Today, she has an open mind over links with the afterlife. She told the Mail: “Nowadays, I believe very much in psychic things. I just wish I knew then what I know now.
‘‘At the time, I said there was someone who knew what was going on – but I’m more open-minded now.
“It was like being stalked, as if someone was watching us. The police would leave here at 2am and by the time they had reached the police station, there would be another attack.
“You could hear the stones rolling down the roof. It was so weird.
‘‘It always happened when you were falling asleep. I was studying for A Levels at the time and it took its toll on me. My A Levels were rubbish.
“It got to the point where you couldn’t sleep, you were just waiting for something to happen...
‘‘It was happening so regularly.
“There were police everywhere and they even put a camera in one of our rooms. My mum was at her wits’ end, it was the lack of sleep.”
The home of Geoffrey Sidebotham and sister Gwenneth Donnelly sustained the worst damage.
They still live at 36 – the home they shared with their parents.
Geoffrey, aged 67, said: “I’m still very bitter. It was an absolute nightmare and hastened the death of my mother, without a doubt.”
His mother, crippled with arthritis and emphysema, died in 1982.
Geoffrey worked nights for the Co-Op so was not present when windows were put through.
But he was sceptical about the ghostly claims. Someone – not something – did it, and got away with it.
“It upset the whole household. There were police everywhere, even in the trees, freezing,’’ he recalled.
“Windows were smashed every night by stones. As soon as you replaced one, it would be put through again.
‘‘One bed was covered in glass. We weren’t fully insured, so it must’ve cost a fortune.”
Gwenneth wept as she recalled the nightly torment.
The 64-year-old said: “It took my mother’s life. I can remember a stone coming through the window and landing right by her wheelchair.
‘‘I used to go to bed with a Bible under my pillow and prayed every night for it to stop.
“A vicar came to our house and he was convinced it was the work of vandals.”
Police never bought into the poltergeist theory, believing the culprit was using a giant catapult to bombard houses from a 200-yard distance.
In December 1981, Supt Baden Skitt vowed officers would get their man.
“We have devoted know-how and manpower of major murder hunt proportions,’’ he said.
“We are not treating it as a game.
“A very serious crime is being committed.
‘‘The culprit holds all the aces, but we will get him in the end. He will slip up.”
He – or ‘it’ – never did.
And that’s a very bitter pill for Geoffrey Sidebotham to swallow.
“After all those years, I would still like to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
The truth, as TV’s X-Files so famously said, is still out there...
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