Creemore’s talking mongoose investigator

by Christopher Dodd

Claverleigh is a National Historic Site located on County Road 9 just west of Creemore. The dwelling was built as a parish rectory in 1871 and is an impressive example of a Gothic Revival villa. As far as anyone knows, it is not haunted, but it was once the residence of a notable paranormal investigator and writer named RS Lambert who had a strange adventure on the Isle of Man involving a talking mongoose named Gef. Yes, you read that right.

Richard Stanton Lambert was born in England in 1894 and joined the BBC in 1927. He became the first editor of The Listener magazine. Lambert was a prolific writer and developed a lifelong interest in the paranormal after having experienced poltergeist phenomena within his family circle. He became friends with Harry Price, Britain’s most famous psychic researcher and ghost hunter of the day.

In 1931, the Irving family, who lived in an isolated farmhouse at Cashen’s Gap on the Isle of Man, came to believe that their home had been invaded by an elusive creature that both amused and terrorized them. The thing banged on the walls, killed rabbits, and spoke with a strange, high-octave voice. It claimed to be an “earthbound spirit” and a “ghost in the form of a mongoose” and proclaimed its name—Gef.

The bizarre phenomenon seemed to focus its activities around the Irving’s daughter, Voirrey.

Gef, whether he was a figment of the imagination, a ghost, or a high-functioning mammal, avoided being photographed but even some of the locals claimed he was real. They had also seen Gef and heard his voice. The press caught wind of the strange happenings and the story became a media sensation for years.

In 1935, Price decided to investigate and invited his writer-friend Lambert to accompany him to the Irving farm to get to the bottom of things. The results of their investigation were published as The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap in 1936.

Although the two men were careful to document the Mongoose Case with objectivity and avoided saying that Gef was real, the book got Lambert into some hot water with the BBC and he decided to part ways with the broadcaster (and that’s putting it mildly).

Lambert and his wife immigrated to Toronto where he joined the CBC and continued to write. The topics of Lambert’s many books were varied: history, travel, crime, and biographies. In 1955 he published a landmark work titled Exploring the Supernatural: The Weird in Canadian Folklore. No one had ever compiled a catalogue of the strange through Canadian history before, and although the book is now out of print, you can still find old copies, and it’s required reading for anyone interested in the topic.