Christopher Josiffe works for Senate House Library, University of London, where he is a cataloguer. Having long been intrigued by references to the ‘talking mongoose’ case, he has examined material held in the Harry Price Library and archive, and the S.P.R.’s own Gef files held at Cambridge University Library. He has also visited the Isle of Man, where the events took place, speaking to locals about the affair.
His interests include: visiting prehistoric sites, fine cheeses and beers, and collecting obscure Northern soul and reggae records.
The strange saga of Gef the talking mongoose began in Autumn 1931 in an isolated farmstead on the Isle of Man called Doarlish Cashen (Cashen's Gap). The farm was home to 60-yr-old Jim Irving, his wife Margaret, and their 12-yr old daughter Voirrey.
In 1936, Harry Price published the results of his investigation in a book co-authored with journalist Richard Lambert entitled The Haunting of Cashen's Gap: A Modern "Miracle" Investigated. Although Price did not explicitly accuse the Irvings of perpetrating a hoax, neither did he validate their claims.
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