The Northgate Curse?

I sit writing this with a very heavy heart. I've been skipping lectures and taking the coach down to London this past week – my destination - The British Library. Here I sat at a workstation in the Newspaper Reading Room, and accessed the Twentieth Century Master File. My major objective was to find out what I could about the explosion at the Manor House on Turville Heath. Finally, my labours have born fruit.

Four articles have surfaced on the abandoned house, two in local papers and two in the nationals. The best and most comprehensive of the various articles was in the Times. It was dated 30th November 1997.

THE NORTHGATE CURSE?

A freak storm that struck Buckinghamshire last August resulted in the accidental deaths of three people, all from the same family, was the conclusion reached in a coroners report published this week. The three unfortunate victims were father and mother James and Elizabeth Northgate and their young son. The bodies of the adults were burnt beyond recognition. The body of the child was believed to have been completely incinerated. Identification was made using dental records. The forensic studies indicated that death was most probably due to a freak lightening strike. Lightening strikes occur frequently, but deaths due to direct hits are relatively rare in the British Isles.

Eyewitnesses from Turville, a small village situated on Turville Heath, close to High Wycombe, reported seeing a series of massive lightening bolts in the vicinity of Turville Grange on the day of the tragedy. The bodies of the Northgates were discovered by the housekeeper, who had been out shopping at the time of the accident.

Baron James Northgate came from one of the countries wealthiest dynasties. Locals claim that the family has been cursed. Our enquiries suggest that the curse began with the mysterious disappearance of the Algernon Northgate in 1902. He was last sighted in the vicinity of his ancestral mansion, Northgate Hall. An extensive police investigation was eventually wound up with no trace of the Baron ever being found. It was rumoured that the trouble started at the Hall when two Egyptian mummies where displayed there in 1902. It is believed that the tomb, from which the mummies were taken, close to the Giza peninsula in Egypt, was protected by an ancient curse. This curse appears to have taken root in the Northgate family. All the male offspring who were direct descendants of Baron Algernon Northgate have died prematurely. Debate still rages as to the veracity of tomb curses. The most famous of these is the curse of Tutankhamen.

I can hardly see the screen as I type this, due to the tears that are welling up in my eyes. At last I have found my parents, and they have been destroyed in the very spot in which I was standing only a few days previous. Many questions are racing through my brain. Did their deaths have a rational physical explanation? How did I survive, while my parents were killed? Can I ever prove that I am a Northgate and claim my inheritance? Was there really a curse and am I also marked for death? One thing I know for sure, if there was a curse, then I will have to get to the bottom of it. My life could well depend on it. In due course I know that I will have to track down any relatives who have descended from Algernon Northgate. Now I desperately want to find photographs of my mother and father. But first things first; I have to track down Northgate Hall - and another bit of luck. The results of my Internet query to the Ordinance Survey have come through. Somebody at the Historical Mapping Archive has just emailed me the location of Northgate Hall!