One cannot help but feel that the authors of The Haunting of Borley Rectory would be proud of this book. Step by step, this book destroys the myths of Borley, in a simple and prosaic way. I think Trevor Hall, in particular, would approve.
We Faked the Ghosts of Borley Rectory is the autobiography of Louis Mayerling, who is intimately connected with all aspects of Borley Rectory up to pretty much the time The End of Borley Rectory came out. It is told with a lot of humour and not a little amount of atrocious puns (then again, what other kind are there?).
The main problem, and this is the point, is that it is very difficult to establish the veracity of the book. Not just the claims of Louis Mayerling involved with Borley Rectory, but also his other claims of being involved with some famous people of the time.
As I work in a Library, I has easy access to a lot of books, but none of the ones I have about T. E. Lawrence or George Bernard Shaw (for example) refer to George Carter, Borley Rectory or Louis Mayerling. It is hard to believe that someone who lived with T. E. Lawrence for a while, knew him for years, has never been mentioned.
All that pales, of course, when compared with the fact that Louis Mayerling (nor George Carter) has never been mentioned in any other Borley book, especially HBR.
I wonder if there will be some kind of Hastings report which shows that WFGBR is false, although this is eye-witness testimony, and not an attack on eye-witness evidence (which such a report would, ironically, be).
I can see this going two ways. WFGBR will be seen as the final nail in the coffin (moving or otherwise) of Borley Rectory, or the lack of other evidence will enable people to dismiss this entirely. Although if Louis Mayerling brings out the letters and such he mentions in the book, that would pretty much be that.
However, it's not all bad news. Louis Mayerling also relates some of his own paranormal experiences at Borley. It has been said that when many testimonies have been removed, something still remains. Not everything can be eliminated, as this proves.
I am reminded of figures in history who claim to have been at famous occasions, or with famous people, for the fame that reflects on them. But it is hard to imagine why someone would try this with Borley Rectory, whose fame is not as much as it was, and whose main interested parties is comprised largely of the Borley Ghost Society.
One thing that definitely irritated me, and could have been fixed with another run-through from the editor, was that large number of typos. All the ('s without a ). The " and ' pairings. And the large number of times the ending punctuation was inside brackets (like this.) And perhaps the maid on page 143 might have kept the same name (Cathie? Alice?).
From this, my own assessment of this book is rather strange. With the lack of evidence, I find it hard to give credence to the claims, but on the other hand, why would someone make something like this up? Until more evidence, one way or the other, comes to light, I'm not sure the final verdict about this book can yet be given.