Alice Parsons

Alice Parsons was the owner of an old stone house in Shoreditch in East End, which she inherited from her parents.

On 11 November 1959, she gave birth to a daughter Catherine Grace Parsons. As Catherine was born out of wedlock, Alice gave her up for adoption.

Her husband died many years before the 1990s.

After that, she lived alone. She rarely left the house for fear that Catherine may come looking for her. Alice prepared a room for Catherine and collected dolls, children's comics and books in case her daughter ever finds her. On Catherine's birthdays, Alice would bake a cake and write a letter to Catherine, addressed to the adoption agency but never mailed. In November 2016, Tanya Adeola found these letters unopened in the attic.

One day, not later than in the beginning of the 1990s, Alice lost her footing on the stairs and was saved from a nasty fall only by the intervention of a female bone spider. They became unlikely friends, with the spider comforting Alice with images of Catherine.

Constantine Oliver visited Alice and offered her to buy the house, moving her to a nursing home. She refused, but he was relentless.

When the spider gave birth to a baby girl, Alice would cradle the tiny thing in her lap and sing her lullabies.

By November 2014, Alice was becoming weak and was worried what would happen with her eight-legged lodgers without her. She changed her will instructing for the house to remain unperturbed for a year after her death and to be given to a charity for refugees afterwards.

Alice died in July 2015. She was buried in their family vault in Kensal Green cemetery. She also asked to locate her daughter but with delicacy as her daughter did not know her mother.

In November 2016, Tanya Adeola and Alan Turnpike had to disturb her remains in search for the baby spider, who had been accidentally carried away with the coffin. (PROSE: The Stone House)