‘Strangling men’: Ghost that haunts Hydro Majectic hotel room

June Clemenger worked at a Blue Mountains hotel before she was murdered by her jealous lover, but it’s believed her ghost has never left room 311.

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She then screamed two or three times, ‘Help, he is murdering me.’ As I put my arm around her throat again, we fell to the ground, still struggling. After a few moments, she fell limp. I then put my hand out and picked up a stone. With this, I hit her on the temple once.

Ronald Young, convicted killer

The year was 1938. June Clemenger’s fingers hammered at the typewriter keys, the clack-clack-clack filling the room with urgency. She was lost in her work, and her concentration was absolute.

‘June,’ her manager’s voice broke her focus. ‘There’s a letter for you.’

Her heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t told anyone she was here, just her parents. She reached out and took the envelope with trembling hands. There was no return address. Forcing a smile, she tucked it into her apron pocket. ‘Thank you.’

She couldn’t open it here. Not with other people around. She didn’t want anyone to see her cry. She placed the envelope in her handbag and tried to return to work, but her mind drifted back to the letter. It had to be from him, the man she had come all this way to escape.

The Hydro Majestic was in the middle of nowhere, which is why she had taken the job as the hotel’s typist. She had packed her bags and moved from the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney to high up past Katoomba, out of his reach. Or so she had thought until the manager handed her the letter.

‘Blast it,’ June muttered after she hit the wrong key and made a rare mistake. She reefed out the paper with the misspelled word and tossed it in the bin.

‘Are you alright?’ the manager asked. ‘You have been thumping away on that thing like you are trying to kill it.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ June said. ‘I’m just feeling a little off.’

‘Why don’t you take your break,’ the manager suggested.

‘Go out to the garden and sit in the sun. Some fresh air might do you some good.’

Hydro Majestic employee June Clemenger was murdered by her jealous lover in 1938. Picture: Truth Newspaper/Trove

June picked up her handbag and walked outside. She considered leaving the letter unopened, maybe even throwing it in the bin and pretending she never received it.

No, that would only make it worse. She had to confront whatever was in the envelope and deal with it. Sitting on a weathered bench, she pulled the letter out, breath catching in her throat. She unfolded the letter with shaky fingers and went straight to the last page.

Ronald.

It was him. He had found her. How?

She supposed it didn’t matter. Maybe he was writing to say he was moving on, that he had found someone else, and to wish her all the best. She went back to the start of the letter.

My dear,

A friend of yours told me I was wasting my time having anything to do with you because you and some nice-looking chap were together. Vince of W.B. tells me that you have been having a grand affair with Max, writing letters and ringing each other up. No doubt you know Max has a girlfriend of his own. Still, you take a keen delight in breaking other partnerships up. One of those girls should get you and brand you for life.

I showed your photograph to a certain man, and he said it was a picture of the modern flapper – very weak and no character. I said, ‘Sir, you take first prize for that description – it’s perfect.’

I’m the fellow who was supposed to have no backbone, yet I’ve sold papers and, at present, am making my way somewhere. I’ve also washed dishes in a cafe and scrubbed the floors. Those fellows you go about with wouldn’t know how to go about that; they’re mothers’ boys and girl mad. Anything with a skirt on does them.

As to the trouble you are in, I suggest that you get one of your rich friends to get you out of it. Let me warn you, my dear, that your day is coming, and you will suffer for some of the things you have done. No doubt you think you have suffered already, but allow me to tell you that you haven’t started to pay yet.

I might add that every time I think of you (and that is quite often), I get pain around the heart and believe me, it is not indigestion.

Tears blurred June’s vision. Ronald had found her, and he was not happy. The threats in the letter were explicit, and his anger jumped off the page. She began to cry.

‘Are you okay?’ someone asked gently.

June looked up, her vision still blurry. It was Thomas O’Connor.

‘No,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I think I am in trouble.’

‘What do you mean?’ said the storeman.

June took a deep breath and decided to trust him. He had a friendly face. ‘It’s a long story, but I need some help.’ Thomas nodded. ‘Of course.’

June poured her heart out. She told him about Ron and their tumultuous relationship. How, after meeting him three years before, Ron had inserted himself into her life. She had told him she wasn’t interested in a relationship, but he would not leave her alone. She had taken the job at the Hydro Majestic in a bid to escape.

‘I never thought he would find me here,’ June said, tears streaming down her face. ‘But now he has, and I don’t know what he is capable of.’

Thomas suggested contacting the police.

‘No, I don’t want to do that to him,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him getting into trouble.’

Thomas then suggested telling the manager.

‘No, I have only been here three weeks,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to lose this job.’

Thomas then offered to protect her. To walk her home to her boarding house on the other side of the station every evening.

‘Oh, you would do that for me?’ She stopped crying and smiled.

‘It is a gentlemen’s duty,’ Thomas said.

June returned to work after she had agreed to meet Thomas in the foyer at the end of her shift.

‘You’re back early,’ said the manager. ‘You still have another ten minutes.’

June looked at the clock. He was right. June decided to spend the remainder of her break at the typewriter.

‘Dear Ron,’ she started the letter.

I don’t love you anymore, and that’s the plain cold truth. I’ve pretended and lied and have been pretty rotten about it all, but now we’ve got to face facts. We had better get the truth out.

For over a year, you’ve had me scared and stiff of you. Yes, and did you know that you scared every vestige of love from me? Do you realise that sometimes, when I’ve been with you, I’ve loathed you? Now be sensible and don’t make It harder for me. Be a man to the best of your ability instead of the jelly- splined creature I’ve always known you to be. Try to make good. I disliked writing to you, but we can’t let things drift like this anymore. I am hoping you’ll be decent and let me be. I care for you but in a motherly kind of way. I hope you’ll take this friendly attitude for what it’s meant for. Please, Ronny, dear, work hard and have time and ambition besides taking girls down. It’s no use your wasting coming up here, as I shall be gone by the time you receive this letter.

June

June Clemenger took a job as a typist at the Hydro Majestic Hotel to get away from her former lover Ronald Young. Picture: Craig Greenhill

Ronald Young snarled and stuffed the letter into his pocket.

He then packed a bag and walked out the door in a rage.

‘I received a letter from her stating that we had better have nothing more to do with each other,’ the 24-year-old later said in a statement. ‘Naturally … I was broken-hearted.’

On the morning of 13 January 1938, Ronald left Sydney at 2.55am and arrived at Medlow Bath at 7.20am. By 9am he was already lurking in the shadows near the Hydro Majestic, watching and waiting.

‘I saw her at her place of employment,’ he later recounted.

‘But she did not see me as I did not wish to speak to her in the street when my clothes were ragged.’

The hotel was bustling with people, making it impossible to approach her unnoticed. Ronald decided to bide his time and waited near her boarding house, hoping to catch her alone.

‘I waited near where she lived,’ Ronald recalled. ‘I waited for her until 11pm, but she did not come. I slept near the railway line and thought she may have come home after 11pm. I woke up and watched the house where she resides from 6am until 10am, thinking I may see her going to work, but I didn’t see her.’

10.50am. That’s when Ronald ran out of patience. He walked into the boarding house and demanded to use the phone.

‘I phoned the Hydro Majestic and said it was Sydney calling Miss Clemenger,’ Ronald said.

‘I did that because if they told her it was a local call, she might know it was me and would refuse to speak to me. When she answered the phone, I told her I was in Medlow Bath and would like to see her. She objected until I told her if she didn’t see me, I would stay in Medlow Bath until she did. She then consented to see me at 12.15 at a seat near the railway line in Station Street.’

June’s hands had been shaking as soon as she was called to the phone.

‘Are you alright, dear?’ asked a fellow officer worker.

‘Right as rain,’ she said, but she wasn’t. She willed her hands to stop shaking but that only made them shake harder. ‘But I am busting to go to the loo.’

She jumped up and ducked out. She wanted to run, but that would only draw more attention. Instead she walked as fast as she could, past the toilet and out the back door. She ran as soon as the building was behind her.

As soon as she saw that Thomas was the only one in the maintenance shed, she started crying.

‘He’s here,’ she cried. ‘He has come to get me.’

‘She told me Young had phoned and insisted on seeing her,’ O’Conner said later.

‘And rather than have a scene at the Hydro, she had arranged to meet him. She asked me to accompany her, and at 12.30pm that day, we walked toward the Medlow railway bridge, and I saw Young waiting under a tree. Miss Clemenger asked me to wait about twenty yards away and to approach after five minutes.’

O’Conner stood back and sized up the stalker.

‘When I started to approach a few minutes later, she waved me back, so I went up to the corner. Young was sitting on a seat, and she was standing in front of him. I watched them for some time and then went away. That was the last I saw of her alive.’

Former Hydro Majestic duty manager James Shipton in the hotel’s Room 311, which is believed to be haunted. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Emails unanswered, phone calls rerouted and not returned, and even a history tour I had booked suspiciously cancelled at the last minute, I am beginning to think the only thing less popular at the Hydro Majestic than their poltergeist is James Phelps.

It has been almost two years since I first stepped into this hotel, and while I have spoken to scores of people and collected a series of spinechilling stories about it, no one with a first-hand account has been willing to be named.

With this book done but not dusted and just three days until the deadline, I make a spur-of-the-moment decision to return to the Hydro Majestic for one final crack.

Fearing I might be as welcome as a busload of Covid couriers, I book my room at the last minute and after hours. I grab my gear, get into the car and spend the next two hours driving in the dark, both figuratively and literally.

I arrive at the hotel at 8.45pm.

‘A booking for James Phelps,’ I say, after checking my email to ensure my reservation has not been cancelled during the drive.

The receptionist attacks her keyboard. ‘Staying with us for two nights?’ she asks, looking up from her computer screen.

Yes! I think. I’m through the front gate. I’m about to hand over my credit card when I remember I had only booked for one night.

‘I have you for two nights, sir,’ she says, showing me the booking sheet.

‘I’m not Mr Field,’ I say, pointing out the mistake.

She goes back to her computer after I spell out my name.

‘There seems to be a problem with the booking, sir,’ she says, looking back up from her screen.

Here we go …

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

She disappears into the office.

Oh well, at least I tried. She returns holding a piece of paper.

‘Here it is,’ she says, to my surprise. ‘Sorry, it wasn’t in the system.’

Keys cut, all checked in, I make my way across the reception hall, through the casino and into Cat’s Alley.

Phelps checked himself into the Hydro Majestic to learn more about the haunted hotel. Picture: John Fotiadis

‘Mr James Phelps,’ says the man in the suit as I step into the Delmonte Wing. ‘You are back.’

It is the manager who took me down to the morgue on my first stay here.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he tells me. ‘I saw your name on the list. My shift finished about half an hour ago, but I decided to stick around.’

‘Do you want to tell me some more stories?’ I ask nervously. I don’t get the impression he wants to kick me out. Or put me in … I mean, show me the morgue.

‘Absolutely,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you get settled and meet me back here.’

I ask if he would go on the record this time.

‘Your timing is perfect,’ he says. ‘This is actually my third last shift. It’s a long story, but I am finally moving on. So yes, I will be happy to tell you everything and anything. You can put my name on it and print it all. I’ll stand by every word I say because it is all true.’

The manager’s name is James Shipton. He was not only a manager at the Hydro Majestic but also the hotel’s historian. Shipton has taken thousands of people through the hotel during his history tours, but he has never spoken about the hotel’s haunted history.

Until now.

So let’s end this book by returning to where it began: the Hydro Majestic, Medlow Bath. This is the incredible and true account of the ghosts of the Hydro Majestic. Of the guests who never checked out and the staff members whose service is eternal.

Shipton’s first brush with the supernatural happened only three months after he began working at the hotel.

‘I started my shift at 3pm and did the rounds as usual,’ Shipton said. ‘I noticed we were running low on milk in the Belgravia lounge, so I started toward the kitchen to get more.’

Shipton began the 150-metre trek to the kitchen near the pavilion at the southern end of the hotel by crossing the Belgravia lounge and entering the casino. He then headed past the pavilion bar and towards Cat’s Alley.

The bathroom inside Room 311. Picture: Rohan Kelly

‘I was the only person in that section of the hotel,’ Shipton said.

‘It was a weekday, so everything apart from the Belgravia lounge was closed.’

He stepped into Cat’s Alley. The first noise he heard was made by the floorboards beneath his feet. They squeaked. The second noise he heard was made by a ghost.

‘I heard a woman whisper something into my ear when I stepped in Cat’s Alley,’ Shipton said. ‘It was loud, like she was standing behind me, but I couldn’t understand what she said.’

Shipton figured it must have been a guest who had wandered wayward.

‘I spun around, ready to give her directions,’ Shipton said.

‘But no one was there.’

Not a living soul in sight.

‘My heart began pounding,’ Shipton said. ‘Like, full-on palpitations. I couldn’t see anyone but knew I wasn’t alone.’

Shipton’s gut said ghost.

‘But I wasn’t what you would call a big ghost person, so I said, “Right, that’s weird,” and just shook it off.’

Shipton had heard all the stories.

‘I grew up in the Blue Mountains, so I was familiar with the place,’ Shipton said. ‘I can still remember being in the car with my parents when we drove past and saying, “Wow, what’s that?” I heard about the place being haunted, but I didn’t take it too seriously.’

Not until he had his second unexplained encounter, another assault on the senses. Not a sound this time but a smell.

‘It had been a quiet night, and the few people staying in the hotel had all left the Belgravia lounge at 8pm to go to bed,’ Shipton said. ‘I closed everything up, grabbed the cash till and headed towards the office. And the moment I stepped into Cat’s Alley, I was overwhelmed by the smell of perfume.

It just hit me like a slap in the face. Strong. Floral. It was like somebody just sprayed it in the air. And then suddenly, I heard footsteps.’

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The sound was coming from up ahead.

Louder and louder. Closer and closer.

Shipton stopped and stood still. He held his breath and waited.

‘What’s wrong, bro?’ said the chef as he stepped around the corner into Cat’s Alley. ‘Have you seen the ghost?’

Not a ghost. The ghost.

‘What ghost?’ Shipton asked.

And that’s when Shipton first heard about Room 311.

Mr Shipton is the hotel’s Cat’s Alley, where he had two ghostly encounters. Picture: Rohan Kelly

‘He asked me if I knew a guy who used to work here,’ Shipton said. ‘He hadn’t worked here when I started, but he came in occasionally, and I had been introduced to him. He then told me that this guy had been staying in Room 311 when the hotel opened. That part of the hotel was still closed and being used to accommodate staff. He told me that this guy had fled the hotel one night after seeing a ghost in his room. He said it had scared him so much that he resigned the next day.’

Shipton began noticing oddities shortly after being told the tale.

‘You feel the cold as soon as you step into the stairwell that leads up to that room,’ Shipton said. ‘And it’s always cold, even in the middle of summer.’

He had heard whispers, smelled perfume and been told a tale, but he didn’t believe the Hydro Majestic was indeed haunted.

Not until a chance encounter with the former employee forced him to change his tune.

‘I saw him in the hotel one day and I couldn’t help myself,’ Shipton said. ‘I went to him and asked if the story was true. If he had run down the stairs crying and quit on the spot.’

Shipton thought the story he had been told may have been embellished. It turns out the story had been played down, not up.

‘He had felt a presence as soon as he began staying in that room,’ Shipton said. ‘And on a couple of occasions when he woke up, he thought a lady on the left side of the bed was looking down at him.’

Cat's Alley where James Shipton had his two encounters.

Shipton was suddenly all ears and hanging on every word.

‘He was very uncomfortable but decided putting up with it was better than asking for a new room and explaining why he wanted to be moved,’ Shipton said. ‘But that all changed the night he was attacked.’

That’s right, he hadn’t just seen a ghost – he had been assaulted by one.

‘He was suddenly slapped across the face by something unseen,’ Shipton said. ‘He said it was so hard that it brought tears to his eyes. He was trying to figure out what had happened when a lady suddenly appeared in front of his face. She then grabbed his neck and started strangling him. He freaked out and fled the room.’

He did not quit, but he never stepped into Room 311 again.

Not even to grab his gear.

‘He also called the boss the next morning to report what had happened,’ Shipton said.

Shipton revealed that the former hotel owners were so concerned that they hired a spiritual medium.

‘They wanted to know what was happening and why,’ Shipton said. ‘Not just in the room but in the rest of the hotel.

So they had a medium come in, and she said she had found the spirits of a little boy and a little girl in the hotel.’

The employee did not enter Room 311 again, but others did.

The next person to flee in fright was a guest. ‘Not long after that section of the hotel was opened to the public, a woman ran out of the room screaming,’ Shipton said. ‘She was in hysterics, saying the water was running down the walls and that all the taps in the bathroom had turned themselves on. The cleaner went in to investigate, and the bath was overflowing and water was coming down the wall.’

The cleaner wasn’t surprised. She liked this room less than the guest.

‘She had seen things too,’ Shipton said.

The woman he had described gets out and about. She is frequently spotted in the stairwell and Cat’s Alley.

‘Everyone who has worked in the hotel has encountered the woman,’ Shipton said. ‘Not just in Room 311 but also in Cat’s Alley and the hotel area that used to be an office.

Guests have seen her too. Most say she has come down the stairs, walked onto the balcony out the front and then just disappeared.’

The ghost of Room 311 was known as the Strangler until Shipton dug into the past and unearthed the tragic tale of a former employee. Her name was June Clemenger.

‘It had to be her,’ Shipton said. ‘The ghost had a thing for strangling men and was always sighted in the areas of the hotel where she would have worked during her time here. I had a spirit medium lady come in to get her thoughts. I told her nothing about what was happening or my suspicions, and the thing she said was that she was getting a strong feeling of a rope around her throat. There is a lady here. She either hung herself with a rope or was murdered by being strangled with one.’

Shipton had little doubt that the female spirit was June as the sightings continued.

‘I had a woman come up to me during a history tour and say that she had seen a female on the stairs the evening before,’ Shipton said. ‘I asked her for a description, and she told me the woman was in her early twenties, slender and with dark hair.

I then showed her a picture of June Clemenger, and she said,

“Yep, that’s her.” ’

The Belgravia Room at the Hydro Majestic. Picture: Supplied

When she is not strolling the stairs or strangling men, the floral-scented spectre spends her time with a ghostly girl.

‘A lot of people have reported seeing a young girl,’ Shipton said. ‘We believe it may be a little girl who died in a balcony fall. There is an old picture that you can find in the stairwell. It was taken in Cat’s Alley, and at the back of the photo you will see two white apparitions. They both appear to be females, but one is a woman, and one is a girl.’

Shipton was recently emailed a photo that appeared to show a ghostly girl.

‘A guy was out here doing some filming, and he went outside to take some location shots,’ Shipton said. ‘He ended up emailing me one of those photos a week or so later, and you can see the image of a girl in the salon window. So I’d have to say the three main ghosts are the girl, the boy, and of course June, our most famous spirit.’

Not quite. While he isn’t as popular, our first prime minister, Sir Edmond Barton, edges out June when it comes to celebrity.

Author James Phelps. Picture: Brett Costello

Phelps’ new book Australian Ghost Stories.

The medium also said she was getting a really strong feeling about an old gentleman,’ Shipton said of the medium he had hired. ‘She said the gentleman also had a strong connection to family and country. He was a very important man, and he died here. You know what I’m getting at here? That sounds very much like Edmund Barton to me.’

As you may recall from this book’s introduction, Barton was first sighted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle way back in 1921, after the elderly statesman died beside his bath the year before, and since that time he has introduced himself to scores of guests.

‘I had a woman staying here approach me and ask about the gentleman who is always walking up and down the corridors watching people,’ Shipton said. ‘She was like, “He is always there and looking at me.” I pulled out my phone, searched for a picture of Barton and showed it to her. “Yeah, that’s him,” she said.’

Sir Barton is not one for strangling staff. Shipton revealed a hotel cleaner stumbled and almost fell down some stairs when Sir Barton suddenly swooped in like Superman to save her.

‘She told me that she tripped and was about to fall when the ghost of an elderly man pulled her back,’ Shipton said. ‘She honestly believed it was him.’

Plenty of other ghosts are getting about the historic Hydro Majestic halls.

‘I can’t tell you the number of times I have been sitting in the office working away and suddenly something has whooshed past,’ Shipton said. ‘I usually don’t pay much attention, but one evening, I was in there at 4am staring at the printer, and suddenly I felt something move past. I turned and saw a man walking out the door towards the kitchen. I went straight into the kitchen and no one was there.’

Can you spot the ghost? A photograph taken by James Phelps.

And there is another rumour. Before she died in 2011, Mary Shaw – Mark Foy’s granddaughter – claimed there was a body buried underneath the Belgravia Wing.

‘She believed the body belonged to an employee who went missing in 1938,’ Shipton said. ‘The original Belgravia Wing was destroyed in a fire in 1922, and the new wing was finished in 1938. Shaw said she had been told a builder had murdered the woman and buried her under the floor in the reception area.’

Last interview for the final chapter done, I stand up and shake Shipton’s hand.

‘So, did you get everything you need?’ he asks.

‘Yep,’ I say, a sense of accomplishment in my voice. ‘That was brilliant. I can’t thank you enough.’

With that, Shipton is gone, and I am finally finished. I am about to head to my room when I realise I do not, in fact, have everything I need.

What sort of ghost writer would I be without my own ghost photo?

So, with a surge of anticipation, I pull out my phone and head down to Cat’s Alley, intent on capturing a spirit of my very own. Picture taken, phone down, I appraise the photo with critical eyes.

Turn to the last page of the picture section.

BOOM! Mic dropped.

I’m out of here.

This is an edited extract from Australian Ghost Stories by James Phelps published on October 2 (HarperCollins Australia $34.99)
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460764152/australian-ghost-stories/