The Battersea Poltergeist: The Haunting of Shirley Hitchings

In January 1956, a working-class family in Battersea, South London, began experiencing strange phenomena that would continue for over a decade. The entity, which came to communicate through knocking and eventually claimed to be named Donald, focused its attention on fifteen-year-old Shirley Hitchings. What began as minor disturbances escalated into a full-blown haunting that attracted investigators, media attention, and widespread public interest.

The Hitchings Family

The Hitchings family lived at 63 Wycliffe Road, a modest terraced house in Battersea. Walter Hitchings worked as a fire serviceman. His wife Kitty kept house and looked after their daughter Shirley, who was fifteen when the disturbances began, as well as Walter’s mother, known as Gran.

They were an ordinary family with no interest in the supernatural. Shirley was a typical teenager of the era, interested in pop music and movie stars. Nothing in their background suggested they would become the center of one of Britain’s most persistent poltergeist cases.

The First Signs

The phenomena began quietly in January 1956. The family heard knocking sounds that seemed to come from nowhere. Keys went missing and reappeared in strange places. A loud bang that rattled the house brought neighbors running, thinking there had been an explosion, but nothing was found to explain it.

Over the following weeks, the disturbances intensified. Objects moved on their own. Ornaments flew off shelves. Furniture shifted across rooms when no one was near it. The family’s belongings were rearranged during the night, and they would wake to find their possessions scattered in bizarre configurations.

The phenomena seemed to focus on Shirley. Objects moved when she was in the room. The knocking followed her from place to place. She began to feel that something was watching her, following her, becoming attached to her in a way that felt increasingly possessive.

Donald

After months of activity, the family and investigators developed a system for communicating with the entity through knocking. The entity was asked to knock once for “no” and twice for “yes.” Through this laborious method, questions could be posed and answers received.

The entity eventually identified itself as Donald, though it also went by other names including Robert and Domu. Asked about its nature and origins, Donald provided contradictory information. Sometimes it claimed to be a French soldier from the 18th century. Other times it made different claims. Whether these statements represented truth, confusion, or deliberate deception was never determined.

What became clear was Donald’s attachment to Shirley. The entity seemed jealous when Shirley showed interest in boys. It acted out when she wasn’t home. It appeared to want to monopolize her attention, and the disturbances were most intense when Shirley was present but focused on something other than Donald.

Escalation

As months passed, the phenomena grew more dramatic and dangerous. Small fires started throughout the house with no apparent cause. Bedclothes were pulled off sleeping family members. Objects were thrown at the walls with enough force to damage them. The family began sleeping in shifts, afraid of what might happen if everyone was asleep at once.

Donald also began writing. Slips of paper appeared throughout the house bearing messages scrawled in a childish hand. The messages were sometimes pleading, sometimes threatening. Some were directed at Shirley specifically, expressing affection in disturbing terms. Others demanded attention or made cryptic statements that no one could interpret.

The phenomena extended beyond the house. Objects moved at Shirley’s workplace. Her friends reported strange events when she visited. Donald seemed to follow Shirley wherever she went, extending his influence well beyond the walls of 63 Wycliffe Road.

Investigation

The case attracted attention from Harold Chibbett, a paranormal investigator who spent considerable time with the family documenting the phenomena. He witnessed objects moving, heard the knocking, and collected the written messages. His records provide much of what we know about the case.

Other investigators and journalists also visited the house. Many witnessed phenomena they could not explain. The knocking occurred in their presence. Objects moved. The messages appeared. Whatever was happening at 63 Wycliffe Road, it was not confined to the family’s testimony alone.

Skeptics suggested that Shirley herself was responsible for the phenomena, consciously or unconsciously faking the events for attention. Certainly, adolescent girls have been at the center of many poltergeist cases, and psychological explanations involving repressed emotions and unconscious psychokinesis have been proposed.

However, witnesses who spent extended periods with the family noted that the phenomena occurred when Shirley could not have produced them. She was observed during events, ruling out conscious fraud. The writing appeared in places she could not have accessed. The phenomena continued even when she was being closely watched.

The Long Haul

Unlike many poltergeist cases that flare intensely and then fade within months, the Battersea haunting continued for over a decade. The intensity varied, with periods of calm followed by renewed activity, but Donald never fully went away.

Shirley grew from a teenager into a young woman during the haunting. She started working, began dating, and tried to build a normal life despite the constant supernatural presence. Donald seemed to resent her attempts at normalcy, acting out more violently when she paid attention to anything other than him.

The phenomena finally subsided in the late 1960s, when Shirley was in her late twenties. Whether Donald simply lost interest, whether Shirley somehow learned to shut him out, or whether some other factor caused the cessation was never determined. The family continued living at 63 Wycliffe Road, and the rest of their lives passed without supernatural incident.

Shirley’s Later Life

Shirley Hitchings eventually married and had children. She rarely spoke about her experiences publicly for many years, preferring to put them behind her. In later life, however, she worked with a researcher to produce a book documenting the case, providing her perspective on events that had shaped her youth.

Shirley maintained until her death that the events were genuine and that she had not faked any of them. She described Donald as a real presence in her life, frightening at times but also oddly familiar after so many years. She never fully understood what he was or why he chose her, but she never doubted that he existed.

The childhood she should have had was stolen by whatever happened at 63 Wycliffe Road. Instead of ordinary teenage concerns, she dealt with flying objects, spontaneous fires, and an invisible entity that seemed to think it owned her. How that experience shaped her life is something only she could say.

Analysis

The Battersea Poltergeist fits the classic pattern in some ways and deviates from it in others. Like most poltergeist cases, it centered on an adolescent, particularly a female adolescent going through puberty. The phenomena included the typical repertoire of sounds, object movement, and physical effects.

Unlike most poltergeist cases, it lasted for over a decade. Most such cases burn out within a year or two. Donald persisted far longer, suggesting either that conventional theories about poltergeists don’t fully explain the phenomenon or that something unusual was occurring in this particular case.

The entity’s apparent personality is also unusual. Most poltergeists are either impersonal forces or briefly communicative spirits. Donald developed what seemed like a genuine relationship with Shirley, complete with jealousy, possessiveness, and something that looked disturbingly like love. Whether this represents a genuine spirit attachment, a manifestation of Shirley’s own psychology, or something else entirely remains an open question.

Conclusion

For over a decade, a teenage girl in Battersea was haunted by something that called itself Donald. It knocked on walls, threw objects, started fires, and wrote notes proclaiming its attachment to her. It followed her from room to room and house to house. It grew jealous when she paid attention to anyone else. And then, eventually, it stopped.

Was Donald a ghost? A demon? A manifestation of adolescent psychic energy? A hoax that somehow fooled dozens of witnesses over more than ten years? The Battersea Poltergeist offers no easy answers.

What we know is that the Hitchings family experienced something extraordinary. Their ordinary life in an ordinary London house was invaded by something that defied explanation. They lived with it, coped with it, and eventually outlasted it.

Shirley Hitchings grew up haunted, literally haunted by an invisible presence that claimed her as its own. She survived. She built a life. And she never forgot the entity that called itself Donald, the thing that knocked on walls and wrote notes and followed her through her youth like a shadow she could never escape.

Whatever Donald was, wherever he came from, and wherever he went, he left his mark on one family’s life. The house at 63 Wycliffe Road still stands. Other families have lived there since. None have reported any problems.

Donald, it seems, only wanted Shirley. And when she finally escaped him, he apparently had no further interest in the world of the living.