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The Poltergeist Prince of London

The Remarkable True Story of the Battersea Poltergeist

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The Poltergeist Prince of London

By: James Clark, Shirley Hitchings
Narrated by: Alice Lowe
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It began with a key. One afternoon in 1956, in the home of the Hitchings family in Battersea, south London, a small silver key appeared on Shirley Hitchings' bed. This seemingly insignificant event heralded the beginning of one of the most terrifying, incredible and mysterious hauntings in British history. The spirit, who quickly became known as 'Donald', began to communicate, initially via tapping sounds, but over time - and with the encouragement of psychical researcher Harold Chibbett, whose case files appear here - by learning to write. Soon, the spirit had begun to make simply incredible claims about his identity, insisting that he was one of the most famous figures in world history - but what was the truth? Here, for the first time, is the full story, told by the woman right at the heart of it all - Shirley herself.

©2013 Shirley Hitchings, James Clark (P)2021 Hachette Audio UK Europe Great Britain Paranormal England Fantasy
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I bought this after listening to the BBC podcast. What a waste of time. I felt sorry for Mr Chibbett who appears to have been conned by Shirley and her family. There may be a grain of truth in the poltergeist story but 99.5% fabricated in a very obvious way.
The book is badly written and oh so boring and becomes more and more silly with every chapter.
The performance is ok but nothing special. Ok

Stick to the podcast - waste of time

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What utter rubbish. I could have believed all the tappings and objects flying about, but when the poltergeist started to put up Christmas decorations and write letters, whilst magically attaching stamps - I'm afraid I almost lost the will to live and couldn't wait for the narration to end. I would have stopped part way through, but felt like it was a waste of my monthly subscription fee! Don't go there.

Rubbish

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The blurb made this sound like an exciting mystery, starting with small phenomenon and escalating into startling events. However, what you get is interminable chapters of badly constructed sentences tapped out, repeated messages of "shaggy roots" and an absolute acceptance that the poltergeist carried out activities.

The structure is basically "Donald [the supposed poltergeist] communicated in painfully broken language" "The investigator believes this implicitly" "Fact checking shows that everything said was wrong" "The investigator still believes". There is little to no scepticism towards the events, outsiders refusing to be involved due to their questions being answered wrongly is shrugged off as 'unfortunate' and the text blithely notes that Donald posted letters, decorated rooms and went to the cinema.

The later chapters with investigations are a little more interesting, but essentially the bulk of the book is repetitive and ridiculous, having already decided that everything claimed was real and then attempting to prove it. The narration is fine, she makes the tedious repetition not so harsh, but there's only so many times you can hear "Moi will set vous fire" or the like before you just switch off.

Slow, credulous and rambling fantasist story

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