Out of time: the curious case of the body in Room 24

Many will remember the County Hotel, a sweeping, white-fronted hotel on Theatre Square. The hotel had opened its doors in 1867 as The Clarendon Hotel before being renamed. The landmark Victorian Hotel had been known for glamour as it welcomed stars like Agatha Christie in 1952, but by the 1970s, it was facing demolition. 

In November 1969, the hotel was involved in a case so strange that a national enquiry was launched.

That afternoon, a woman calling herself Enid L. Johnson phoned the receptionists, saying she was calling from Peterborough about a room for the night. Fifteen minutes later, a taxi dropped her off outside and she checked in, giving her name, then her address as no.8, Park Road.

Enid was about 55 years old, of a medium build with shoulder-length hair and blue-grey eyes. She was quite petite and dressed neatly in a brown, black and beige mottled swagger coat - a style that was fashionable in the 1930s, characterised by its pyramid shape. Under the coat, she wore a two-piece suit with a navy and turquoise herringbone pattern. She carried a handbag and used spectacles to read the pape-rwork at the desk.

Eighteen hours later, chambermaids about to clean room no.24, found her body amid tablets and a bottle of whiskey. Panicked, they called the police, who, when sweeping the room, made a strange discovery - she had absolutely no identification on her. Even stranger, all of her clothing had had the tags cut out and tie on tags added that read: Enid L. Johnson. 

She had even added the tags to many of the contents of her handbag. Police in Peterborough were alerted and called to Park Road, but it was soon discovered that no one living there knew Enid. All attempts to trace the name came back as unsuccessful. It seemed no one knew who this woman was or was connected to her in any way.

City Coroner Mr A.C.G.Rothera said, “This is one of the most astonishing cases that has been reported to me.” Police admitted to feeling “baffled” especially when the extensive searches came back with no information. They suspected that she had escaped from an institution or had lived alone, stating, “We gained the impression she had all her worldly belongings on her.”

As two months passed with no information, the police issued a statement and launched a nationwide search. They also put out a request to taxi drivers to get in touch if they had given Enid a lift to the County from the train station, describing her appearance from the hotel’s account down to her freckles, manicured nails and faded tanned complexion.

That January, police tried a different tactic - they consulted a local spirit medium. They took boxes of her clothing, powder compact, jewellery such as a pearl necklace and engagement ring, and suitcases to the Radford home of Steve Tomlinson and his wife Winifred, after he offered to help identify the woman. He claimed to practice the art of psychometry, which involved holding objects and allowing them to tell him about a person’s past.

Tomlinson claimed to have been a spiritualist since 1933 and travelled all over England to give talks and presentations on the subject. He was known for attending a Long Eaton church ceremony, where afterwards a man who used a crutch claimed to have been healed. He had possibly come to the attention of the police through volunteering to help find a missing child in Clifton.

“I’ve had powers since I was a boy,” Mr Tomlinson told newspapers. “When I was thirteen, I had contact with my grandfather from ‘across’, but I never did anything about it.” He had gone to work in tobacco at the Player’s Factory before he retired. During the war, he had worked for the Royal Navy as a mine sweeper but claimed that seamen who sat near him were healed. “I healed one man’s torn neck ligaments just by touching his neck and praying.” He created a small bit of history by being one of the first to insist that the Navy record his religion as ‘spiritualism.’

Tomlinson sat in a dark room in his home, said a quick prayer, then picked up the items. After forty minutes of appearing to slip into a trance, he told police that he could see the woman was connected to the medical profession, had made a train journey before her death, she had a connection to a house in Mansfield with white railings, and she knew someone who had been killed in a plane crash while with the RAF. 

He added that she had been going through five years of hell, the death had knocked her back, which had been too much for her to bear, and that her last name may have been Chapman. He also mentioned a pain in his left leg throughout the séance, as he believed she had a leg condition. Finally, he mentioned a yellow car and a bald-headed man.

The police were stunned. They had suspected that Enid had a connection with the medical profession but had not released the details publicly, so they were at a loss to describe how Tomlinson had known this.

A BBC special report was eventually named Enid. After watching the programme, a man living in Sussex came forward to say he believed he knew the woman but that her name was Doris Maud Pryor. He was her nephew. Police unearthed thirteen clues that confirmed her identity. However, by now, Doris had been buried, which made identifying her formally much more difficult. 

In a visit to the flats she had lived in, her landlord told police that she hadn’t seen Doris in a while, but she had told her that she would be going to stay with a female friend in Bristol. She had been living in the city and working for the Red Cross.

Doris had handed over the keys not long after. Keys found in her handbag unlocked luggage found in the train station at Brighton, and dental records formally identified her. Her luggage also had the same tie on labels. Although curiously, she had told her landlady to keep any letters as she would return, but had asked the bank to stop her pension. Her doctor confirmed that apart from insomnia, she had been completely healthy. Police determined that she had taken her own life and her nephew sadly confirmed that the labels were likely her attempt not to cause any distress to her family. It’s not clear if the controversial police use of psychics stopped in that case, but Tomlinson was proved wrong.

The seventies saw the demolition of several well-known Nottingham hotels, starting with The Black Boy on Long Row in 1969/70. The Welbeck Hotel near Victoria Station followed in 1970 to make way for Victoria Centre, and finally, the County Hotel was also demolished in 1975. The demolition made way for the rumoured £1 million extension to the Theatre Royal, which today contains the new dressing rooms, stage door and offices. Time was called for the last time at the bar on November 1 1975, despite local attempts to save it through a petition signed by 1,000 people, which was handed to the Lord Mayor, Ivy Matthews.