In 1938, 34-year-old Alma Fielding reported objects mysteriously flying around her home. Eighty years on, Kate Summerscale, author of true crime classic The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, set out to investigate the unexplained case of the Croydon poltergeist
On 20 February 1938, the Sunday Pictorial carried a report of a haunting in Croydon. A 34-year-old housewife had called to tell them about strange events at the home she shared with her husband Les, her son Don and their lodger, George Saunders. “Come to my house,” Alma Fielding implored the Pictorial’s news desk. “There are things going on here I cannot explain.”
The Sunday Pic, as it was known to its readers, dispatched two reporters to Croydon. As Alma opened the front door to them, they saw an egg fly down the corridor to land at their feet. As she led them to the kitchen, a pink china dog rattled to the floor and a sharp-bladed tin opener cut through the air at head height. In the front parlour, a teacup and saucer lifted out of Alma’s hands as she sat with her guests, the saucer spinning and splintering with a “ping!” as if shot in midair. She screamed as a second saucer exploded in her fingers and sliced into her thumb. While the wound was being bandaged, the reporters heard a crash in the kitchen: a wine glass had apparently escaped a locked cabinet and shattered on the floor. They saw an egg whirl in through the living room door to crack against the sideboard. A giant chunk of coal rose from the grate, sailed across the room, inches from the head of one of the reporters, and smacked into the wall.
