On one of my first trips to South Elmsall Market, I quickly found that when people said they did not want to be photographed "but go to the stall around the corner", the person on the stall around the corner generally did not wish to be photographed either. However, one such person followed me off his stall and then pointed to a closed and shuttered shop at the other side of the market. "You should go and speak to the lady in there." he told me. "She does exorcisms!"
Intrigued, I went back the following week and I was pleased to find this shop now open. I went in and said I understood the lady had an unusual hobby. "Paranormal investigations," she said. I told her that I had heard if called something else, but no matter. I explained what I was looking for and along with her daughter, she immediately suggested "the doll".
Laura - a haunted doll . Image © Jonathan Straight 2021
It seemed that Alison, the owner of the stall, had visited a car boot sale and walked past a row of dolls. One of the dolls was seen to move to the side when she looked at her and so Alison then knew that she had to buy the doll. When her medium friend Crystal saw the doll she advised that it was inhabited by a spirit. Could the doll spend some time in South Elmsall Library, I wondered. "I don't know," Alison said, "we'll have to ask her".
As we chatted more about the various investigative works that Alison and her daughter Caitlin got involved with, I agreed to go back the following week at closing time to photograph the doll and to film Alison and Crystal to ask them about what they did.
Arriving on a chilly Tuesday afternoon, I found a table outside of the shop with a doll in the centre of it. Surrounding it were various pieces of equipment. One small black box in the shape of a coffin would apparently play music when pointed towards a spirit. As Alison pointed the device at the doll, it did indeed play music. I asked how this worked. "It detects the spirits." she told me. Filming outdoors would have involved moving three bags of equipment across the market, so we agreed to decamp to Crystal's kitchen to film there.
Now they told me the whole story. I learned that the doll was called Laura. The original owner of the doll had died in childbirth and the baby too had passed away. I was told that the baby went to "the light" and then came back into the doll as it had belonged to her mother. Although the doll is haunted, she is not mischievous and whilst a little sad about possibly going into the library at South Elmsall, she would look forward to people seeing her and telling her that she is beautiful. Having lacked attention in the past, this is now welcome. She has had some new clothes which she loves, and she likes being with Alison and Crystal as she knows that she is loved.
As I set up for my shoot, they were chatting to the doll as if another person was in the room with us. I didn't have a view on this - it was not my concern if this was real or not, I just wanted my film footage and photographs. Usually, everything goes smoothly, I set up, shoot and leave. This time, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong - maybe this doll did not want to be photographed? It took ages to assemble my lights - every time I though I had it right, the soft-box collapsed. The flash would not work, the shutter of the camera kept jamming - something that has never happened before.
Crystal (a medium) and Alison with a piece of equipment to detect spirits. Image © Jonathan Straight 2021
Having finally got the shoot in the bag, I headed home. The next morning, I was going to London and grabbed one of my cameras to take with me. I thought I would check the memory card to see how many shots were left on it. The screen read 6 - 6 - 6 ... scary!
That night at a French vegan restaurant in Hoxton, I was recounting this story to my friends. We asked for the WiFi password - it too was 666 - I nearly fell off my chair.
You can draw your own conclusions, but all of this does seem a little strange!
Watch the film.