The Empty Chair

Michelle: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Haunted History Chronicles. Sir Osbert Sitwell's claim that ghosts went out when electricity came in is contradicted by the strange behavior of the distrustful female ghost still believed to be in residence at the George Inn, close to London Bridge. It stands just off Borough High Street on the site of a previous George inn, which burnt down in the Great Southwolk Fire of 1676. Shakespeare is said to have acted in the courtyard of the old hostelry, and Charles Dickens wrote of it as a busy and popular coaching inn in Little Dorrit. As a result, historical and literary societies flocked to stage plays and gave readings in the yard, and sightseers included Winston Churchill, who bought his own port and was charged one shilling, sixpence corkage. The Georgian's ghost is believed to be that of either Amelia Murray or her daughter Agnes. Amelia arrived in 1878, and together they ran the inn for more than 50 years. Both were formidable women with a growing dislike of the modern world and the trappings of progress. No bathroom was installed until after Agnes's death in 1934. The expansion of the railways ruined the trade of many old coaching inns, and the George itself was under threat, with three of the four galleries demolished before a public outcry succeeded in saving what remained. Perhaps as a result, Mrs Murray maintains a passionate vendetta against the trappings of modernity electricity supplies, labor saving gadgets and especially computers. A previous landlord commented wearily on how any new fangled device acquired for the George inevitably went wrong for no perceptible reason. As soon as it was plugged in. It would be several weeks before the ghost would suddenly accept a new computerized, till anything with a plug was how he put it. A number of members of staff living on the premises have been awakened over the years to the sight of a misty female form in their rooms. Perhaps either Amelia or Agnes is still keeping a baleful eye on the running of her establishment. One of the visitors of the Georgian is going to be the subject of the podcast today. Winston Churchill was famed for his prescience, though of course he liked to emphasize the predictions which turned out to be right. I always avoid prophesying beforehand, he said in a Cairo press conference on the 1 February 1943, because it's much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place. Privately, the Churchill of early World War II was not so confident in victory as his speeches proclaimed in February 1938, when Anthony Eden, resigned as Foreign Secretary from the Chamberlain government, confessed to a sleepless night in which he saw the vision of death. In May 1940, he said to his bodyguard, Walter Thompson, I hope I'm not too late. Later, he confided to Roosevelt that the Germans might well invade Britain and install a puppet government, while assuring Roosevelt that such a government would not be run by him. As France was falling in May 1940, churchill did not favor an armistice with Germany. Yet Neville Chamberlain's diary for the End of May records Churchillus saying that if we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies, he would jump at the chance. Of course, he may have just been throwing a bone to Lord Halifax, then Foreign Secretary, who was arguing for an approach to Hitler through Mussolini's good officers. But Churchill's most astonishing prediction came when he was 17 years old. As quoted in Sir Martin Gilbert's In Search of Churchill I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world. Great upheavals, terrible struggles, wars such as one cannot imagine. And I tell you, London will be in danger. London will be attacked and I shall be very prominent in the defense of London. I see further ahead than you do. I see into the future. This country will be subjected somehow to a tremendous invasion. By what means I do not know. But I tell you, I shall be in command of the defences of London and I shall save London and England from disaster. Dreams of the future are blurred, but the main objective is clear. I repeat London will be in danger and in the high position I shall occupy, which will form to me to save the capital and save the empire. There is little doubt that the landscape of the free world would be significantly different if not for the presence of Winston Churchill. Without Churchill, the ending of World War II may have ended very differently in Europe, much has been written about Churchill his steadfast leadership, unyielding courage and eloquence as a speaker. What you may not know about Churchill was his openness to psychic phenomenon and unique types of spirituality. It is quietly acknowledged that Churchill utilised psychics and seers in his personal life and during World War II. Some historians feel that the real story behind England's use of unconventional methods such as clairvoyance, astrologers and occultists by secret services and spy agencies such as Mi Five and the rumored Mi Six still remains classified or has been removed from the records altogether. Many feel that Churchill's sympathy towards psychics and clairvoyance was due to Churchill himself having psychic experiences during the Second World War. Between 1890 to 19 Two, a war between the British and Afrikaan speaking settlers in southern Africa, churchill was captured. He managed to escape and later wrote in his autobiography his escape was guided by some form of mental planchet to the only house in a 30 miles radius that was sympathetic to the British cause. Had Churchill approached any other home, likely he would have been recaptured and executed for escaping. Churchill himself in his autobiography would credit his escape and survival to psychic experiences. It's also worth noting that a planchette is something used when communicating with a Ouija board. Other incidents involving Churchill's psychic intuition also came during world War II. During a dinner with government officials at Ten Downing Street, churchill excused himself from his dinner guests, went to the kitchen and ordered the meal be set up on a hot plate in the dining room. Then Churchill ordered all the kitchen staff to evacuate to the bomb shelter. Churchill calmly returned to his guests and resumed the meal. An air raid occurred and within a few minutes the kitchen took a direct hit from a bomb. Churchill and his dinner guests were unharmed. The kitchen staff, though, would not have been so fortunate. Another time, Churchill entered his limousine on the opposite side from what is customary. He remained seated on the opposite side of the limo and was typical for him, sitting directly behind the driver. En route, a bomb struck the vehicle, severely damaging one side of the car, the side where he usually sat. Both driver and Churchill were unharmed. Later, Churchill confessed to his wife that he heard a voice tell him to stop as he went to enter the limousine. So he went to the other side of the limousine, entered, and remained on the opposite side of the car behind the driver. Winston Churchill has been linked with numerous people associated with psychic phenomena and divination. Historically, we know Churchill had a lifelong interest in the mystical. He joined the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids in 1908, likely a result of his being a freemason. Churchill's critics and political enemies often pointed to his association with occult practices in an attempt to discredit him. Winston Churchill was a fascinating and incredible individual who populated his long political career with various writings about politics, the life of his ancestors and his own life. In 1953, the former PM was even awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his work, The Dream, his most mysterious and ethereal short story, which was published on the first anniversary of his burial in 1966. Intriguingly, Churchill had always held a fairly loose regard for the supernatural and believed in a kind of spiritual connection with his ancestors. This belief was drawn upon in The Dream in the form of a sudden appearance of his father's ghost. Few family homes can have such a powerful sense of the personality who lived there as Chartwell, the home of Sir Winston Churchill. From 1924 until the end of his life, the rooms remained very much as he left them, with pictures, books, maps and mementos evoking the career and interests of the great statesman. Many people, understandably have hoped to pick up a sense of the continuing presence of the former Prime Minister. Perhaps it is wishful thinking which leads visitors to report the occasional whiff of cigar smoke emanating from maroons as they tour the building. But in fact, the fascinating ghost story most associated with Chartwell was actually written by Sir Winston himself and is a tale of how his own father, Randolph appeared to him one day in an article entitled The Dream. Sir winston gives a moving account of how he'd been painting in his garden studio at Chartwell. On a foggy November afternoon in 1947, he had been attempting to paint a copy of the damaged portrait of his father and relates how he was using a strong daylight lamp and had been concentrating on replicating his father's features for about 90 minutes, intensely absorbed, when suddenly he became aware of an OD sensation. And there, sitting in his red leather upright armchair, was his father, just as Winston remembered him in his prime. He was so exactly like my memories of him, in his most charming moods, that I could hardly believe my eyes. I felt no alarm, but I thought I would stand where I was and go no nearer, he wrote. Churchill goes on to describe their subsequent conversation, in which he attempts to convey to his startled and disbelieving father all that had happened in the 50 or so years since his death. From two world wars to political upheavals and painting, horse racing to family gossip, income tax to India, their conversation ranges widely across the massive changes the world had seen in five decades. The tale ends with Randolph expressing his disappointment in his son by saying, of course, you are too old now to think about such things, but when I hear you talk, I really wonder. You didn't go into politics. You might have done a lot to help. You might have even made a name for yourself. With that, Randolph takes a match to light his cigarette and strikes it, then vanishes. This vivid tale must be taken with a pinch of salt. The time it was written, November 1947, winston Churchill was in his 70s, forced into reluctant semiretirement at Chartwell and still smarting from his rejection at the hands of the British electorate two years earlier. Despite having led the country through most of the Second World War, he was engaged in writing his war memoirs. So an account of the cataclysmic world events of his adult life and ways to describe them must have been uppermost in his mind. His wry remarks about his father's disappointment in the son's lack of achievement could be seen as heavily ironic. However, to many, it seems unlikely that a character such as Churchill would have invented a ghost story featuring his beloved, long dead father merely to score political points. Perhaps most telling of all is the conversation he had with his daughter Sarah later that same month, when they were quietly dining together. She indicated an empty chair and asked Sir Winston if he had the power to put anyone in that chair to join them. Who would he choose? She expected him to name one of his lifelong heroes napoleon or his ancestor, Marlboro. Perhaps without hesitation, he replied, my father, of course. Whatever the truth, the red leather armchair still sits in the painting studio at Chartwell, alongside the portrait of Randolph. Thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye for now. If you like this podcast, there's a number of things you can do. Come and join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Spread the word about us with friends and family. Leave a review on our website or other podcast platforms to support the podcast further. Why not head on over to join us on Patreon, where you can sign up to gain a library of additional material and recordings and in the process know you're helping the podcast continue to put out more content? On a final note, if you haven't read it already, then you can find my piece In Search of the Medieval in volume three of The Feminine Macabre over on Spookeats.com or via Amazon. Links to the book will also be in the episode. Description thank you everyone for your amazing support.