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mysteries |
The Cavendish Hotel |
Other Information |
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| The witnesses in this case have given the information directly to the authors but have both requested anonymity as neither of them wants any publicity or attention to result from their report. We have therefore been given exact dates and details of the people involved but these are withheld here at their request. They were recommended to speak to us by a mutual friend and they offered their stories because they hoped we might be able to throw some light on their experiences. In November 1988 'Laura Collins' stayed at the Cavendish Hotel in Harrogate for one night. Together with a friend from work she had driven to the hotel, a journey of some one and a half hours from her work, to be ready for a typing exam the following morning. The two were not close colleagues but merely knew each other reasonably well through being employed at the same place. They arrived at the hotel around 7-7.30 in the evening, had dinner and retired to their respective rooms. Laura's room was described as modernised, containing a double bed, television and the usual ensuite toilet and bath-room. After dinner, Laura watched some television and had a long and leisurely bath, mainly because there was very little else to do, and then went to bed, possibly watching some more television before going off to sleep She was not sure of the time as the circumstances of the evening did not demand timekeeping. At some point during the night Laura awoke and felt the bed 'dip' next to her. She described it as 'like someone had sat on it'. 'I didn't open my eyes, but I put my hand out and I felt the hollow.' Laura opened her eyes. She was startled to find a man sitting on the edge of the bed facing away from her as if he had just got up. He was bending forwards as if putting on shoes and socks. (Laura's description; in view of the fact that he was in pyjamas perhaps bedroom slippers might be more appropriate.) Laura described him as wearing red-and-white-striped winceyette pyjamas. He was oldish looking, balding with a curtain of grey hair around his ears and the back of his head He was fairly short in stature. She never saw his face, only his back, from where she was lying. Laura was ready to scream but not sure whether to do it or not. Believing that the person was absolutely real, she found herself alone with a man in her bedroom and uncertain precisely what course of action would make matters worse or improve them-Before she had really had a chance to make up her mind the man stood up and walked towards the window. As he did so he disappeared. We asked Laura whether that made her mind up about whether or not to scream and her only reply was, 'I didn't sleep for the rest of the night and I kept the light on.' It was fairly clear that it had become a situation where there were no rules to follow. Laura did not discuss the incident with her friend because, as she explained, she herself did not understand it and felt unable to discuss it with others. She was also afraid that the story would be circulated around her workplace and to other people whom she might not want to be involved. (She did later tell her husband who took an open-minded and sympathetic attitude towards the story, and she told her boss, since the hotel was frequently used by the company. He seemed rather uninterested in the story.) Laura sat her typing exam the following day; while she may have been somewhat on edge after her experience she was not in a state of extreme distress or agitation. It was during the drive home when her colleague told her that she had not wanted to worry her but she knew that another friend of hers had had a nasty experience in the same room that Laura had been sleeping in. Laura had not told her anything about the events of the night before. Laura was able to discover the name of the other person who had had the experience in room and put us in touch with her. We spoke to her the day after we had spoken to Laura. 'Anne Hughes' (pseudonym) had been in the same room in the same hotel approximately three weeks earlier for the same purpose; she also had had a typing exam the following day. She was also employed by the same company, in a different department. Her story was perhaps a little less dramatic from the paranormal point of view, although in fact it resulted in a hospital visit. It was interesting in view of Laura's account. Anne had been asleep and woke up hearing a bang. The bedside lamp was lying at the foot of the bed some considerable distance from where it had been positioned and she was quite certain that even if she had knocked it in her sleep she could never have knocked it anything like that far. As she woke up she sensed the presence of somebody sitting on the bed next to her It must be stressed that, unlike Laura, Anne had no visual sighting of anyone. The next morning she got up and found teeth marks on her thumb which she reported to the proprietors. They suggested that perhaps a cat had got in during the night. Anne felt this unlikely. When the incident had happened she had closely examined the whole room and was quite convinced that there was nothing untoward in it. Even so, she felt uneasy in view of what happened to the lamp. Her thumb swelled up very badly and she ended up having to visit the local hospital where she got a tetanus injection. (She thought that the hospital would not be receptive to inquiries from us because the staff had indicated to her that they felt her visit to be somewhat unnecessary, to put it politely.) She certainly had no memory of being bitten, though the hospital agreed that it looked like bite marks We asked both women whether or not they had ever had any other paranormal experiences. Anne could think of none but Laura had an interesting story to tell. She is one of twins; her sister, having lived some way away from her in England for a time, now lives in Australia. They have what she described as a 'strong telepathic link'. For example, Laura told us, she had sympathetic labour pains when her sister had a baby. Like many twins, they would both send identical presents to each other without having consulted each other on what the other wanted. Laura told us that she had once been watching television with her husband, in England, feeling quite normal and unemotional when suddenly she had burst into tears. She could not give her husband any reason for it. They found out afterwards that her sister had just then had a miscarriage in Australia. Laura told us that only a few weeks prior to our conversation she had had back pains which coincided with, as they later discovered, her sister's son's girlfriend giving birth to her sister's grandchild. Laura was not necessarily making a connection vis-à-vis every incident but explained that there had been so many during their lifetime that they felt sure there was a connection between them which manifested itself frequently. |
Place: Harrogate, N. Yorkshire. Source: Ghosts and Spirits Date: 1988 |