Hannah's Ghosts - Unmasked

 

(Photo: Chris Floyd)

TheBigRetort pursues phantoms in the haunted mind of Journalist Hannah Betts, and comes up with a discovery about her ghosts.  

 

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Make what you will of Hannah Betts, the journalist. She claims that her former family home was haunted throughout much of the family's time there. Hannah has appeared in both print and tv or blog extolling the belief that her former home was regularly visited by these poltergeists, a ghost or other supernatural being supposedly responsible for physical disturbances. 

She writes a haunting tale:  “Teenage fears or a more sinister presence? Make up your own mind as our writer reveals her haunting Hallowe'en story.” The Telegraph headlined in 2013, adding some weight to a very spooky tale indeed.

THREE SPECTRES

Betts claimed that the house, boasted three spectres: a woman, who paced the ground floor, an aged doctor, forever racing up the stairs searching for a dying grandson, and the ghost of a victim of a confrontation that had ‘spilled over into murder’.

Twenty-six years after the first spooky events, Betts described for the reader and the listener that this all took place at an unnamed street in Moseley. When I first heard these tall tales online, Betts had retold the story so many times that it had become very real, to her at least. TheBigRetort takes a little peak through the keyhole... 

THE HOUSE ON SCHOOL ROAD

Surprisingly, the house is not that three-storeys Victorian building seen in the copy produced in certain publications. Betts herself is careful not to provide the actual address. In fact, like the house on haunted hill, TheBigRetort can reveal, it actually sits in School Road, Moseley.  

STREET VIEW ARCHIVES

Street View Archives capture the property down the years as a seemingly much-lived-in Victorian villa. However, during the time the Betts family spent there, if the photos are anything to go by at least, it seems unlikely much improvement was made to it over that time. This adds to the eerie feel of the place. 

Built over a century ago, it seems likely that one or two or more people may have died there. 

HERE BE DEMONS

As the Betts family placed that key in the rusty lock for the first time and pushed back the door on creaky hinges, had the dearly departed that previously died there refused to vacate?

It seems unlikely that the sales particulars ever stated ‘here be demons’. Although Hannah is convinced of them. She wrote on this: “Oh, how we scoffed. And, yet, doors would shut of their own volition, footsteps could be heard. Every night at 4am, someone — something — would tear up the stairs, rattling and then thrusting open the doors in its wake (all of which required proper turning and forcing), until it reached the master bedroom, entering in an all-mighty, door-slamming storm.” Betts informs.

MURDER SHE WROTE

In another other-worldly X-Files incident, Betts claimed that the chimney suddenly caved in, and a newspaper fell down into the fireplace. 

It told of a murder… in that very house.

Other things happened, as they do. A mirror flew (fell?) off the wall and on its back “Victorian” writing read: “Your mother sows socks in hell Karras!”

 No, sorry, that was the 1973 film The Exorcist. One of its fictional characters Father Damien Karras. His mother didn’t sow socks in hell. After which she ‘Regan’ vomits green bile over the priests who attempt to exorcise her demons.

Father Karras : I think it might be helpful if I gave you some background on the different personalities Regan has manifested. So far, I'd say there seem to be three. She's convinced...

Father Merrin : There is only one.

 

THE GHOST TOLD HANNAH TO 'FUCK OFF'

However, like the little girl’s head in the film, Hannah’s head also does a compete 360. This ghost chillingly said: “Get out…” and other rude words.

Hannah elaborates: “We didn’t care. My parents had five children – me, 15-year-old Victoria, 12-year-old George, Flo, nine, and Tim, four – and we needed space; even space that everyone else was too afraid to occupy. Our new home was large, beautiful, surrounded by swaying greenery. However, there was something unsettling about it: a personality, almost, and sense that we were installing ourselves in a place already occupied. It never felt quite empty. Doors would shut of their own accord, footsteps echoed. It felt as if we were being watched, assessed.“

FOLLOWING EARTHLY LEADS

Hannah Betts herself does have an uncanny resemblance to Lucy Westenra, one of Count Dracula’s beautiful chalk-faced victims. "Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?"     

On a dark night, reflected in that old dusty candlelit mirror, Hannah could appear quite ghostly herself. Could Hannah have been playing tricks on her younger siblings?

Be that as it may. Whilst a trawl of old Victorian newspapers uncovered no deaths or even murders in the house, TheBigRetort started to wonder if the answer lies elsewhere. 

A SUSPECT EMERGES 

Following the deaths of her parents, Hannah wrote that she refused to attend both funerals. ‘You’ll regret it,’ everyone warned me. But I never have, and am convinced I never will.” [I Refused To Go To My Parents' Funerals WOMAN - UK| June 26, 2017.]

Fortunately, though her dad’s obituary, available online, may solve the mystery of Hannah’s It relates mostly to a very special, kind man that his kids called “afro” due to his very bushy hair.sts.

 Photo: The Times

Tim Betts obituary reads…

“They lived in Moseley in a house also shared by six cats, five dogs and sundry other animals." 

So, a pretty busy house both day and night..? 

THE FINDINGS

Dad was an eminent “epilepsy” psychiatrist. As a result, he was also seemingly somewhat unsurprisingly overworked. In fact, a few things of relevance stand out. “Betts was a workaholic who often finished at 10pm, fell asleep on the sofa, then rose at 4am before heading back to his patients or students… “

Betts senior, the workaholic...? Who often finished at 10pm...? Who fell asleep on the sofa…?  Then arose… at 4am…?

Hannah's ghost: “Every night at 4am, someone — something — would tear up the stairs, rattling and then thrusting open the doors in its wake (all of which required proper turning and forcing), until it reached the master bedroom, entering in an all-mighty, door-slamming storm.”

Make of Hannah's ghost story what you will. She may simply be a teller of tall tales, a fantasist, or simply mistaken. But she certainly isn’t much of a paranormal investigator.

TheBigRetort