enfield is not a place where Hollywood has ever sought much inspiration. Cradle of Amy Winehouse, site of the world’s first ATM, home of the mighty Enfield Town FC it may be – but to an outsider, its endless interwar semis and end-of-history retail outlets would appear to harbour few surprises. The Enfield-born travel writer Norman Lewis once cited this blankness as a sort of anti-inspiration: “It filled me with a desire to seek out pastures new as soon as possible, to make for somewhere else that was as else as it could be.” “Enfield,” he realised when the first cinema arrived in the town, “was nothing.”
But 40 years ago, there was the Enfield Case, one of Britain’s most notorious paranormal incidents, to remind us that sometimes, something does come from nothing.