BLACK MONK

Opening

In August 1966 the Pritchard family's council house at 30 East Drive, Pontefract, began producing things nobody could account for. Fine chalky powder fell in the lounge, starting below head height. Pools of water formed on a dry kitchen floor, and green foam came out of the taps. Two years later it came back far harder, and for about nine months it threw furniture, banged loudly enough to be heard several streets away and focused on the daughter, Diane.

Late in the haunting, family members and neighbours said they saw a tall figure in a black hooded habit. That figure gave the case its name, the Black Monk of Pontefract. The family called the presence Mr Nobody, then Fred. No trained investigator saw it at its height. Most of the record comes from Colin Wilson, who interviewed the witnesses in 1980.

Timeline

August 1966, Bank Holiday weekJean and Joe Pritchard and Diane, 12, are on holiday in Devon. Phillip, 15, stays at home with his grandmother, Sarah Scholes. Powder falls in the lounge, water pools in the kitchen, tea pours from the dispenser and a plant jumps halfway up the stairs. A neighbour calls the police, and an inspector and two constables search the house and find no intruder.

That nightAfter a local man interested in ghosts remarks that poltergeists tear up photographs, the Pritchards' wedding photograph is found slashed. When the family come home, three loud bangs greet Joe's scepticism. Then two quiet years.

Late summer 1968It returns with counterpanes thrown down the stairs and a strip of wallpaper standing on end and swaying. Diane is pinned to the stairs under the oak hall stand and repeatedly tipped out of bed with her mattress on top of her.

September 1968The Yorkshire Evening Post runs "Pontefract Poltergeist is Back" and the Pontefract and Castleford Express runs "Invisible hands 'Rock' family". The house becomes a local sight.

Winter 1968 to spring 1969A vicar blames subsidence until a candlestick floats past him. A brass crucifix sticks to Diane's back and leaves a red mark. Gold inverted crosses appear on the doors at Easter. Hooded figures are reported in the parents' bedroom, in the kitchen next door and on the far side of a frosted glass door.

Spring 1969The Doncaster Psychical Research Group takes an interest. By then the activity is infrequent, and its conclusions are cautiously sceptical.

Spring 1969Diane is dragged up the stairs by her cardigan, with red finger marks on her throat afterwards. Soon after, the family hang garlic, and by May 1969 the disturbances have stopped.

Key figures

Jean and Joe Pritchard refused to move out. Jean, house-proud and stubborn, did most of the talking to later researchers.

Phillip and Diane Pritchard were the two children at the centre: Phillip in 1966, Diane from 1968. Diane told Wilson she felt it never meant to hurt her.

Sarah Scholes, Jean's mother, was the first adult witness. Marie and Vic Kelly lived opposite. Rene Holden, Vic's sister, became a regular visitor and witnessed most of the 1968 to 1969 events.

May Mountain, in the other half of the semi, told Wilson she turned from her sink to find a tall figure in a black monk's habit with a cowl, and felt no fear before it vanished.

Tom Cunniff, a young local historian, revived the case about ten years later and brought it to Colin Wilson, whose Poltergeist! A Study in Destructive Haunting (1981) is the main account.

Physical and documentary trail

The contemporary record is thin: two local press stories from September 1968, a tape recording of the banging the Pritchards made, and the cracked ceilings in the neighbouring half of the house that were still there in 1980. Jean kept no diary, so the order of events comes from memory a decade on. Wilson interviewed the family and witnesses at the house and checked the press cuttings himself.

An earlier version of this report said footprints appeared in powder, a crucifix was turned and a photographer visited. In Wilson's account the powder fell through the air, the footprints were huge prints on a soaked hall carpet, the crucifix flew off the mantelpiece and stuck to Diane's back, and I found no source for a photographer. Those details have been corrected or removed.

Meanwhile, the Pritchards' home has become quite an attraction for amateur ghost hunters. Several people have knocked on the door and asked if they can stay the night to listen to the ghost.

Things you might not know

• The monk has no historical victim. The story of a Cluniac monk hanged for rape under Henry VIII came from a neighbour's library book. Wilson searched the local histories in August 1980 and found no such case.
• It seemed to take suggestions. The photograph was slashed after a remark about photographs, and a visiting mayor's comment that the grandmother clock on the landing was still intact was followed by the clock hurtling downstairs.
• The electricity bills halved. Jean told Wilson the quarterly bills fell from about £20 to £10 between August 1968 and May 1969, and she reported it to the board.
• A sceptical aunt was soaked in milk. Joe's sister Maude, who blamed the children, was doused from a floating jug and later burned her gloves after a pair of fur gloves appeared to conduct her singing "Onward Christian Soldiers".
• Garlic ended it. A friend back from Scotland suggested hanging garlic, Phillip bought some, and the disturbances stopped.
• The house is now a paranormal venue. Film producer Bil Bungay bought it in 2012 and lets it to overnight ghost hunters.

Competing explanations

A poltergeist in the classic sense. This was Wilson's view: an unseen force using the energy of an adolescent in a tense household, Phillip in 1966 and Diane in 1968. The account has police, clergy, relatives and neighbours as witnesses, and features Wilson found almost unique in the literature.

A haunting by the ghost of a monk. This is the local legend. It rests on a hanging Wilson could not find, and the figure appeared late, perhaps after the library book story was already circulating.

Trickery by one or both children. This is the standard sceptical reading of poltergeist cases, and Aunt Maude held it. Many of the most dramatic events happened in the dark, after the lights had gone out. Against it, several events were reported with adults watching the children, and the 1966 episode began while Diane was in Devon.

Memory and retelling. The witnesses spoke to Wilson more than ten years later, with no diary. Some episodes may have grown in the telling, and the cautious Doncaster group arrived too late to test anything.

Later life of the case

Wilson's book made the case one of Britain's best-known poltergeists. Pat Holden, Rene Holden's son, turned it into the horror film When the Lights Went Out (2012), saying he embellished the story to fit a horror template. Bungay, the film's producer, bought the house the same year. Diane has spoken little publicly. Holden said in 2012 that she was still too scared to enter the living room.

Finding

A working-class family in a Pontefract semi reported two bouts of disturbance, in 1966 and from 1968 to 1969, and stuck to their account. Relatives, neighbours, a vicar and police were brought into it, and the local papers covered it. What exists is testimony gathered a decade later by a sympathetic writer, with no diary, no instrument record and no investigator present at the peak. The monk is the weakest part of it, and the noise and damage the best attested.

What still will not resolve: whether anything happened in that house that the children could not have done, because nobody independent was there to watch when it was at its height.