Sunlounger

What was Billy Hope like?

The following is from my transcript of my Grandfather's journal:

"Let me try to describe Hope as I knew him. He was of the working-class type born in Lancashire, I believe near Oldham. He could have made very large sums with his gift but he did not do so, and although he numbered among his friends and acquaintances people from all ranks of Society, from the working classes to the nobility, he remained as he always was; humble, unspoiled, living in a tiny terraced house in Crewe and dying in 1933 almost alone in the public ward of a hospital. It was a great shock to me when I read of his death in a newspaper for I had not even heard he had been ill."

"He was to some degree irresponsible, given to sudden changes of mood and had a mischievous sense of fun. I noticed that frequently when dealing with investigators who treated everything with suspicion, he would become very mysterious and make unnecessary movements with his hands and arms and fingers as if trying to do something he didn't want the sitter to see. Sometimes he would studiously avoid contact with the plates and then say before development "Now I can't have put anything on that plate, can I?" to which he usually received a negative answer. A few minutes later when the sitter developed his plate, and the extra appeared, Billy would turn on the puzzled expert and demand "How have you put that on? You said I couldn't do it, so you must have done it. You're the only one who has touched the plate so it must have been you. How did you do it?" The more the sitter became annoyed at these accusations, the more Billy enjoyed it and his eyes would sparkle with fun."

"This behaviour was in marked contrast to his attitude with those he knew and trusted. I have conducted a large number of experiments and tests with him and these little tricks were entirely absent. As I gained his confidence he would allow me to put up my own conditions and frequently allowed me to do all the mechanical part of his work, such as loading the dark slides, developing the plates etc. On a number of occasions he has secured extras for me when I have used my own camera and plates, in my own room and done everything myself, when he has never even entered the dark room. He only approached the camera to make the exposure and the only time he touched the camera was when he held the push control of the shutter release. I fail to see how anything could be more convincing, except perhaps the case I shall describe later when I secured markings on the film of a camera which he did not know was in the room."

"I believe Billy Hope's early religious training was with the Salvation Army. He gave every indication of being a sincere and simply but deeply religious man. His seances were invariably conducted in a religious atmosphere, with a simple form of service of prayer and dedication preceding. His great desire was to secure an 'extra' for his sitter, especially if bereaved. I am quite sure he would far rather give a sitting for nothing to a bereaved sitter than give what might be a profitable sitting to a self-styled psychic expert."

"He would have sudden impulses. I have heard, on one occasion, he bought a motorcycle. He could not ride one, but he thought it a good idea at the time and he did try to learn how to control it, for a while, until he got tired. On another occasion, when out riding a bicycle he saw a young pig which took his fancy and returned home in triumph with the pig and still riding his bicycle. His progress must have been [Homeric?]."

"He was tolerant and charitable and quite unselfconscious. It made no difference where he was, in the drawing room, in the lecture hall or anywhere else, if he felt warm, he would say brightly "Excuse me folks, I feel a bit warm." and off would come his coat and collar and tie! The only people he did not like were the self-important type of investigator, who would bring out the old arguments and the old explanations. In the words of a similar simple character Sam Small 'he thowt nowt of such people at all'."

"As he said, he'd been tested hundreds of times by people of real importance, with real qualifications and the results of their tests were available in various books. Why then should every Tom, Dick or Harry who came along expect to be allowed to ignore this evidence and demand his own conditions. "I've given up giving tests" he would say, "and I'm giving no more." Actually this was not so, for I've never known him give a sitting without offering to use the sitter's own plates and allow one person to go with him and watch him throughout. One can appreciate easily how boring and irritating these people could be to him. Given an experienced investigator, these conditions, I contend, gave reasonable evidence of supernormality."

"But I, personally, have no hesitation that no one is qualified to conduct even a simple test like this without considerable experience and study. Let me quote a case in illustration. I was approached on one occasion by a man who asked if he could bring a party of about half-a-dozen sitters, and conduct an experiment under 'test conditions'. I agreed, provided that his conditions did not go beyond the normal. That is, he could bring his own plates, provided they were in unopened boxes as supplied by the chemist. The wrappings could be marked or sealed in any way. He could examine the room, camera equipment and dark room, load the dark slides, unload after the exposure and develop the plates. He agreed that such conditions would be ample and departed satisfied."

"The day of the sitting came round and the proceedings went off as arranged and the investigator went religiously through his part watching Hope like a cat watching a mouse. I derived some considerable amusement from watching the investigator. He loaded the two dark slides; these were exposed. They did not show any extra, so slides were filled again. This time there was more success and extras were obtained and in all about six extras (some very good) were secured. The investigator was delighted and went about showing people these photographs which he declared "were absolutely genuine, because they had been taken under his own test conditions where fraud was impossible." It all sounded very well and I have not the slightest doubt the photographs had supernormal extras. But there had been no 'test conditions' at all. After loading the first pair of slides with two plates (on which no extra was obtained) this 'investigator' left the box of plates completely unsecured on a bench in the darkroom for a period of 10 to 15 minutes so that it would have been a matter of supreme ease for this box to have been changed for a box of prepared plates. Of such stuff are investigators made!"

"I, who had been watching knew there had been no substitution, so I considered that as ignorance was bliss, I would let this undoubtedly good hearted man remain in that state, but as the sitting was supposed to be a test one, I was just as much suspect as Hope and I had every opportunity of perpetrating a fraud. I let Hope into the secret later, and while we had a quiet laugh over the affair, he was by no means pleased that such a glaring hole in the evidence had been over looked and it strengthened his resolve to give "no more tests."

"While I describe Hope as being simple I make no reflection on his intelligence. On the contrary, he was a man of keen intelligence, with a great deal of native Lancashire shrewdness and a marked sense of humour. He had, too, a proper sense of pride. He had had but little education yet his lectures were in many ways more entertaining and instructive than those of many learned scholars. He had a story to tell which he told in a simple, sincere, straightforward language: he gripped his audience from the beginning and his lectures usually ended amidst enthusiasm."

"Once when lecturing in Bradford, the Rev Charles Tweedale was present. When he came to a photograph with Mr Tweedale he said, 'I know Mr Tweedale is here tonight, so I'll ask him to describe this photograph.' Mr Tweedale needed no second invitation and spoke at some length. A little later when another psychic photograph was thrown on the screen, Mr Tweedale again jumped up and said, 'As I probably know more about this case than Mr Hope, I will describe it, if Mr Hope will allow me.' Mr Hope signified his willingness and Mr Tweedale commenced his lecturette. After about five minutes, Hope began showing signs of uneasiness. After ten minutes and Mr Tweedale still giving no signs of concluding, Billy's patience gave out and he cried 'Sithee if tha' doesn't sit down, I shall!' Mr Tweedale hurriedly brought his remarks to a close!"

"Hope has had many dirty tricks played on him. On one occasion when visiting Sheffield someone brought some pre-prepared plates upon which had been photographed some faked extras. Hope accepted the plates in good faith and after development, not unnaturally, accepted the photographs as genuine. The sitter then announced to the world that he'd proved Hope to be fraudulent because he had offered photographs as genuine supernormal extras, which he (the sitter) knew to be fakes because he'd made them himself! These experiences made him extremely careful."

"But even this care could lead to annoying occurrences. Some years ago a fake photographic medium was exposed and the psychic researcher who discovered the fraud was led to his discovery that occasionally the 'extra' appeared upside down on the lap of the sitter instead of the more normal position right ways up above the sitter's head."

"When taking photographs for me, Hope used at first to expose two plates on each sitter and I noticed that the extra was more often than not on the first plate, while the second plate bore no supernormal markings at all. One day Hope was, for some reason, in a hurry and I suggested he should only expose one plate on each sitter, in order to save time. He demurred but said he would take all the photographs and develop all together. This he did, picking out all the first exposures. As I expected, these all had extras so he decided not to develop the others until the next day."

"When the next day came, he suggested taking a photograph of the lady who later became my wife, before the other sitters arrived, and hurried to the darkroom to load his dark slides. Following him I realised he had loaded his slides from the box which contained the undeveloped second exposures of the previous day's sitters. When I told him of this he seemed to have forgotten all about these and obviously didn't know what I was talking about and hurried on to take the photograph. On development there appeared an excellent 'cloud' extra of a man's face with a sitter upside down."

"It would happen, of course, that this 'extra' seemed to be of particular interest for in addition to the very clear extra there appeared underneath a very large hand. Now, the sitter's grandfather had a malformation of the hand and it seemed possible at least that this hand might have been a reproduction of this irregularity. When Hope saw the upside down sitter he became very excited and angry and said someone had been tampering with his plates, and snatched the plate from the fixing bath and took it outside where he held it to the light. It was then I saw the hand. Before I could prevent him he had scratched the soft emulsion with his fingernail completely destroying the likeness. It was only then that Hope would listen to the explanation of how he had taken the wrong plates. When he realised this, he was very sorry he had acted so hastily. But that, of course, did not replace the destroyed photograph."

"Hope did not make any charge for his services but, of course, this was really a pretext for when visiting him it was usual to leave a suitable gift on leaving and when visiting the Society he received a substantial portion of the fees charged."