This tale of a “Hand that came of the Darkness” in Pinchbeck Road from 1915 was not unlike “Thing” from The Adams Family, but had a more earthly explanation:
“A Spalding solicitor and a friend who was with him were startled by an apparent apparition on the Pinchbeck Road a few days ago.”
“Mr Crust said that he and Mr. Moore, of Grimsby, were proceeding along Pinchbeck Road carrying a basket, and when near the residence of Rev. J.C. Jones a hand which apparently came from nowhere seized the cord of the basket. The hand might have dropped from the skies for all that he and Mr. Moore knew, but it did not come from the sky or the road but seemingly from a gap in the hedge.”
The hand belonged to Mr. George Arthur Smith, farmer of Crowland whom, after an altercation, let go of the basket, and staggered off to his mother’s house later to find himself arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
“Edwin Moore of Grimsby, manager of a Steam Trawling Company, said he did not know what to think when the defendant jumped out of the gap in the hedge.
The Chairman (Mr. F. Howard) inquired if witness thought the man might be a spy. [1]
Witness said he did not know who the man was or who he might be.
George Francis Wilkinson of 9 Chapel Lane, Spalding spoke to seeing defendant striving to take the basket from Mr. Crust.
Mr. Crust: What was defendant’s condition?
Witness: A funny one.
Did you see him walk from Mr. Jones’s to his mothers? – Yes.
How did he walk? – A bit ‘wibberly wobberly’ (laughter)”
George Arthur Smith pleaded guilty and his solicitor, Mr Merry, (yes the names increasingly sound like a Dickens tale) asked that as it was Christmas Eve some people were prone to “step over the mark” and asked that the season of the year be taken into account. The defendant explained that he had seen his wife off by train to Boston and had a glass of whisky and two glasses of beer before staggering off to his mother’s house and, “No doubt that upset him and accounted for the incident.”
He was fined 10s. plus costs.[2]
[1] At this time there was national paranoia that German spies were throughout the country. Even in Spalding.
[2] Spalding Guardian 9th January 1915
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