The Foxhill Drive Incident

The Foxhill Drive Incident

The Prydonian Society Files

Event # 100503 ‘The Foxhill Drive Incident’

Location: UB5 8TP

The events, which shocked the nation one Saturday night on the 31st of October 1992, actually had their beginnings over a century before. 

Old Mother Seddon was a local ‘baby farmer’ a woman who took in infants from local families who could not afford to support their children.  For a little money Mrs Seddon would be a wet nurse and moral compass to the children until they were old enough to fend for themselves.  At some point due to undisclosed circumstances Old Mother Seddon went insane and rather than caring for the infants placed in her care she took to taking the money from the parents and then drowning their offspring in her little farm house.  Her murderous actions in drowning dozens or possibly even hundreds of defenceless babies caused a deluge of negative psychic energy to seep into the very fabric of the farmhouse and its surrounding environs.

As the decades marched on Old Mother Seddon’s farmhouse was demolished to make way for a council estate and whether by design or incredible misfortune one of the identikit houses standing innoxiously on the newly named Foxhill Drive was built on the very site of the old farmhouse itself (the house will for the remainder of this document be referred to as XX Foxhill Drive to protect current owners anonymity (Archivist Note Ref: 447/4L code black clearance level needed for full disclosure).

XX Foxhill Drive was always a centre for what unenlightened minds might call evil and in the 1960’s one particularly troubled individual moved into the house setting into motion a tragic chain of events.

Raymond Tunstall was a schizophrenic cross dressing paedophile who is documented as having had the disturbing habit of singing the children’s nursery rhyme ‘Round and Round the Garden’ to his victims (Archivist Note Ref: 447/4L: Raymond Tunstall/Pipes, PSL Restricted Section Miskatonic University Facility).

Upon his release from prison Tunstall's strict parole terms meant he must move in with his mother and father at XX Foxhill Drive. Considering the circumstances of their sons past crimes and his return to them being by order of the court Tunstall's  parents chose to spend long periods of time holidaying abroad rather than staying at home and left their son in charge of the family’s numerous pet cats which he dutifully fed and watered. Unfortunately,  being left alone and in isolation  caused Tunstall's  already damaged psyche to fracture even further as he began to believe that he was being haunted and slowly possessed by the ghost of Old Mother Seddon.

On October 31st 1968 Tunstall's patents told him they were that very evening taking a long vacation to Australia. Within hours of his parents leaving the country Tunstall descended into the cellar through a doorway under the stairs and hung himself from a support beam using piano wire. By the time his parents returned home, the cats had got hungry and identification of Tunstall’s body was only possible by reference to his dental records.

In 1991 the Early family moved into XX Foxhill Drive.  The family consisted of recently divorced mother Pamela and her two young daughters Kim and Suzanne (Archivist Note Ref: 447/7B Early Family PSL Restricted Section Miskatonic University Facility, 447/6T Suzanne Early, PSL Restricted Section Prydonian Medical Complex 4).  The girls quickly sensed the evil that had seeped into the very fabric of the house and began to be haunted by an entity they named "Pipes" due to the entities habit of noisily banging on houses water pipes (Archivist Note Ref: 447/22D Pipes, PSL Restricted Section Prydonian Miskatonic University Facility). At first only normal poltergeist activity occurred, such as objects moving and disappearing, but soon the girls were subject to physical assault by the entity and finally possession with 'Pipes" using Suzanne’s vocal chords to communicate.

After receiving no help from conventional sources Pamela Early turned to the BBC to see if publicity could help unearth an expert in the matter.  The BBC in its infinite wisdom decided to turn the whole enterprise into a 90 minute TV special, which would examine the facets of the haunting and have parapsychology experts voice their opinions on the case.  It was hoped by executives that the BBC might be the first broadcaster to capture proof of paranormal activity live on film and the fact the show was being transmitted on Halloween was a bonus.

On the night of broadcast things got drastically out of hand. It soon became apparent that the broadcast was acting as a giant séance, with the entity known as "Pipes" using the latent psychic powers of the millions watching to feed itself and become stronger. In the ensuing mayhem the Children’s TV presenter chosen to act as one of the outside broadcast presenters at XX Foxhill Drive was tricked into going through the doorway under the stairs and became trapped in the very room Raymond Tunstall hung himself. This act and the terror it induced in viewers meant “Pipes" was able to move himself from XX Foxhill Drive to BBC Television Centre, where he tore apart the studio and managed to possess the studio anchor.  In a panic the broadcast was then pulled and the haunting image of the well-known celebrity muttering in a guttural tone that was not his own the nursery rhyme ‘Round and Round the Garden’ was the last image the viewers saw.

When The Prydonian Society realised the magnitude of what was happening live on screen they immediately sent out a team to subdue and control the rampaging entity.  Fortunately with the broadcast pulled "Pipes" lost much of its psychic power and it was an easy enough matter to exorcise the male anchor and trap the "Pipes" entity in a witch ball made of glass. 

In the immediate aftermath of the broadcast the BBC and the nation were in turmoil. 

The police broke into XX Foxhill Drive to discover that the children’s BBC presenter used in the broadcast had disappeared. Realising that they would suffer a massive backlash for their dangerous broadcast and wanting to limit the damage, the BBC took the drastic action later that week of hiring a lookalike of the female presenter and had her record a short announcement telling the nation’s children she was safe, and that the broadcast the previous week had been a hoax. On the advice of The Prydonian Society this has been the BBC’s official line ever since, the broadcast was a cleverly conceived and executed hoax that fooled a nation.  The children’s presenter was never found alive; she remains unofficially a missing person.

The remains of Raymond Tunstall were exhumed and destroyed using salt and fire. XX Foxhill Drive was then blessed and cleansed by Olive Hawthorne the most powerful white witch in the western hemisphere (Archivist’s note: See Files on the Devil’s End Incident, PSL Restricted Section, MOD facility).

As for the surviving members of the programme all suffered as a result of the experience. One turned to drugs, leading to lurid tabloid headlines about his addiction to Class-A substances and the male anchor, after being exorcised, disappeared from TV screens for several years as his psyche recovered from the brutal psychic intrusion. 

Tragedy continued to follow the Early family.  Pamela Early died in a house fire some years after the events at Foxhill Drive.  Kim Early; moved to America where she is now a psychotherapist helping children who have been traumatised by paranormal events.  Suzanne Early remains under the care of Prydonian Medical Complex 4; it is unlikely that she will ever fully recover from her possession by the "Pipes" entity.

In the long term paranormal activity spiked throughout the UK thanks to the nationwide séance effect the programme caused giving the Prydonian Society years of intensive work in its aftermath.