Mayerling admits there was one incident he is unable to explain and which could prove there is still more to the Borley stories than meets the eye. In Easter 1935, Shaw, Norman, Spilsbury, Mayerling and Marianne Foyster attended a séance at Borley. 'We chose an ill-lit and underground cellar at about midnight and sat in silence,' he remembered. 'Someone gave a nervous cough and was about to speak when an extraordinary thing happened: the kitchen bells seemed to clang together in one single clash.'
Apart from those sitting at the table, the house was empty, and both Foyster and Mayerling knew from experience that it was impossible to make the bells ring at the same time.
'Norman jumped up and then there was a lightning strike of silver-blue light which appeared to implode from all walls and the ceiling of the cellars and then there was a dead silence,' he said. 'Shaw had been in the process of pushing a box of matches diagonally across the table and Norman was half off his chair in a turning position, but every member of the séance was struck with an instant paralysis which lasted about five seconds.'
Afterwards, Mayerling was blinded - he eventually recovered sight in one eye - and Norman and Shaw refused to stay the night in the house.
'I can't explain that occurrence and, to be honest, it still makes me feel rather shaken,' he said. 'The rest of the hauntings were, without exception, the most successful hoax of the age, but that still sets my spine tingling.'
