'Witch "trying to reach sister"', Manchester Evening News, 21 September 1962

Manchester Evening News, Friday 21 September 1962, pages 1 and 5. A week after the Alderley Edge report, Alex Sanders had disappeared from view and the paper went looking for him. On the front page, under 'Witch clue', is a photograph of his sister Joan Dudley. On page 5 another sister, named only as Mrs X, tells the reporter from her home in Ardwick that she is convinced her brother practises witchcraft to make contact with Joan, 'the most important thing in the world to him'. Joan Clayton-Dudley was shot by a man who offered her a lift on the front at Blackpool in December 1955 and thrown from the moving car. Her attacker was never found. She died three and a half years later, aged 31. The second half of the report, 'A phone threat from spirits', is the reporter's own account of an anonymous caller who said Manchester's witches were making a wax image of him and that he would be 'spirited away' if he did not stop looking for Sanders. The report also notes that Sanders's mother, a spiritualist aged 62 living in Old Trafford, refused to talk. How to cite: 'Witch "trying to reach sister"', Manchester Evening News, 21 September 1962, pp. 1 and 5. Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive.

Page 1 WITCH CLUE
 [Photograph of Joan Dudley] Alex Sanders, self-styled high priest of a coven of Manchester witches, who has disappeared, may be “trying to contact” a dead sister, a relative said to-day. The sister was Mrs. Joan Dudley (above), who was shot in Blackpool seven years ago. - Page 5. Page 5 Witch ‘trying to reach sister’ Evening News Reporter Attractive Mrs. “X,” the sister of 36-year-old Alex Sanders, self-styled “high priest” of a coven of witches in Manchester, revealed to-day: “I am convinced my brother is practising witchcraft to make contact with my dead sister. She was the most important thing in the world to him.” At her neat terraced home at Ardwick, Manchester, Mrs. “X” recalled how her married sister, Joan Clayton-Dudley, was shot by a kerb-crawling gunman at Blackpool almost seven years ago. “It was early in December 1955, that Joan went to Blackpool with a Christmas present for a friend. She went for a walk on the front. It was raining and foolishly she accepted a lift from a man who pulled into the kerb in a black saloon car.” Grimly Mrs. “X” went on: “After the shooting Joan was thrown from the moving car. She was almost dead when police found her.” While doctors fought for her life, a massive police man-hunt was being conducted. But although Joan was able to help police make-up an identikit picture of her attacker he was never found. To-day he is still a free man. But Joan, aged 31, did die three and a half years after the unsolved Blackpool shooting drama. Sanders who works as an odd-job man at a Manchester library, lives in lodgings in Oldham Road, Newton Heath. He claims he has been a witch since he was seven and described himself as a High Priest of a coven of 10 witches, who practise their ancient cult after dark at Alderley Edge, the famous Cheshire beauty spot. His 62-year-old mother, a spiritualist, who lives with her husband in Old Trafford, refused to talk to-day about her son or his activities. A phone threat from spirits … Manchester's witches were making a wax image of me to-day. And in an anonymous telephone call, I was threatened by a man with being “spirited away” and told that “no-one would ever hear of me again.” This is what would happen, he said, if I did not stop looking for High Priest Sanders, aged 36. But I was still here this afternoon! The caller said he was in “deadly earnest.” “You might think this is a joke,” he told me “But don't treat this thing lightly - I have seen it work, I am a friend of the person who controls Sanders’s coven of witches and the matter is in their hands now. You have been warned.” But who could take them seriously? INITIATED It was at midnight last Friday - the “Festival of the Full Moon” - that Sanders practised his ancient witchcraft rites when he initiated a witch into his coven. I had gone to a secret rendezvous at Alderley Edge with photographers after hearing rumours of amazing black magic rites there. Together we captured an eyewitness report and exclusive pictures of the initiation “ceremony.”