Welcome to the twenty-first edition of the Borley Ghost Society Newsletter. In her letters to me, Iris Owen continually expresses wonderment about the continuing popularity of the Borley Haunting. "I find it fascinating," she writes, "the amount of interest there still is in Borley, as there is also in the Philip experiment." Hardly a month goes by that I don't forward a request from some Philip enthusiast to her, mostly concerned with reviving the experiment. Her book, Conjuring Up Philip is second in sales only to The Most Haunted House in England over at www.ghostbooks.com And yes, the interest in Borley continues to grow - not abate - and I trust we are in for some sort of peak surrounding July 28, 2000. At times, this effort becomes more than one person can handle. The messages flood in daily, and the correspondence alone can be overwhelming. It is a wonderful task, however, and one in which I take supreme delight. I appreciate the continued support of all the faithful and dedicated associates of the BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY.

I appreciate your input, and encourage your continued discussion in the future. In particular, it would be fascinating to see any personal letters from your association with Trevor Hall that you might care to share. Whilst my personal opinion of Hall may not be favorable, in the interest of fairness, I make every attempt to provide both sides of the story. As I point out on my Internet "home page" when speaking of Borley, "In presenting the following information, I make no judgement as to what is true, what is legend, or what is imagination. Because I have such close family ties to Borley, I have dedicated my life to researching and gathering as much information as possible - Borley is all I do. Every piece of evidence available is presented - pro and con. It is up to the reader to decide what to believe and what to discard."
My negative feelings toward Hall developed as I read his slanderous attack on my mother, claiming she murdered Lionel. In an attempt to be fair, however, I also sought out the opinions of others. For example, in The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Fourth Edition. Edited by J. Gordon Melton, it states, "Seven years later, psychical investigators [Dingwall, Goldney and Hall] published another book, The Haunting of Borley Rectory (1956), alleging that Price deliberately faked phenomena and distorted the Borley story. Hall later followed this work by The Search for Harry Price (1978) in which he attempted methodically to demolish Price's reputation not only as a psychical researcher but also as an individual, but in the end simply overstated his case against Price." That same book goes on to say, "In his biography The Search for Harry Price (1978), author Trevor Hall even questions Price's personal integrity. Hall seems to go beyond the evidence of Price's shortcomings as a researcher in extending his critique to Price's basic honesty." Again, the book relates, "[Hall's] book Strange Things ruined the reputation of Ada Goodrich-Freer, and The Search for Harry Price effectively denigrates the character and work of the famed psychical researcher."
When Hall sent Robert Snow to our home to interview Mom, the first sentence was about my mother's love life - not about the haunting. "How soon after d'Arles arrived at Borley did you have sex with him?" I've never counted the total sentences in the interviews, but my general "feel" is that there are more questions about Mom's personal life than there are about the haunting. Hall failed to publish his five volumes of research on my mother not because of any respect for her, but out of fear of libel. Duckworth Publishing turned over the responsibility to Robert Wood after they erroneously thought Mom had died. The result was The Widow of Borley. Wood wrote back to me after I contacted him through Duckworth, but has since disappeared. "Widow" was the last book on the paranormal published by Duckworth, which now restricts itself to educational volumes.
Mrs. Cecil Baines wrote a letter that included her opinion of Hall as "an absolute horror." She goes on to say that Hall's five volumes of research into my mother, "HAD NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, BUT WERE THE VILEST FORM OF DIRT-DIGGING POSSIBLE." - emphasis original. She said she would not remain a member of the SPR if Hall was accepted.
In chapter eleven of my book The Most Haunted Woman in England, I mentioned the opinion one researcher has who knew Hall. "It is very interesting to note that Hall has been described to me as a 'strange man, obsessed, and unbending and rigid in his views. He made up his mind early on that all of parapsychology was a fraud and a cheat, and all of his writings are destructive and vindictive. He saw himself as somewhat of a crusader against parapsychology.' This opinion of Hall came from someone who not only worked closely with him, but who had meals with him on many occasions."
Nandor Fodor looked at his article "Was Harry Price a Fraud?" in Tomorrow magazine as an opportunity for him to write "my fiercely indignant rebuttal of the Harry Price exposure," contained in The Haunting of Borley Rectory by Hall, et. al. Fodor described their effort as "this ghoulish book." Fodor writes, "Never before in the history of psychical research has there appeared in print such a scandalous piece of writing." Fodor asks, "Why did they hate him with such ferocious intensity? The phenomenon [of their attack] is pathological and worthy of investigation. . .The authors themselves feel entitled to tear to pieces all positive testimonies and seem to imply that the negative is far more important that the positive."
Personally, I am indebted to Hall for his dogged research, and the documentation he produced as a result of his obsession with my mother. His research provides information for a great deal of my own writings. Unfortunately, it is his accusation of murder that require me to defend my mother. To the question I was asked by an Internet visitor, "As Marianne Foyster's son, how do you feel when people like the authors of the "Haunting of Borley" try to discredit your mother's story?" I replied, "Trevor Hall was a mean spirited person who attacked people, not phenomena. Skeptics like him are often overbearing, and not willing to examine all sides of an issue. Thank goodness for open-minded people like Peter Underwood and Ivan Banks who at least try to present both sides of the story." This is my own personal feelings about Hall, formed after just a few years of researching his work and reacting to his very serious accusations against my mother.
By the way, if "it was an enormous pleasure for [Hall] to track her down in the States," I must say that it scared Mom half to death. In fact, at one point she contemplated suicide as a result of the persistent pursuit. She wrote to Ian, "Advise me Ian. Shall I commit suicide. I have contemplated it so often. . . .Kid, for the love of God, help me. Tell me - do you think if I wrote to the people [at the Society for Psychical Research] and told them I didn't do it and that all this about my so called love affairs is nothing to do with ghosts and that Harry Price didn't buy the diary they would stop persecuting me? What shall I do. Tell me, Ian." The letter to Ian contains a heart- wrenching plea for the investigation to stop. Some researchers may have called off the hounds after such a prayer, but Hall did not. Mom wrote to Hall, "I do know this that if I have to go through any more I will shoot myself. I cannot go on. Life isn't worth it." Hall immediately called the letter "obscure and unsatisfactory." He was concerned that the suicide threat might be sincere, and decided not to press her any further through the mails. He decided that the best approach would be to some day hire a private detective. Two years later, Robert Swanson was sent to our doorstep. Hall told Mom, "there was no need to use the gun she said lay before her on the table." When Swanson showed up two years later, Mom said "that she had placed a bullet in a gun to shoot herself.". . .but she was a coward as she did not have the courage to pull the trigger. She said that one day she would get the courage. Mom startled me one day about 1983 by producing a very small .22 five-shot revolver. It had a white handle. I am convinced she contemplated using it and was telling the truth to both Ian and to Hall.
Other BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY associates have helped me form this opinion in their private letters. I have not divulged their responses out of respect for their privacy, but perhaps one or two might now come forward and voice publically whatever evidence or opinions they may have shared with me privately in the past.
As to your other questions such as, "Where do the references [in your calendar] to a monastery on the site come from?" The calendar is simply a "shorthand" version of the Borley Legend as explained in many published volumes. I have summarized various sources in the first few chapters of The Ghosts That Will Not Die. The chronology starts in chapter two. You also ask, "There are a number of historical references that I have never seen before, such as Marie Lairre being strangled. I had thought that this was completely invented." Footnotes in these chapters give the various sources.

Jamas Enright sent all the photocopies from the C.E.M. Joad articles in Harper's magazine of June-July, 1938. I've posted the pertinent pages on Borley, but there are some interesting observations throughout. When studying mediums, Joad says, "We have undressed [physical] mediums, sewn them up in silk sacks from which only their heads emerged, and dressed them in suits of armor. We have put boxing gloves upon their hands and sacks over their heads; 'Now,' we have said to them in effect, 'now do your stuff.' It is remarkable how few phenomena are produced under those conditions." While quite skeptical, Joad states, "it is not possible to ascribe all the manifestations which occur to quackery and trickery." He puts in words what I have often wondered for myself - "This disinclination is partly due to the low intellectual quality of spirit messages, so low that I have often been forced to the conclusion that, if ghosts have souls, they certainly have no brains. The view that those of us who survive undergo a softening of our cerebral tissues seems to me a gloomy one." Joad notes the denouement of mediums like Duncan and Schneider, but then gives them the benefit of the doubt by suggesting their powers may have started out genuine, and when the powers diminished over time, the medium substituted natural methods. "This process from genuineness to trickery has been noted in a number of mediums, and has been invoked, as I think wrongly, to discredit the whole of their mediumship." As for poltergeists, Joad writes, "It is as if some elflike creature were engaged in making sport of human beings, not so much for their hurt as for its amusement; it doesn't want to frighten them but it does want to make them look silly." He suggests practically all spirit messages are also "nonsense."

Jamas also dug up a photocopy of a book review by Aneurin Dycks. It is a positive look at MHH, including a sentence that mirrors the purpose of this web site, "But this book does not seek to interpret; evidence is merely collated and the reader is left to reach his own conclusion." I cannot help but wonder who Dycks is. The name sounds Dutch, and is perhaps legitimate, but playing devil's advocate, I can see the possibility of it being an anagram of some sort. Price wrote a lot of articles to promote his work, and I wonder if he ever used my old trick of using a pseudonym when writing about himself?

Another book review by an unidentified author calls MHH "a model" for psychical research. Jamas sent the pages from Notes and Queries.

The SPR Journal for February 1948 yielded two articles. Jamas sent photocopies of a letter from B. Nisbet and another by Allen Sharp. Sharp talks about duplicating the temperature drops, whilst Nesbit says Price's two books "are not serious contributions to the subject of haunting."

Verifying two previous finds, Jamas forwarded the pages from The Easter Island Incident by Terrance Dicks. He mentions Borley in passing whilst referring to his previous work, The Borley Rectory Incident. Jamas also includes the pertinent pages from The Paranormal Source Book by Jenny Randles, as well as the printout of the Perception editorial by Richard Langton Gregory.

The text below is taken from the English Web site about the Domesday Book. I searched by the modern place name. I have had to put some text in brackets which I believe to be additional information on the modern settlement. I looked for Long Melford and Sudbury, no luck
(Borley) Barlea: Countess of Aumƒle; Grim and Godwin claim from Ansketel, who holds from Richard FitzGilbert. 2 beehives. (Churchyard with 15 yews. )
(Bures) Bura / Buro: Richard FitzGilbert, formerly Leofeva, a free woman; Hugh from John FitzWaleran.
(Liston) Listuna: Geoffrey Talbot from Hugh de Gournai; Ilbod. Mill, 8 beehives. 3 cows with calves. (White-boarded mill house near Milford Roman villa site.)
Neil Purling

[The whole thing about the Domesday Book set me off on a tangent to see if I couldn't find a copy for my Bibliography. During my search, I found out some very interesting things.]

Also are you likely to be coming over to England again in the near future because I would very much like to have the opportunity of having a good chat about Borley with you. When we did meet at The Savage Club in London there was not much time to have a good conversation.
[It would be delightful to get home once again. Unfortunately, my finances won't allow it just now.]
I am also wondering if any of the servant's bells from Borley Rectory actually still exist?
I don't believe they do. They were dug up at one point, but I can't remember reading what the finder then did with them. There have been so MANY digs - formal and informal -- that it wouldn't surprise me to find something surface just about anywhere! That is one of the key reasons I started the BORLEY GHOST SOCIETY - to find out all I could about such things.]
Robert Snow

I just had to email you to comment on your website. WONDERFUL!!! When I was about eleven years old I asked my local library to obtain a book called 'The Most Haunted House in Britain' by Harry Price. The librarian looked at me a little strange. As I come from a small village in Northamptonshire UK, it took weeks and weeks. Finally the book arrived I read it and have been hooked on Borley ever since. I visited Borley about 5/6 years ago and obtained the key to the Church, from a warden who lived in one of the bungalows that occupy the site of the Rectory. I, of course, did not mention my interest in the Borley Ghosts. Whilst looking around the Church it felt as though I was not alone (perhaps all those stories relating to the Rectory where effecting me!). I was amazed at the overall stillness of the Church and the village.
I hope you don't mind me asking but I have read many reports and articles concerning your mother. Some are very positive but many are negative. Do you feel sometimes that Mrs. Foyster may have taken the 'flack'. When reading some of the books it appears that Mrs. Foyster was not a 'regular' vicars wife and did not care much for village life. In 'The Enigma of Borley Rectory' the authour speculates that because of this she may have, although I believe that many of the incidents described at the Rectory are fact, made up some disturbances - to add interest to her life. I know what it is like living in a small village, it cam be very hum-drum.
Also, on the subject of the Bulls, are there any living relatives of the family and if so do you have their views on the goings-on at Borley?
Yours sincerely,
Simon Osborne
[See previous discussion regarding Trevor Hall. Since Mom WAS a fun-loving person with a certain life-style, she became an easy target. Mrs. Smith was also vilified by various people. As was Price. How does any of that affect the phenomena???? Good question about the Bulls. I've not heard from any of them.]

Watch for a new book by Hilary Evans and Patrick Huyghe. The Field Guide to Ghosts and Other Apparitions is due out in October 2000. Huyghe tells me it will mention Borley.

If you would like a profile page made especially for you, just tell me a little about yourself and attach a JPG photo to an e-mail.