The Haunted Boy

(also known as The Crying Boy)

Recently I have seen for sale in Adelaide several the old allegedly cursed “Haunting Boy” paintings, so I thought why not write about that, and get to the bottom of the legend!?

In 1985, ‘The Sun’, a very popular tabloid newspaper in England, published a story in its September 4th edition (page 13) with the Headline “Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy”. The story that followed told how, after a fire burnt their South Yorkshire’s home to the ground, married couple Ron and May Hall put the blame squarely on a picture of a crying boy they had hung in their home.
A fire broke out from an overheated frypan of oil and devastated the home they had lived in for 27 years, the house was a mess, and one of the only things unscathed in the fire was a picture of crying toddler, hanging on a wall. Ron’s brother Peter, was a local fire-fighter, his Fire Station leader, Mr Alan Wilkinson said he had heard of numerous cases of fires where prints of “crying boys” would be undamaged in a devastating house fire, this of course turned a mundane ‘hot chip’ fire story into a leading headline, and propelled the “Crying Boy” curse into the world spotlight.

The story picked up legs in the next day’s edition when The Sun reported that readers had been phoning in with their own horrifying stories of bad luck related to The Crying Boy paintings. Quotes were printed in the newspaper such as this one from Dora Mann in Surrey “All my paintings were destroyed – except the one of The Crying Boy”.
A Mr Parks claimed he had destroyed his copy after returning from the hospital from smoke inhalation from his house burning down, to find the only thing untouched in the scorched ruins was a crying boy painting.
More stories accumulated, about misadventures happening to residents in houses where the prints hung. One lady even speculated that the painting may have been the cause for her husband and three sons dying over a span of a few years.

A security guard named Paul Collier threw one of his two prints on a bonfire to test the theory that the paintings and prints would not burn, he claimed that after an hour in the flames, the painting was not even scorched, this, of course, led to even more sales for The Sun!

Strangely, not all the prints and paintings were of the same crying boy, paintings by Giovanni Bragolin and Scottish artist Anna Zinkeisen became associated with the Curse. Zinkeisen had released her crying boy paintings as part of a study titled “Childhood”.

After some time (and a lot of newspaper sales) it emerged that Alan Wilkinson had personally logged about 50 “Crying Boy fires dating back to 1973”. He had dismissed any supernatural connection between the fires and the paintings, finding that in almost every case, it was human error or human carelessness that had started the fire. He could not explain though, why the paintings would survive the fires unscathed.

As the original sun newspaper story began to fade from readers’ minds, the story of the Crying Boy paintings morphed into an urban legend and spread across the world. Along the way new information was added to the original legend; psychics claimed a spirit was trapped in the original painting, and the fires were an attempt to free itself. Other stories told how the artist’s bad luck had cursed the painting, and that’s why so many bad things happened in its presence.

The Crying Boy legend is still very much alive today, recently shown on the new TV series “Cursed”. If one looks hard enough one can find enough evidence to suggest that this whole urban legend is an exaggerated coincidence designed by The Sun Newspaper back in 1985 to sell newspapers, now it has become part of urban legend and pop-culture.

Anna Zinkeisen's version of the crying boy

Allen is the founder of Eidolon Paranormal, South Australian Paranormal and the author of book and blog, “The Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal”.

Allen was awarded the 2017 “Emerging South Australian Historian of The Year Award” as presented by The History Council of South Australia.

Allen has also been employed as “Historian in Residence” in 2016/2017 with the Adelaide City Council Libraries and employed by the City of Port Adelaide Enfield Council to write the
popular, “Ghosts of the Port Self Guided Walking Tour”

www.twitter.com/Allen_Tiller
www.facebook.com/AllenHauntingAustralia
https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntsOfAdelaide

First published in MEGAscene Issue 8 2016

The Ghosts of the Ambassador Hotel

The Ambassador Hotel
King William Street, Adelaide

It is claimed the Ambassador Hotel is haunted by a former employee named Mary. There has long been the insinuation that room 103 is allegedly haunted by Mary’s spirit, but after interviewing staff in 2016 for the Haunted Buildings in Adelaide library project, that story can now be amended.


Staff claim Mary haunts the dining room and is known to set up table service and do the dishes! It is thought Mary is a former employee who started work at the hotel at the age of 15, living on site. She died at the age of 93 in the hotel and has been helping staff ever since!


Mary is not the only ghost haunting the Ambassador Hotel, another alleged spirit is that of John Gray,
who died when a previous hotel on the same site was demolished. Mr Gray was crushed by a falling wall and is now alleged to haunt the basement.


Room 11 is thought to be haunted by a man named James Wilson who died in the hotel in 1890. Another as of yet unidentified ghost is seen upstairs from time to time in a number of different bedrooms, drifting from room to room as if in search for someone or something.

Allen is also the founder of Eidolon Paranormal, South Australian Paranormal and the author of book and blog, “The Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal”.

Allen was awarded the 2017 “Emerging South Australian Historian of The Year Award” as presented by The History Council of South Australia.

Allen has also been employed as “Historian in Residence” in 2016/2017 with the Adelaide City Council Libraries and employed by the City of Port Adelaide Enfield Council to write the
popular, “Ghosts of the Port Self Guided Walking Tour”

You can find Allen online at:
www.twitter.com/Allen_Tiller
www.facebook.com/AllenHauntingAustralia
https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntsOfAdelaide

First published in Megascene issue 16 2019

A Haunting at the Corio Hotel, Goolwa

The Corio Hotel, Goolwa was built in 1857. It is named after the paddle steam-ship Corio, which sank on the nearby Murray River in 1857. The Corio Hotel license was approved in 1850 and issued to William Ray on March 31st of that year.

The Corio Hotel also has adjoining shops that are part of the hotel complex. The shops have been used as a saddler shop, blacksmiths, a general store and a barber.

The Corio Hotel in Goolwa was alleged to be haunted by a female ghost who hates other women. It is claimed that this spirit once held a woman down on a toilet when she tried to stand up after finishing her business. The woman stated that as she tried to stand up after using the toilet, she felt a strong hand force her back down.

She freaked out as no-one was in the cubicle with her, or in the toilet at all. Suddenly the hand let go, and she shot out of the toilet into the hotel and ran out through the front door, only to tell her story later when she had calmed down.

A ghostly woman was witnessed in the Corio Hotel in 1977 by staff member Gary Crouch who described her in a witness statement as; “A short woman with grey hair that had a bluish tinge. She was wearing a dress that hung down loosely over her knees.”

Gary and his boss saw the ghostly woman head toward the female’s toilets from the central games room. Thinking it was a person locked in after closing, the two men went to ask her to leave, only to find no living soul in the women’s toilets. The men checked the rest of the hotel, which had been locked up for closing, to find nobody other than themselves inside!

The ghostly presence isn’t just centred on the women’s toilets, it is also known to go about its business in the men’s! Male patrons have reported toilet rolls spinning at incredible speeds of their own volition.

Other witnesses have seen the ghostly woman standing at the front bar when staff have turned to serve her, she has vanished. The temperature in the room is also said to drop dramatically in the apparition’s presence.

There once stood a blacksmith at the rear of the hotel, which today is part of the bottle-shop. A bottle-shop worker once witnessed the apparition of a man walk through a wall, where once there was a door, and off through the car park, through a fence, disappearing as he crossed a road.

 

Allen Tiller is a paranormal historian, genealogist, author, and featured on the television show “Haunting: Australia”.

Allen is also the founder of Eidolon Paranormal, South Australian Paranormal and the author of book and blog, “The Haunts of Adelaide: History, Mystery and the Paranormal”.

Allen was awarded the 2017 “Emerging South Australian Historian of The Year Award” as presented by The History Council of South Australia.

Allen has also been employed as “Historian in Residence” in 2016/2017 with the Adelaide City Council Libraries and employed by the City of Port Adelaide Enfield Council to write the

popular, “Ghosts of the Port Self Guided Walking Tour”

You can find Allen online at:

www.twitter.com/Allen_Tiller

www.facebook.com/AllenHauntingAustralia

https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntsOfAdelaide

First published in Megascene issue 16 2019