years with a mixture of disbelief and resolve, knowing that her story is hard for people to believe but insistent that it’s the truth. “It’s a lot for people to swallow,” she says, “but it did happen.”
Today, the house on Wycliffe Road no longer stands, having been demolished in the 1970s as part of a redevelopment project. But the legend of the Battersea Poltergeist lives on, a chilling reminder that some mysteries remain unsolved, no matter how much time
Comments