The Borley Rectory Companion: The Complete Guide to 'The Most Haunted House in England' [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

I was looking forward to this book for quite a while, kept watching here on amazon until it was finally published and then I snapped it up, being a huge fan of the Borley Story. However, it was quite a disappointment, and it's a shame as I have always enjoyed Peter Underwood's other books. The main problem with this book is the format. It only really works if you are already very familiar with the story and can thus dip in. Nobody would read this from cover to cover any more than they would read a dictionary. It just doesn't stand up to that kind of reading. I mean, Ive read a few books on Borley Rectory but there were entries on different villagers or members of the local community etc etc with quite tenuous links. I don't understand why it wasn't written in normal, conventional book format. Interesting addition to my Borley bookshelf, but like others say, there is a noticable lack of any healthy scepticism or rigour. Events are related as fact, because some passing villager said so...

I couldn't resist starting my review with an extract, from their book, about me and my book. "One might be able to take the 'Bones of Borley' more seriously if its tone was not continually condescending, arrogant, irritating, full of 'nudge nudge, wink wink' innuendo and one man's personal interpretation of events". These guys are definitely up for some pretty robust reviews, one would imagine. They can certainly dish it out.

Actually, I've counted Paul and Eddie as friends for some years, and you will see from the Acknowledgments that I helped them with materials and advice. It is rare to find other people who share my fascination for the history of Borley Rectory. I found the book interesting, and it is a useful guide for the study of the history of the Borley Rectory affair. I only rate it four-stars despite the enormous work that Paul and Eddie have put into the book because it is not really an introductory book and the history of the affair that occupies the first part of the book adds little new. The research into all the characters and incidents that make up the bulk of the book is useful, but occasionally confusing, as it does not always sift speculation from hard fact and it misses out some of the absurdities of the case, such as the presence of the largest lavender oil manufacturers in Britain (Stafford Allen) being situated just over the brow of the hill, and obviously accounting for the incidents of 'paranormal smells of lavender' and 'perfumes'.

I'd say it was essential reading for the Borley Rectory buff, along with such literary curiosities as 'The Final Analysis', 'The Widow of Borley' and 'We faked the ghosts...'. I wouldn't suggest it for anyone new to the saga: for that, I'd recommend Harry Prices's two books, taken with a glass of Whiskey and a very large pinch of salt.

Who doesn't like a good ghost story? - and the Borley Rectory story has it all, spectral nuns and headless coachmen included. Strangely, the authors of this book aren't in any way bothered by the Hammer House of Horror staples that seem to constitute much of this famous, alleged haunting, clichés that might give the neutral reader more than occasional reason to raise an eyebrow. Adams, Brazil and Underwood do not for a moment doubt that the occurrences that supposedly plagued `England's most haunted house' were real manifestations of the supernatural. Which is not surprising once one knows that Adams and Brazil run a website dedicated to Harry Price, the maverick ghost hunter who made Borley famous, and himself in the process. Of course given the scope of this Companion the authors cannot quite ignore more skeptical views of Price's methods, which include evidence of downright hoaxing, but the way in which they condescendingly downplay such information speaks volumes about the value of this book as an honest and thorough investigation of the case. That value I'd rate close to nill.

There is no getting around the fact that all this book (or indeed any other) has to offer in support of the haunting is anecdotal evidence, more often than not gathered (very) long after the fact. Adams and Brazil may lightly brush aside the critical 1956 Borley report of the Society for Psychical Research, but they offer nothing at all to counter the SPR's conclusion that no scientifically sound evidence whatsoever exists to support the theory of a haunting. That conclusion strikes me as right on the mark. As with all hauntings, it's all just people telling stories. The authors may stress time and again that the people telling these stories were `decent and well-respected' - but hey, that's what neighbours said about John Gacy before the police dug up his crawling space. Outward decency is not an antidote against self-suggestion, confused memories or delusion, not even, alas, against deliberate lying.

This book is a study in mythmaking and itself contributes to the perpetuation of that myth. It shows to what lengths people will go in defence of their paranormal beliefs, and at the same time shows how lax standards of research generally are among believers. Especially irksome are the often used, summary conclusions of the type `...that could not be explained from natural causes'. If you can't explain something, that doesn't mean you've found a ghost. More likely it simply means you lack information. Of course, this kind of conclusion becomes even more problematic if no details are given on how possible natural explanations were ruled out.
Another noticeable problem is the randomness with which evidence is either accepted or dismissed. E.g., the famous ghostly nun is reported by various witnesses as appearing either white, black, transparent or solid, all of which the authors find acceptable. They do however dismiss a sighting where the nun appeared to be about sixty years of age, because this observation was inconsistent with other sightings. So, some inconsistencies are OK, others are not, but it remains unclear who decides either way and on what grounds. (In fact, one suspects the authors don't want to see a sixty year old nun because the accepted lore is that Borley's nun is the ghost of French girl in her thirties).

The 'encyclopaedic' format of most of the book is as pretentious as it is confusing, and hardly constitutes an obvious way of getting the story across. The rationale behind the choice of lemma's is unclear, and looking up a particular item is not helped by the lack of an indication at the top of the page at what initial the reader has arrived. Sometimes there are cross-references that are void - e.g., in discussing the Rectory's "mysterious" bricked up window (supposedly closed up to shield the inhabitants from ghostly nuns staring in) the authors refer to the lemma about Miss Ethel Bull, which, however, contains not a single word about this architectural peculiarity. (Incidentally, one of the photographs in the book was taken in front of this window and shows quite clearly that there is nothing mysterious about it: the seamless brickwork makes it amply clear that it was never bricked up at all but was designed as a blind window right from the start).

The authors have missed a golden opportunity of putting all previous claims and arguments about Borley side by side and critically appraising all of them. Instead, they are content just to rehash the believers' views. Enjoy this book on a rainy autumn evening when you're in the mood to believe in ghosts, in a warm chair with a good glass of wine; or better still, enjoy it as a practical exercise in skepticism - you can spend many an interesting hour tracking all the contradictions, inconsistencies and prejudiced conclusions it abounds in. Then shake your head and return to the real world.