The Fairy Investigation Society

The Fairy Investigation Society | Fortean Times Magazine subscription Money back guarantee Free UK delivery Worldwide delivery Best price guarantee Secure online payment Add to Bookmarks The Fairy Investigation Society The Fairy Investigation Society, dedicated to tracking down modern accounts of the Little People, must rank as one of the strangest British organisations ever to come into being. SIMON YOUNG tells the story of this curious enterprise through five key episodes – from a Fairy Census to a tabloid scandal – in its eccentric and largely forgotten history. 1. SLEIGH AND CRAUFURD MEET (1927) It was the kind of moment over which flies queue up for wall space. Two of the most eccentric men in Britain in one room – and they had come to talk about fairies. On the one hand, there was Quentin A Craufurd, a retired British naval officer of aristocratic lineage. Craufurd had not only been a talented seaman during his years in the Royal Navy, but also, before his retirement, a talented scientist. He had carried out, in fact, in 1907, the first wireless broadcast in Britain from HMS Andromeda.1 But Craufurd had long had an interest in the paranormal. He was convinced that psychic communication with animals was possible, particularly during dreams; his advice to anyone who had found a fledgling or a stray cat would have been to sleep in the same room as the animal.2 Then, he began to experiment with spiritualism. Of course, in the 1920s, this was practically de rigueur among the metropolitan middle classes. But Craufurd did things, as always, his own way. He took messages from the dead with an ‘ether box’ – i.e. a radio – and soon became known in spiritualist circles as ‘the wireless man’.3 The second individual was Bernard Sleigh. Sleigh was an artist, based for much of his career in Birmingham. In 1897, he had had a brain operation and had subsequently experienced peculiar visions: in later years he described himself as “psychic”.4