Investigations started in October 1973, when Manfred Cassirer received a call at the Society for Psychical Research from an agitated Mr. Alf Taylor, one of the people who operated the Kentish Garden Guild, a small garden shop attached to some allotments. Manfred and his colleague, Pauline Runnalls, visited Taylor for a preliminary interview.

The first incident was recorded on 26 April 1973, when Taylor arrived at the shop to find his colleague, Tony Elms, somewhat agitated. Powdered substances were hitting the ceiling; a pewter jug on a shelf shot across the floor (even when sealed inside a plastic box); pellets of fertiliser were lifting themselves out of a bin and moving up to the ceiling, some even hitting customers. Perhaps more alarming, a seven-pound weight came off a set of scales. At one point the two men and their colleague Clifford Jewiss were forced to abandon the shop early because of the disturbances. On another occasion Elms’ shirt was cut to shreds by a saw forced down his back.

Manfred notes that poltergeists are generally not harmful, though they can be mischievous and disturbing. He comments on this case: ‘However that might be in general, there had been a quite disturbing incident in which Mr. Taylor had been hit on the head by a box of trowels and forks, while Mr. Elms had fared even worse and was in fact a rather frequent target of spiritual spite.’

With the poltergeist’s usual creativity in using immediately available resources, caps of bottles in the shop would come off mysteriously, and the contents spill to the floor; over a hundred-weight of Maxi-Crop fertiliser had to be destroyed when containers were found to have been tampered with. Manfred noted ‘the impressions of hands’ - as if the fertiliser had been scooped out prior to being thrown at the ceiling.

It appears that Taylor was at least one of the foci of the poltergeist, as he experienced attacks in his own home and in the presence of friends. Elms was another. (Alternatively, one of the men was the focus and the other suffered from ‘contagion’.)

The shop was subject to apports - in particular, showers of matches - on one occasion, half a hundredweight of peat.

Perhaps inspired by certain crosses and religious symbols that appeared, Elms attempted an amateur exorcism. The result seemed to have been an increase in the level of sound and violence of the poltergeist, and further attacks on Taylor.

Fertiliser and other locally available materials were used to produce some communicating writing; in particular, the date 1659 appeared on a wooden panel. Other images and words appeared using the fertiliser, perhaps most astonishing being a skull-like face that formed on the counter.

The investigators witnessed several phenomena. On their first arrival they were showered by bonemeal from ‘an indeterminate point of origin’. During the following two hours they were subject to several experiences, though as Manfred cautiously put it: ‘It was not always possible to determine with only two observers the precise order or sequence of the incidents or the exact position of everyone present at any given moment.’

The incident which he suggests must finally rest the doubts of the sceptics arose on a second visit a year later. Many events occurred during that second visit, but ‘the beaker incident’