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EDITORIAL WELCOME TO HAUNTED, a new and vibrant paranormal magazine, packed full of what we like to call “scary goodness”.

CONTENTS JUNE/JULY 2010 - ISSUE 3 27

If this is your first time reading HAUNTED, where have you been? This our fourth issue now and we are as busy as ever tweaking things, fine tuning this and altering that all for you, YES we care about you that much. I can’t quite believe that we are now into Summer, it has been that hot that even our dear friend Jim Reaper has been on holiday (as you can tell from the front cover) visiting a few seaside haunts, donning his “kill me quick hat” whilst eating his Ice Scream. Things are changing rapidly at HAUNTED we should let you into a little secret about the magazine but we’re gonna wait a month or two, needless to say it’s a biggie. What a Summer we have in store eh? The World Cup in High Definition, Ghost Stories in the West End, Famous BUT Frightened on the TV and Tracey Barlow back on Coronation Street, our spines are tingling already. What has HAUNTED got planned for you in this spine-tingling issue? Well, lots more of the same excellent features that fall within the eclectic mix of the paranormal umbrella and our regular writers HAZEL FORD, LEE ROBERTS, LESLEY SMITH and JASON KARL are back to titillate you. Now the bad news: we’ve not got a celebrity interview this time (Boo-Hoo!!), WE’VE GOT THREE: (Way-Hay (Had ya fooled there didn’t I?) Andy Nyman (Ghost Stories & Dead Set), Chris Conway (Famous BUT Frightened and ex-Most Haunted) and Joel Moore (Spiral & Avatar) who all have links with the paranormal in their own ways answer our questions. There is also an awesome WICKEDPEDIA feature on the late, great, Harry Price, who is a legend and is still revered amongst many paranormal groups to this day (and rightly so).

HAUNTED SEASIDE LOCATIONS

WHERE ARE THEY BURIED

ANDY NYMAN

Enjoy the magazine!! Finally, remember don’t be normal and natural, be PARAnormal and SUPERnatural!!

Albert Nonn 4

HAUNTED MAGAZINE JUNE/JULY 2010

LESLEY SMITH

JOEL MOORE

EDITORS Albert Nonn (info@hauntedmagazine.co.uk) Paul Stevenson (paul@hauntedmagazine.co.uk) Tel: 01623 511203 DESIGNER Richard Page (richard@roomtwelve.co.uk) www.roomtwelve.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS Libby Clark, Hazel Ford, Juliette Gregson, Jason Karl, Lee Roberts, Lesley Smith, Philip Solomon, Morgan Steele SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES info@hauntedmagazine.co.uk SYNDICATION Paul Stevenson 01623 511203 (paul@hauntedmagazine.co.uk) PUBLISHED BY ANON PUBLICATIONS 6 Peveril Drive, Sutton In Ashfield, Nottinghamshire NG17 2GT anonpublications@hotmail.com PRINTED IN THE UK BY Buxton Press “Printing company of the year” STANDARD SUBSCRIPTION RATES 6 Issues: UK £16, EU £22 Rest of the World: £32 For more info email info@hauntedmagazine.co.uk

SO YOU WANT TO WORK...IN SCARE ENTERTAINMENT

Visit: www.hauntedmagazine.co.uk For regular news updates, competitions and paranormal info, you can now follow HAUNTED on: TWITTER - @hauntedmagazine FACEBOOK - Join the HAUNTED MAGAZINE Group Page

WICKEDPEDIA

JASON KARL’S SCAREZONE

REGULARS

PHILIP SOLOMON

PLEASE STOP YOU’RE KILLING ME! I’m a medium, that’s what it says in my underpants. Haunted dedicates a page to the lighter side of the Paranormal “READ ALL ABARRRT IT!!” Catch up with the latest Paranormal news in the UK

10 WHERE ARE THEY BURIED? Haunted seeks out the final resting places of much loved and dearly departed well-known celebrities and not so well-known famous people

Front cover designed by Mychailo Kazybrid CHARACTER CREATION Comic book art, strip cartoons, storyboard & promotional artwork

23 “LEGGI TUTTE LE INFORMAZIONI” Catch up with the latest Paranormal news from all over the world 39 SO YOU WANT TO WORK... Dead good Careers advice, not for the faint hearted 82 PARANORMAL TV FLASHBACK If your mansion house needs haunting just call RENTAGHOST 87 LIBBY’S LAST RITES Libby Clark, our resident Medium shares her thoughts and muses about love, life, anything and everything

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DEAD FUNNY

Got any good Paranormal related jokes? Send them to info@hauntedmagazine.co.uk and if we like them we might use them (after copyrighting them of course). What have you got to lose? (apart from your dignity, kudos and respect of your fellow man (or woman))

Here at HAUNTED we like a laugh, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not just into the macabre and mysterious world of the paranormal!

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The Paranorm “WHO” THE HELL ARE YOU? Doctor Who actress Karen Gillan has revealed how she is ‘freaked out’ by her haunted home. Karen, 22 can currently be seen fighting Daleks, Vampires and other outer-space creatures opposite Matt Smith in BBC show Doctor Who, in which she plays the Doctor’s assistant Amy Pond. Asked what scares her, she said: ‘Paranormal activity. If I’m at home on my own and trying to sleep, I can get quite freaked out and need to look around every few seconds. My mother is adamant there are ghosts in our house, which hasn’t helped me. She thinks we’ve got a presence.’

GOOGLE: SO WHAT THE SUFFOLK IS GOING ON?

THE GRAND OLD SPOOK OF YORK

It has captured images of swearing Suffolk folk, picturesque county beauty spots, a giant invading bug and now Google Street View appears to have snapped a UFO hovering over Orford Castle.

Yorkshire - Britain’s most haunted county?

The image, spotted by Adrian Chambers, shows what looks to be a dark circular shape suspended in the air near the famous landmark. It can also be spotted hovering above the village as one takes a virtual wander down Castle Hill Road. Street View went live for most of the country in March 2010 after a year of work to capture 360-degree images using car-mounted cameras across the UK and since its launch it has already thrown up some rather amusing and controversial images across Suffolk. In

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one shot, a van driver can be seen making an offensive hand gesture at the camera, while another appears to be showing a giant bug on the verge of invading Stowmarket from the air. In Ipswich, a driver is being spoken to by police officers as the Google car sidles past. The internet service sparked controversy when it first went live in other parts of the country because of its apparent intrusion of privacy. Google believes it has countered that argument by blurring faces and number plates. It also says there are no images that are not already visible from public areas. To see for yourself type in Orford Castle on Google Maps (and go to the street view) and bingo - as clear as clearish mud a UFO!! or http://www.sott.net/articles/ show/205008-England-Google-Street-Viewcaptures-UFO-over-Suffolk-castle if that is easier for you.

YES, according to a report commissioned for Supernatural, the US television series, which reveals dramatic recent increases in the number of ghostly sightings. There have been nearly 1,000 reports of demonic activity in the past quarter of a century, with Yorkshire the nation’s most ghostly county. Encounters with devils, demons and evil spirits are as widespread today as they were in medieval times, researchers claim. Seventy four demons are reported to be living in Yorkshire, a county long-

mal Observer WHAT IS E.T SHORT FOR? BECAUSE HE HAS LITTLE LEGS OF COURSE

AND FINALLY...SOMETHING KINDA

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking.

Girls Aloud Songstress Sarah Harding danced with death when a dabble with a Ouija board saw her party plunge into darkness.

He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact. The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries. Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not established as a haven for ghosts and gothic legend (no coincidence this was once home to the Bronte family who inhabited a village placed on the edge of a suitably spectral moor). Roman and Viking spirits strolling the streets of York and the hanged man at Busby Stoop inn.

just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space. Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved. Last night, Stephen Hawking was unavailable for comment, however a spokesperson said that he had been pressing F5 on his keyboard all day, and was now totally refreshed. Stephen Hawking’s Universe began on the Discovery Channel on Sunday May 9 at 9pm There are bricked up nuns in Whitby, monks wandering the Stocksbridge bypass, and lots, lots, more (look out for Haunted Yorkshire, coming soon to the pages of HAUNTED)

Ooooohh!!

She was game for a laugh when pals suggested a spooky late-night seance but was left shaken to her core by a ghostly intervention. “Sarah loves the paranormal, so she was really excited about calling up the spirits and was gagging for a go on the Ouija board”, a friend said, “But when she and her mates joined hands and asked questions to summon the dead, a lightbulb suddenly blew, making the room pitch black”. She had got into the ghostly mood at a screening of new flick Psych:9. The diva has had a dalliance with the deceased before when her bandmates got together for a Ghost-hunting TV special. She said: “I’m really interested in the supernatural. I wasn’t scared of the Ouija board – I really enjoyed it.”

CHARMING: SUPERSTICIOUSCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIUS They are taken to exams, job interviews and weddings in the hope they will bring good fortune. But rather than being mere superstition, lucky charms do actually work, psychologists claim. Researchers told half the golfers on a putting green that they were playing with a lucky ball, and the rest that they were playing with a normal one. Those with the lucky ball sank 6.4 putts out of 10, nearly

two more putts on average than the others - an increase of 35 per cent. The results have sparked huge interest among behavioural psychologists who say they put luck in a different light. Even celebrities have often admitted relying on a lucky charm. Cameron Diaz has a necklace given to her by a friend because she thinks it will ward off the effects of aging, while Julie Walters kept a lucky piece of coal in her bag during one Oscars ceremony. Perhaps the most bizarre tradition among celebrities is that Atonement star James McAvoy says

‘white rabbit’ on the first of every month to the first person he sees - because his grandmother taught him that it brings good luck. Mathematicians have demonstrated in the past the role that randomness plays in people’s lives, but this has not stopped many believing the opposite. A recent survey found that 77 per cent of people were at least a little superstitious and/or engaged in some form of superstitious behaviour. A total of 42 per cent said that they were ‘very or somewhat’ superstitious.

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HAUNTED MAGAZINE JUNE/JULY 2010

Where Are They Buried

y e h t e r a e wher

buried Britain, Britain, Britain!...Land of technological achievement! We’ve had running water for over ten years now , an underground tunnel that links Blackpool to Brighton and we invented the Donkey! I love Britain so much that everyday I sacrifice a small goat in honour of it. So thank the Lord, who incidentally is British, for the greatness he has brought to this land. But what makes Britain so fandabbydozy? Why, it’s the great British haunted seaside locations, which incidentally all have beaches close to the sea. Why would you ever want to leave? Anybody who goes on holiday abroad is a traitor! I bloody love it here! Bloody love it! We produce the best doughnuts, the finest fish and chip shops and our kiss me quick hats are a legend. And this is all thanks to the deceased peoples of Britain. Let us look at them in this excellently written feature. Boom, boom, shake the room! ...Britain, Britain, Britain. I must go now as I promised my homies we’d chill for a bit, drink some pimp juice and god willing get us some sweet booty. Goodnight Campers.. Bye-De-Bye!!

“Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside

I do like to be beside the sea! I do like to stroll upon the Prom, Prom, Prom! Where the brass bands play: “Tiddely-om-pom-pom!” So just let me be beside the seaside I’ll be beside myself with glee And there’s lots of GHOULS beside, I should like to be beside Beside the seaside! Beside the sea!”

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BILLY BUTLIN, Holiday Entrepreneur Born: 29th September 1899, Cape Town, South Africa Died: 12th June 1980, St. John, Jersey Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne (“Billy”) Butlin was the founder of Butlins Holiday Camps. Billy Butlin was born in South Africa. His father, also called William Butlin, was the son of a clergyman but his mother, Bertha Hill, was a member of a family of travelling showmen. Their marriage was considered something of a disgrace and they were encouraged to

emigrate to South Africa as his father was then known as a “remittance man” which is now more commonly known as a “black sheep”. There they settled in Mowbray, a small suburb of Cape Town. Their house was a small timber built affair and from this they started a bicycle business in a shed at the rear of the house selling and hiring out the new safety cycle, the successor to the Penny-farthing. The cycle business was unfortunately like their marriage doomed to failure. With the marriage “on the rocks” Bertha returned home with the young Billy and his brother Binkie to her family in Bristol. Leaving the two boys with her sister Jessie, she travelled around the summer fairs in her caravan running a gingerbread stall for her brother Marshall. They had not been in England long when Binkie sadly died of infantile paralysis and so Billy then joined his mother on her travels. With all this travelling Bill’s education was very haphazard, and his greatest lesson in life was learning about people. In 1911 Bertha met Charles Rowbotham, who worked for the Bristol gasworks; they were soon married and emigrated to Canada. Both thought it too big a risk to take young Billy and so they boarded him out with a widow in Bedminster, Bristol. Being stuck

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in one place meant that education now played a big part in Billy’s life and for two years he attended the St. Mary Redcliffe School at Bristol. Although he could read very well he was very slow in other practical subjects, he did however discover that he had an aptitude for drawing and painting which he then concentrated on. Billy’s life was soon in upheaval again when Bertha and Charles sent for him to go to Toronto. The journey took him thirteen days, ten at sea and three by train, but Billy soon settled into his new life very well. Although education once again played an important part in Bill’s life he only stuck with it until he was twelve years old. He was very unhappy at school and was always being mocked because of his English accent which he did not speak correctly as he kept dropping his aitches. With this and coupled with the fact that his family needed money he found himself a job with a firm that collected waste paper, for this he was paid two dollars a week. Always on the lookout for something better he eventually got a job as a messenger boy at Eaton’s, Toronto’s largest department store. Ever ambitious to move on Bill attended art school in an evening to try to develop his gift for drawing and painting. He eventually found himself transferred to the art department at Eaton’s. Being the youngest and least experienced member of the department he found himself being restricted to drawing the easiest of objects.

One of the best aspects of working for the company was that he was able to visit their summer camp, which gave him his first taste of a real holiday, indeed a taste of what was to become a very big part of his life. In 1914 came the outbreak of the First World War and recruiting to the Canadian Army began. At first it was decided that only the cream of Canadian blood was good enough to be spilled and so Billy Butlin was not eligible to enlist, twelve months later they were not so fussy. Billy was still working at Eaton’s and was courting a young girl called Jean Coombs, wanting to impress her, but not wishing to be in the front line of battle, he thought one safe way would be to volunteer as a motorcycle dispatch rider. This breed of men enjoyed the same glamour of that of the fighter pilots of the Second World War. So Billy went to enlist safe in the knowledge that some of his colleges at Eaton’s had also volunteered for the same unit but had been rejected because the Canadian army had its full quota, they had however been told that they would be called upon when needed. This pleased Billy because he was keen to impress but not so keen to join. Unfortunately When Billy arrived at the drill hall, he dropped a “big clanger” he somehow forgot to tell the drill sergeant that he wanted to be a dispatch rider. Instead he just filled out the papers, signed his name and was told to return the following day for his uniform. On his way home he realised his mistake and did think about going straight back to tell the recruiting sergeant, but worried that he might get into trouble he thought better

of it. He was in further hot water when he got home as he hadn’t told his mother of his plans! The next day Bill returned to the drill hall, (still not having told his mother of his plans) and was presented with his uniform which was ill fitting. Now all kited up he was told to report back again the next day, leaving the hall he went home to break the news to his mother and after a few tears she accepted the inevitable. On reporting back the following day the Army used it’s initiative and made him the bugle boy in a band, even though he did not know a note of music, but this was not a problem as none of the others in the regiment could play either!. In October 1915 Bill was posted to Borden Camp, Toronto along with the other buglers and it was here that Bill and a comrade decided to desert, not back to Civvy Street as you would imagine, but to a battalion stationed forty miles away at Hamilton. Upon arrival they both joined the Cavalry Regiment who immediately set about their education. In only a few days the regiment was due to be shipped abroad and so the normal seven weeks training was crammed into just a few hours. After two long days stuck on a horse with no respite, Billy and friend decided that this was not the life for them and so they went A.W.O.L. Once back into Toronto they returned to their barracks explaining how sorry they were, the Army was very sympathetic towards them and gave them 21 days in jail. Eventually Billy settled into Army life and was posted overseas where he received his one and only injury during the entire War. During his training on how to deal with German grenades one of the detonators exploded in Private Butlin’s face. The injury was not serious and after a week Billy was released from hospital just in time to be posted to France with his battalion. Billy never saw any front line action, the war passed mainly quietly for him and in 1918 he was back in Toronto after being demobbed and thrown out onto Civvy

Street with no job. Bill went home to his mother who was now alone, as Charlie had died in 1917. He was soon out and about looking for a job, one with security and a pension and almost ended up working for the City Council as a lavatory attendant, the only thing which separated him from a loo brush was the fact that he filled the forms in wrong!. Instead he returned to Eaton’s with cap in hand asking for his old job back, surprisingly they gave him it. He stayed eighteen months before getting itchy feet again and along with his friend Norman Littlewood who had been in France with him; they set up a darts stall at the Toronto Exhibition offering dolls as prizes. The stall was a success and feeling very sure of themselves they thought the world was their oyster, how wrong they were and they soon came down to earth with a very big bump. A stranger approached them claiming to be a fellow showman who

exhibition only to find that the man, who had taken their cash in advance, had left in advance too. Downhearted they returned to Toronto and once again cap in hand Billy went back to Eaton’s to ask for his old job back. Lady Luck must have been smiling down on Billy that day because he was reinstated. His mother Bertha also worked there selling wallpaper. Happy that her son was back in the fold, deep down she knew that he would soon be on the move again once he had some money behind him. True to form Billy got itchy feet but this time he had his sights set further. With only a few pounds in his pocket he “rode the rails” to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and signed on as a crewman with a ship bound for England.

persuaded them to take two stalls at an up-country exhibition. They paid their money (about £400) in advance and arrived at the

in those days there was very little traffic on the roads and so the journey took five days. In Bristol he got a job painting and refitting rides and eventually with assistance from his uncles he set up a small hoopla stall at a cost of 30 shillings with prizes loaned to him by his family. His first

On February 17th 1921 Billy arrived in England with just £5 in his pocket and headed straight for Bristol, not wishing to waste his £5 he decided to hitchhike but

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fair was at Axebridge, where business was very good Billy made £10 pounds profit, a good deal more than the other experienced stall holders. How did he do this?, simple, whereas the other stall holders aim was to make money and not give away the prizes, Billy decided that it would be better if the public were to win more often thereby making them come back more to try their luck. On a normal hoopla stall the blocks under the prizes are too wide thereby making it very difficult to get the hoop over, Billy made his blocks smaller so that the hoops went over more easily. He therefore got rid of all his prizes and made a very nice profit.

circus. She informed him that it would cost £40 per week to have a site eighteen feet in diameter. There were many sites available to him but Billy knew exactly where he wanted his eighteen feet to be and in true Butlin tradition he got it. Realising that his customers would now be more up-market he decided that he must offer better prizes. He remembered a shop that he used to pass in Tottenham Court Road London that sold budgerigars, and bought almost the entire stock and by the end of the season Billy had been so successful that he could now afford to bring his mother over from Canada. Over the next few years Billy toured the country with the Hill’s Travelling Fair

Ever on the look-out to go bigger and better he had the idea of adding a goldfish stall, by throwing a ping-pong ball into a bowl you won not only the bowl but a goldfish. To look more the part he kitted himself out with a uniform which meant that he and his workers became the first amusement park employees to wear uniforms. Another familiar trademark which appeared in those early days was Billy’s painted stalls in blue and yellow. This colour scheme would appear at his first camp, Skegness, some fifteen years later. As Christmas approached Billy travelled down to London to view the site of the Christmas circus, on arrival he noticed a certain part of the Olympia site where the crowd gathered whilst waiting to enter the big top. Billy decided that this was the best spot from which to run a stall and at the end of the next season Billy travelled to London again this time to see Miss Agnes Moore, secretary to Bertram Mills, owner of the

leaving his mother to run the Olympia site. As the years went by he kept adding to his stalls until he had more stalls than he could get ground space for. It was whilst the fair was at Tiverton, in 1924, that Billy met a young girl called Dolly. They fell in love and in 1925 they were married at Tiverton Parish Church.

hoopla stalls, a tower slide, a haunted house ride that he built himself and the following year in 1928, he added a scenic railway.

With the arrival of the charabanc people’s leisure habits changed, instead of staying in their own towns where the travelling fairs came to them, they were instead travelling out to the coast, a place which many people had only ever seen in picture books. Whole villages and factories would save together for the year so that they could hire

To oversee the running of his new venture he sent for his mother. During the winter months when the amusements at the seaside would be normally closed, Billy would rent old factories and put in stalls and side shows. He also rented disused bus garages at Whitechapel, Brixton, Tooting, Putney, Hammersmith and Marble Arch in

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a charabanc to take a trip to the coast. Only the women and children could go as the men were unable to take the time off work, as this was in the days when there was no such thing as a “paid holiday”. Billy being the shrewd businessman he was noticed the move towards the coast. So, not being one for sitting on his laurels he decided after having lengthy conversations with two fellow showmen (who both had stalls at Skegness and healthy bank balances!) to go and see for himself. Scouting along the seafront on a cold day in 1927 for a suitable site, Butlin found a piece of land which he leased from the Earl of Scarborough. The site he had chosen left much to be desired, consisting mainly of sand dunes. These needed to be levelled before any form of amusement site could be built, this was a huge job and although Billy was doing rather well he could not afford to pay to have them removed. Once again this proved no problem for Bill as he soon realised that sand was an expensive commodity for certain businesses (i.e. builders) and so he placed an advert in a local paper selling the sand for five shillings a lorry load with the provision that the buyer must move it himself. It didn’t take long before the site was cleared and once this task was accomplished he set up four

London and turned them into successful funfairs. Within a few years Billy had moved to a bigger and better site continuing to expand with bigger, better and sometimes unusual attractions. One such attraction was Dare-Devil Peggy, a one-legged diver who would plunge from a height of sixty feet into a tank of water no more than ten feet deep!. Another attraction was “Alf”, who would be buried alive in a coffin with no food. The only contact with the outside world was a pipe which ran from the coffin to the surface to allow Alf to breath. When the amusement park closed for the evening fellow amusement park workers would pour food down the pipe, he lived on anything that was runny and managed to stay underground for up to two weeks at a time. A brand new ride that Billy brought to Britain was the Dodgem cars; he had first seen them in Toronto and had written to a friend requesting more information. After many months negotiation with the manufacturers the first Dodgem cars weaved their way about Skegness seafront in 1928. They were an immediate success and with an eye for further profit Billy obtained the sole agency rights throughout Europe. After conquering Skegness with the dodgems he placed them at Bognor, Clacton, Rhyl and Felixstowe. Billy continued to expand his empire with new fairs and rides opening up all over the country and in 1930 he really moved up in the world when for the first time since leaving Toronto he lived in a house of his own. Although, he actually spent very little time in it as he was constantly travelling around the country checking on his fairs. Bertha continued to help and support him in every way she could, but in 1933 she caught a chill whilst travelling, this was nothing serious in itself but it turned into a severe mastoid condition and Bertha was rushed to a London hospital. Unfortunately she never recovered and sadly she died before seeing Bill’s greatest achievement, the building and opening of his first holiday camp. The idea of a holiday camp had been running through his mind for quite some time, his amusement parks had caught on because he had anticipated the holiday makers need. The idea developed from his observation of the seaside landladies who used to literally throw their guests out between mealtimes whatever the weather. He remembered seeing the hoards of holiday makers wandering around in the rain with nowhere to go. His mind

wandered back to the lakeside holiday centres he had seen in Canada, which combined the adventure of camping with all-weather enjoyment.

three meals a day and free entertainment. A week’s full board cost anything from 35 shillings to three pounds a week according to the time of year.

The camp did not come to fruition overnight, although he had the backing and the plans; he spent at least a couple of years travelling around looking for the ideal site on which to build that first holiday camp. One morning as he was driving

Not even Billy could have envisaged the huge response and a few days later Skegness Post Office telephoned the camp informing them that they were inundated with sacks of mail. One camper, Miss Freda Monk from Nottingham was so eager that

from his home in Skegness to visit his amusement park in Mablethorpe, he was passing through the village of Ingoldmells when he asked his chauffeur to stop. Getting out of the car he looked around. The view was not one of the best in the world, miles of turnip fields but something in Billy’s mind clicked, this was IT!. The site was on the main road, facing the sea and surrounded by bad farming land that would be cheap to buy. As soon as the summer season had ended and his amusement parks had closed he called all his best men together and found them lodgings in Skegness. Work began in October 1935 and the camp was opened on Easter Sunday 1936 by a certain Amy Johnson from Hull, who was the first woman to fly from England to Australia solo. An advert was placed in the Daily Express announcing the opening of the camp and inviting the public to book for a week’s holiday enclosing a ten shilling registration fee. The advertisement offered holidays with

she turned up for her week’s holiday a day before the camp opened. But in true Butlin’s tradition they made her very welcome, so much so, that she returned year after year. The first day of the camps opening saw snow and during the next three days of the season Billy was aware that although the holiday makers had settled in very well they seemed to lack enthusiasm. As the camp’s first week’s intake of holidaymakers settled in, Billy was concerned that they tended to stay huddled in their own family groups and didn’t socialise much. Many of them just sat around and appeared apathetic or even bored, despite the many facilities the camp offered. He turned to a man called Norman Bradford, a cheery fellow and a natural comedian who just happened to have been Billy’s senior engineer for the building of the camp. After dinner one evening, Norman stood up and began cracking jokes to the enjoyment of the campers. Then he asked them all to turn to the person next to them and say hello.

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Having warmed the room a little, he began to give them all a run-down of the camp’s facilities and encouraged them to try everything out the next day. By all accounts, the ice was broken and the socialising became more natural for all concerned. Norman’s style suited the campers, but Billy realised he’d need a legion of ‘Normans’ to maintain the jolly spirits of his campers. He asked one of his staff - Billie Ditchfield - to choose a nice, distinctive uniform for his new army and she came back with a bright red blazer and white ‘slacks’ (trousers), a colour scheme which has remained with Butlins ever since. Billie, along with Kay Berry and Norman himself, became the first of a long line of hardworking people who would run the camp, organise entertainment and activities, help campers to adjust to the Butlin’s way of life and generally act as hosts for the holidaymaker’s week away. And as they all lived in the same chalets, that just added to the whole communal aspect, all mucking in together to make sure everyone had a good time. Of course, thanks to their smart uniforms, they quickly became known as ‘Red Coats’. In 1960, Butlin was awarded the Carl Alan Award for services to dance and by the 1960’s Butlin was a man of immense wealth largely due to his 45,000 shares in Butlins Irish and Continental Holidays Limited. His earnings for the 1964 tax year included £92,614 from the U.K. and £44,542 from abroad. Butlin was knighted in 1964 and retired in 1968, becoming a Jersey-based tax exile. In 1972 the company was sold to the Rank Organisation for £43 million. His generosity provided (amongst other things) a brain-scanner for the hospital and the sport and recreation facilities in St John. In 1972, he was awarded the Variety Club’s annual Humanitarian Award for his services to the nation. He died on 12 June, 1980, due to stomach illness after a series of heart attacks. The epitaph on his gravestone, in the parish of St. John, Jersey reads ‘Skegness is so bracing’. The grave is shaped to represent a double bed. Billy Butlin is listed as a member of the eclectic (and fictional) “orchestra” in The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s recording, The Intro and the Outro, where he is credited with playing the spoons. Cause of Death: Stomach Illness after a series of heart attacks Buried: St. John’s Cemetery, Jersey, Channel Islands

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FRED PONTIN, Holiday Entrepreneur Born: October 24th 1906, Walthamstow, London Died: September 30th 2000, Blackpool Frederick William Pontin was born on October 24 1906 at Walthamstow in east London, the eldest of six children of a fourth-generation cabinet maker. Fred was educated at a council school and then as a fee-payer at Sir George Monoux Grammar School. Deciding that he wanted to make a fortune, he entered the City aged 16 as a stockbroker’s clerk. He started with a firm of gilt-edge jobbers, earning £1 a week, but after a week the firm went bust and he was paid £100 compensation. He went on to thrive in a succession of City jobs, later boasting that he had “done business” with a variety of villains, including Horatio Bottomley and Jimmy White (who killed himself with Prussic acid). He also helped run a small football pools firm, but that failed. Pontin was excused active service

during the Second World War due to an ear injury. Instead he was sent by the Ministry of Labour to Orkney to help to run lodgings for Irish navvies who were building gun emplacements, bridges and airfields. He was later sent to Kidderminster to manage a riotous hostel housing more than 900 iron and steel workers and 50 women who were working in the sugar beet factory. The night he arrived there was a notice bearing the words: “Welcome to the New Manager”. The notice was decorated with a skull and cross bones. Coping with such threats helped shape Pontin into the tough businessman that he became. While he was there he came up with the idea that would make his fortune, turning old military sites into mass seaside holiday camps and using his experience decided to venture into the holiday business by forming a company to buy an old disused camp at Brean Sands, once occupied by an American tank regiment, in 1946. The asking price was £23,000 with Pontin supplying 50% (helped by a substantial loan from Barclays) with

the remainder coming from various city investors. The small eight acre site had been open since the 1930s and had recently seen use as a US Army base. It was in a pretty bad state and consisted of nothing more than a motley collection of semi-derelict wooden huts with accommodation for 200 people. After a quick revamp, and an advert in the Sunday Express, the site opened for business and was soon swamped with holiday makers. Seeing the success of his first venture Pontin immediately went on the acquisition trail and within weeks had snapped up a second camp at Osmington Bay near Weymouth. He then transformed the business into a publicly quoted company on the London Stock Exchange and additional funds were raised to purchase an additional four camps the following year. His subsequent holiday camps had enjoyed a variety of previous incarnations - one having been a POW camp and another an internment camp. This set the pattern for future expansion; he’d usually buy up existing camps and give them a Pontin makeover. Some of the camps were bought privately and run by himself for a year or two before being transferred to the company of Pontins Ltd in exchange for additional company shares. Camps were hardly ever built from scratch and were always much smaller than the mammoth sites being run by Butlins. By 1947 the six Pontin camps had a total combined capacity of 1,300 people. Butlins had five camps with a total capacity of over 30,000 people! Pontin never had any desire to copy this and always insisted that smaller camps were more manageable and cost effective. The lower overheads were also reflected in the prices and a week at Pontins was always much cheaper, albeit without the huge range of entertainment and attractions. During the summer of 1965 a week full-board at Butlins cost around £16 per adult - the same week at Pontins was just £10. Fred Pontin and Billy Butlin always had a strong but friendly rivalry. Butlin once paid a secret visit to the Pontin camp at Brean Sands and nothing more was heard until

several years later when a photograph surfaced of him drinking in the camp bar. Pontin jumped at this wonderful publicity and the picture appeared in the following year’s brochure with the slogan “All the best

Bluecoats, Sir Fred promoted his famed Bluecoats as the organisers of the leisure industry that he created, while his rival, Sir Billy, relied on his Redcoats to run his camps, a sneaky copy of their famous Red counterparts at Butlins (Warners had their Greencoats). Famous ex-Bluecoats include Shane Ritchie, Brian Connelly, Bradley Walsh and Gemma Craven. Butlins were still providing somewhat basic food and accommodation and were focusing all their energies on bigger and better entertainment. Realising he could never compete in this area Pontin

people come to Pontins!” Butlin was apparently none too pleased. The expansion continued with the acquisition of a camp in Ireland as well as an upmarket manor house near Torquay named Barton Hall - in 1963 this became home to Britain’s first outdoor artificial ski slope. In 1957, Pontin had fallen asleep at the wheel of his car, crashed and suffered a broken breast bone and other serious injuries. When he was eventually discharged from the London Hospital he paid for a new heart-and-lung operating theatre. In later life he threw himself into charity work. In his Who’s Who entry he included the fact that as Chief Barker of the Variety Club of Great Britain he had raised more than £1 million for charity. The 1960s saw some major developments in the holiday camp industry with Butlins opening three massive new centres. Pontins responded with more acquisitions and the empire grew to include sixteen camps including expansion into the island of Jersey. A couple of brand new centres were also built on greenfield sites and one of these (Prestatyn) later featured in the 1970s movie ‘Holiday on the Buses’. The 1960s also saw the introduction of the Pontin

decided to instead focus on improved accommodation and by carrying out a major revamp of the catering department. Chalets were equipped with such luxuries as en-suite bathrooms and televisions, then unheard of at Butlins. Traditional dining halls were replaced with wide ranging self-serve buffets. Pontin also pioneered the use of self-catering, an idea that Billy Butlin had always opposed. It wasn’t until his son Bobby took over that self catering first appeared at Butlins. Pontin was also responsible for helping to start the foreign package holiday craze in the 1960s with the construction of a new hotel in Sardinia. He could offer a two week holiday with flights, accommodation, food, drink, entertainment (and guaranteed sun!) for less than £50. The venture was successful and Pontinental Holidays was formed to build additional hotels and camps in Majorca, Spain and Ibiza. He also took over a Belgian company which added a further six sites to his growing Mediterranean empire.

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In later years, as the profits from his holiday business multiplied, Pontin invested in a string of racehorses. He admitted that he was interested less in their performances on the racecourse than in their value as marketing tools (they had names such as Go Pontin, Pontingo and Go Pontinental). He did enjoy some success however, with Cala Mesquida (named after his hotel in Mallorca) which won the Schweppes Gold Trophy at Newbury in 1971, and more notably with Specify, which won the Grand National the same year. Pontin’s camps were eventually sold by Coral to Newcastle and Scottish Breweries, and Sir Fred was brought back as president. By the mid 1970s Butlins was heading on a downward spiral due to its massive overheads and the need to fill thousands of beds at each camp. The smaller Pontin sites were still booming and the empire now consisted of 24 camps plus the Mediterranean locations. In fact Billy Butlin accepted an invitation from Pontin to join the board of directors at his Jersey camp. Pontin was knighted in 1976 and the following year his company announced profits of £6.6 million (around £30 million in 2004 prices) In 1978 the company was sold to betting company Coral in a £56 million deal which Fred Pontin later regretted. In 1980 Coral (including Pontins) was bought out by brewing giant Bass who later disposed of the Pontinental side of the business. In 1987 Pontins was sold to a management buyout team lead by Trevor Hemmings & Graham Parr. Trevor had been involved with Pontins since the late 1960s when his construction company had built the new camps at Southport and Prestatyn. He later sold this company to Pontins in return for a

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substantial shareholding and a seat on the board. In 1989 Pontins was sold yet again, this time to Scottish & Newcastle. Over the next 10 years the company made some major changes which included the sale/ closure of a number of sites. In 1995 the remaining camps benefited from a much needed 3-year £55 million modernisation programme which helped to make up for the lack of investment over the previous 15 years. But the company was still not producing the expected returns and in 2000 it was sold back to Mr Hemmings although only 8 camps now remained. Mr Hemmings is now a major player in the UK leisure business and one of the wealthiest men in the country with assets of around £500 million. In 2008 Pontins was sold once more! This time it was Graham Parr’s time to return to the holiday company with his company, Ocean Parks buying Pontins for £46 million. Although Fred Pontin had deep regrets over the sale of his company, in hindsight it was a good move as the holiday camp industry was set to suffer some major declines throughout the 1980s. He decided that retirement wasn’t an option and involved himself in a number of new leisure interests including the London Dungeon and a handful of small but exclusive hotels in the West Country. Fred Pontin had a domineering personality. He explained that he was able to get others to do his bidding because “they must like my blue eyes”. In exerting personal control over virtually every detail of his business, he was assisted by a phenomenal memory and capacity for sustained work. Sir Fred kept wheeling and dealing until well into his eighties, with a scheme to take tourists to Disneyland Paris. But he was forced to change the name from Mouse Tours to Magic Tours when the

Disney organisation feared that his logo Freddie Mouse would be confused with its own Mickey. He spent his later years living in Blackpool and it was there that his remarkable life ended on September 30th 2000 at the age of 93, .after suffering a relapse whilst recovering from a stroke. Mike Austin, a friend and former director of the company, which at its height had 22 centres across Britain, said that the mogul had been a pioneer who built up his empire from scratch. “He gave joy and pleasure to millions of people,” Mr Austin said. “Sir Fred was essentially a one-off. He was a hard man but scrupulously fair in his dealings. He was devoted to his business but made sure he had plenty of fun himself and was great to go out with. It is very sad but he had a good innings, he was in good spirits to the end, he simply ran out of breath.” His funeral was held in South Devon, with a memorial service in London. Cause of Death: Stroke Buried: The Church of St. Mary and St. Gabriel, Stoke Gabriel, South Devon

ERIC MORECAMBE, Comedic Legend Born: 14th May 1926, Morecambe Died: 28th May 1984, Cheltenham John Eric Bartholomew, OBE better known by his stage name Eric Morecambe, was an English comedian who together with Ernie Wise formed the award-winning double act Morecambe and Wise. The partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe’s death of a heart attack in 1984. Eric took his stage name from his home town, the seaside resort of Morecambe in Lancashire. Eric Morecambe was born to George and Sadie Bartholomew. Sadie was determined to see her only child make a success of his life, and took work as a waitress to raise funds for his dancing lessons. Eric did not enjoy these lessons at the time, although they were to come in handy during his later life. During this period, Eric Bartholomew won numerous talent contests, most notably in Hoylake in 1939, the prize for which was an audition with Jack Hylton. Also present was another young talent named Ernest Wiseman, this was the first meeting of what was to become one of the United Kingdom’s most loved comedy partnerships, although it was to be a further two years before they would team up. Three months after the audition, Hylton invited Eric to join a revue called Youth Takes a Bow at the Nottingham Empire,

where once more he encountered Ernie. The two soon became very close friends, and with Sadie’s encouragement started to develop a double act. In 1940, Eric left school at the age of 14 and when the two were eventually allowed to perform their double act on stage (in addition to their solo spots), Hylton was impressed enough to make it a regular feature in the revue. However, the duo split when they began their National Service during World War II. Eric was a Bevin Boy: conscripted to work in a coal mine in Accrington from May 1944. He was invalided out 11 months later due to a heart defect. After the war Morecambe and Wise began to make a name for themselves on stage and radio, before managing to secure a contract with the BBC to make a television show. However, Running Wild (1954), their first series, was a critical failure. One reviewer gave a definition of television as “the box they buried Morecambe and Wise in”. Morecambe was particularly upset by this, and carried a cutting of that review in his wallet for the rest of his life. It was several years before the pair would work on television again. They returned to the stage to hone their act, and eventually made well-received appearances on Sunday Night at the London Palladium and Double Six, raising their profile and increasing their popularity. On the back of their success on stage and on screen, in 1961 Lew Grade offered them a series for the London-based ITV station ATV. Paired with writers Sid Green and Dick Hills, the series fared poorly to start with. Early episodes saw Hills and Green writing for the comedians as if Morecambe and Wise were alter egos of the writers. There was an argument between the writers and the talent. This was ended by an Equity strike which left the autumn television schedules in tatters. Green commented to Morecambe “You’re done for”, to which Morecambe replied “Not at all, we belong to VAF” - a reference to The Variety Artists’ Federation, then a separate trade union unaffiliated with Equity. Morecambe and Wise were not bound to participate in the strike. From then on, Morecambe and Wise got their way. The sketches began to reflect their stage work and the series became a success. Indeed, Hills and Green even appeared in the series as “Sid and Dick” - two all purpose stooges. The series introduced several popular catchphrases (such as “Get out of that!”; “That’s not

nice”; “I’ll smash your face in”; and “More tea Ern?”) which would stay with them throughout their careers. Also introduced was Morecambe’s famous paper bag trick - as well as an original opening segment which saw the pair parody other series such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Dixon of Dock Green and Take Your Pick. Morecambe and Wise were very popular in Blackpool and their shows attracted special guests such as The Beatles. The celebrities were generally teased by the pair, and especially by Morecambe’s playful insults. Guests were not offended, however, recognising that the joke was not so much on them as on Morecambe’s supposed failure to recognise them, or inability to get their names right for example, during the Beatles’ appearance he persistently addressed Ringo Starr as “Bongo”.

massive heart attack in the early hours of 8 November 1968 at the age of 42, after a show, whilst driving back to his hotel outside Leeds. He had been appearing with Wise during a week of midnight performances at the Variety Club in Batley, Yorkshire. Morecambe and Wise appeared there in December 1967 for a week, making £4,000. After that, they were booked to play a New York nightclub, the Royal Variety show and then eight weeks in pantomime in winter. Morecambe had complained of pains in his right arm from the beginning of the week but thought little of it, thinking the pains were perhaps tennis elbow or rheumatism. Morecambe headed back to his hotel, and recounted in an interview with Michael Parkinson in November 1972 that, as the pains spread to his chest, he became unable to drive. He was rescued by

Eric mentioned sporadically that he was suffering from pains in his back and arms in both 1967 and 1968. In retrospect, these pains may have been the first warning signs of the heart attack he was to suffer the following year. Morecambe was smoking 60 cigarettes a day and drinking more than he should have. Combined with stress and overwork, and possibly the heart defect that led him to be invalided out of the coal mines, he was to suffer a

a man named Walter Butterworth (“I’ll never forget him,” said Morecambe. “That wasn’t his real name, but I’ll never forget him”), as he stopped the car. It was now 1am and the streets were almost deserted. When Morecambe asked Butterworth to drive the car as he felt unable to, he received the reply, “I’m in the Territorials – I’ve only ever driven a tank!” The first hospital they found had no Accident and Emergency. At the second one, Butterworth left

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Morecambe and Wise became so popular that their annual BBC Christmas shows were almost mandatory viewing in the United Kingdom from 1968 to 1977. Despite his heart condition, he and Ernie still managed energetic song and dance routines and superbly timed visual comedy. So much effort was placed into their 1977 Christmas show that Eric and Ernie did not even do a television series that year. An estimated 28,385,000 viewers watched it. Des O’Connor was frequently the butt of their humour, often because of his allegedly awful singing. O’Connor once asked

Morecambe in the car as he went to search for a wheelchair. Then Morecambe walked in himself. A heart attack was immediately diagnosed. Morecambe, by this time laid on a trolley, thanked Butterworth, who in return asked for an autograph, asking “before you go, can you sign this piece of paper? My mates will never believe me about this.” Morecambe scribbled away, convinced it was the final autograph he would ever sign, before he was taken away. After leaving hospital, Morecambe gave up his cigarette habit to start smoking a pipe, as he mentioned that he was trying to do in August 1967. He also stopped doing summer and winter seasons and reduced many of his public engagements. Morecambe took six months off, returning for a press call at the BBC Television centre in May 1969. In August of that year, they returned to the stage at the winter garden theatre in Bournemouth, and received a four minute standing ovation.

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Morecambe and Wise whilst appearing as a guest, if he could sing on their show. Morecambe replied “Sing on our show? You can’t even sing on your own show!” In reality, O’Connor was a close friend of both Morecambe and Wise and would meet them in later years to devise jokes about himself. As an example of both aspects of the relationship, O’Connor, upon hearing news of Morecambe’s first heart attack, stopped his own live show and asked the entire audience to join him in a prayer for Morecambe’s health. Later, Morecambe thanked O’Connor and told him that “It was the prayers of those six or seven people which made all the difference”.

In January 1978, the pair left the BBC for ITV signing a contract with the London station Thames Television however, once more the stress of being such a popular entertainer affected Morecambe and his health. His wife Joan recalled that he would start worrying about the Christmas Special in June, and would frequently worry himself about how a certain routine would work. As a result, and probably because his heart had been damaged by the first attack ten years earlier, he suffered a second heart attack at home in Harpenden, Herts in January 1979, which led to a heart bypass operation in June 1979. Morecambe increasingly wanted to move away from the double act, but feared that Wise would not be able to cope without him. In 1980 he played the Funny Uncle in a dramatisation of the John Betjeman poem “Indoor Games near Newbury”; part of an ITV special titled Betjeman’s Britain that also starred Peter Cook and Susannah York. That saw the start of a relationship with producer/director Charles Wallace that led to a follow-up in 1981 for Paramount Pictures titled Late Flowering Love that saw Eric play a WWII major. The film was released in the UK with Raiders of the Lost Ark and many others, becoming the most successful UK short film ever. The project spawned two more solo performances. In 1981 Morecambe published Mr Lonely, a tragicomic novel about a stand-up comedian. He focused more on writing during what were to be the final years of his life. Morecambe and Wise’s final show together was the 1983 Christmas special for ITV. By now Morecambe was tired of the double act, and many believe that, had he lived longer, he would not have recorded another series. Morecambe was now developing as a writer, and enjoyed appearing on chat shows and as a panellist on shows such as Line. Two months before he died, Morecambe told his wife “If I have another heart attack it will kill me, and if I do another Morecambe and Wise series, I will have another heart attack.” Morecambe and Wise worked on their much-desired film, a television movie in 1983, Night Train To Murder, with which both were unhappy: recorded on videotape using the new medium of lightweight ENG cameras

instead of 16mm or 35mm film they felt it looked “cheap”. It was broadcast on ITV in January 1985. The final piece that Eric did (without Ernie) was a short comedy called The Passionate Pilgrim in which he was joined by Tom Baker and Madeline Smith. Again produced by Charles Wallace for MGM/UA, it was released in the cinema with the James Bond film Octopussy and later Wargames. Wallace and Eric were half way through filming a fourth film when Eric died. It was never completed. Five months after the Christmas special, Morecambe took part in a show hosted by close friend and comedian Stan Stennett at the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire on a Sunday evening. His wife, Joan, who was in the audience, recalled that Morecambe was “on top form”. He recounted and joked to the audience about the tales of his childhood, his career, the influence of his mother, Sadie, his time as a Bevin Boy, about Diana Dors, who had recently died, and Tommy Cooper and the tragic way he had died. Morecambe said he would hate to die like that. He discussed his first heart attack, and his open heart surgery five years earlier, a topic from which he would often derive humour. After the show had ended and Morecambe had left the stage, the musicians returned and picked up their instruments. He rushed back onto the stage to join them and energetically played various instruments. He then left the stage only to return moments later. All in all, he made six curtain calls. Finally, he said “That’s your lot!” waved to the audience, and left the stage. He walked into the wings and joked “Thank goodness that’s over.” He then collapsed, suffering a third and final heart attack. Eric Morecambe died in Cheltenham General Hospital at 4am, aged 58. The nation was stunned by the death of one of its most popular comics. The Daily Telegraph described him as a “master comic” comparing him to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Stan Laurel. Wise, who was notified by Joan immediately, was in a state of shock. However, within an hour or so of learning of his partner’s death he conducted an interview for TV-am, saying that “He was a natural comedian, I am very, very proud to have been his partner and people will realise how great he was.” He also referred to Morecambe as a “partner and a brother” and claimed “it’s the saddest day of my life ... I feel like I’ve lost a limb.” On 4 June 1984 more than a thousand people gathered outside the Church of St. Nicholas in Harpenden for his funeral.

The service was relayed by loudspeakers to those outside. Ernie Wise and Dickie Henderson spoke during the service. Wise recited the words to Bring Me Sunshine (their signature tune). Afterwards Morecambe was cremated in a private ceremony.

A larger-than-life statue of Morecambe, created by sculptor Graham Ibbeson, was unveiled by the Queen at Morecambe in July 1999 and is surrounded by inscriptions of many of his favourite catchphrases and an exhaustive list of guest stars who appeared on the show.

Eric Morecambe married Joan Bartlett on 11 December 1952. They had three children: Gail (born 14 September 1953); Gary (born 21 April 1956) and Steven (born 1969 and adopted in 1973). In his leisure time, Eric was a keen birdwatcher, and the statue of him at Morecambe shows him wearing his binoculars.

In the English town of Harpenden where Morecambe and his family lived from the 1960s until his death, the town hall is named after him, with a portrait of Morecambe hanging in the foyer. Eric often referred to Harpenden in his comedy, with a band once appearing on the show named The Harpenden Hot-Shots and in a Casanova sketch he introduced himself as Lord Eric, Fourth Duke Of Harpenden and certain parts of Birkenhead! In 1999 Morecambe was voted the funniest person of the 20th century in a British internet poll; Eric pulled in 26% of the votes, beating his contemporary performer Tommy Cooper and Monty Python member John Cleese to the coveted position.

He was also an enthusiastic football fan and a director of Luton Town. Shortly after becoming a director of Luton, Morecambe briefly grew a rather sparse moustache of only about two dozen hairs, which he explained to his fans was “a football moustache: eleven a side!”. He would often fondly tell the story of how once, when 2-0 down at half time, the Luton fans chanted, ‘What do you think of it so far’ to which Eric replied, ‘Rubbish’. He also had a love of Long John Silver impressions, which never left him through his life (one can be seen in the ‘Monty on the Bonty’ sketch with Arthur Lowe).

Cause of Death: Heart attack Buried: Church of St. Nicholas, Harpenden

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Les Paraneurm RIPLEY’S HAUNTED? BELIEVE IT OR NOT!! The Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in St. Augustine, Florida is, as a matter of fact, considered one of the most haunted locations in the United States. There are numerous reports from credible people who have visited or worked at the museum. There are cold spots; there are things that move and several places where people become extremely nauseous. Music has been heard, things are moved and a huge Buddha is found lying on its side. From time to time visitors report the smell of a smoky fire and hear crying and whimpering sounds. To understand the haunting, a little history is in order. This spectacular construct with its’ unique Moorish revival design was built in 1887 by William G. Warden. In 1941, it was purchased by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and her second husband, a hotelier named

Norton Baskin. Ms Rawlings was a Pulitzer Prize winning author and a well established Florida author who wrote The Yearling and Cross Creek (both considered classics today). They converted the home into a hotel called the Castle Warden Inn. So where is the ghostly connection?

I COME FROM A PLANET DOWN UNDER The reports of UFO sightings in Australia have gone up with at least seven separate incidents having been reported in the past few weeks. The sighting of some “unexplained phenomena” has been happening almost every night since the first was reported in April, and most have taken place in Darwin’s rural area. A woman, who wants to be identified as only Shirel, reported the first sighting on April 21, saying that she saw the strange lights from her Humpty Doo home hovering over Howard Springs. “The lights

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were really low in the sky, really bright, with flashing dots three of them formed a semicircle and they hovered over the area for at least half an hour,” she revealed. There were three separate sightings on April 23 including British backpacker Kylie Myers who said she had “never believed in anything like UFOs” before her strange encounter. Myers, 27, said she stopped her car on the side of the road to grab her camera from the glove box, but the light disappeared. “It was pretty spooky,” she stated. Astronomer Geoff Carr said he was “far from believing any of this UFO stuff”. Carr added he believed 99.9 per cent of all the UFO sightings could be explained as simple weather phenomena.

Many believe the haunting began in April of 1944 with a fire that brought a horrifying end to the lives of two beautiful women – Ruth Hopkins Pickerman, 49, and Betty Neville Richardson, a young woman in her twenties.

NOAH’S ARK REMAINS FOUND ON ARARAT? TRUE OR

SMELLARARAT?

THE remains of Noah’s Ark have been discovered 13,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it has been claimed. A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat. Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah’s Ark Ministries International research team, said:

mal D’Observee SHEER LUCK AS CONAN DOYLE PAINTING AND FINALLY...HUMAN 2.0: THE NEW KIDS ON SET TO FETCH £25K THE BLOCK The Sherlock Holmes author bought this painting while mourning the death of his son in WW1. A painting inspired by the psychic spirits of dead soldiers and bought by a grieving Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who lost a son in WW1 will auction in Sydney.

Bonham’s’ sale will take place on June 2526. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle purchased the painting directly from the artist for his own collection, 1928. The painting is an iconic image, believed missing until now, by the Official War Artist, Will Longstaff, who had attended the unveiling ceremony of the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres on July 24, 1927. He was so moved by the ceremony that, during a midnight walk along the Menin “It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it.” He said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals. The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000ft in the vicinity, Yeung said. The biblical story says that God decided to flood the Earth after seeing how corrupt it was. He then told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species. After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain. Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants ran aground.

Road, he imagined a vision of steelhelmeted spirits rising from the moonlit cornfields. It is said that, following his return to London, he painted the work in one session. Mrs Mary Horsburgh, who had worked in a British canteen during the war, may have influenced him. She had met him during this evening walk, and told him that she could feel “her dead boys” all around her. Spiritualism was very much in vogue in the 1920s, and many who wished to communicate with relatives and friends who had died in battle found consolation in its tenets. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who bought the painting claimed to have had conversations with the spirits of many great men, including Cecil Rhodes, Earl Haig, Joseph Conrad and others. In his later years Sir Arthur often expressed a wish that he should be remembered for his psychic work rather than for his novels.

SCARED ‘STIFF’? Is the town Lusk home to one of the longest running whorehouses in Wyoming? Some say yes, some also say that it’s haunted. Mary Ada Fisher followed the gold boom west from Ohio, and found herself in the town of Lusk the year was 1919. Mary changed her name to Dell Burke, set up a tent, and started taking customers. Soon she had enough money to rent a house and bring in a few girls; it seemed Dell was on her way to bigger things. Only a year later she bought a large house, painted it yellow and took in even more girls. Dell entertained most of the town’s prominent

There’s a new kid on the block and they’re getting ready to replace you. There are reports that some of today’s generation are demonstrating very unique and unusual abilities. They can sense auras, speak with ‘spirits’ and see the future. These new children are said to have a very strong sense of mission, of destiny and wish to lead mankind into a more peaceful future. Unfortunately, they seem to have difficulty adjusting to life and are often classed as being autistic, anti-social or having ADHD. Researchers in the subject claim they are here to help the people of the Earth spiritually, to make the next passage into the New Age as easy as possible and to teach us love and understanding. However, another more sinister explanation is that they are alien/human hybrids, intent on colonizing the world. citizens, her house offered the best steaks in Wyoming, danced to a live orchestra, played billiards and card games, and drank the finest booze around. It was not until in 1978 that the last paying customer visited the Yellow Hotel. Dell fell on the sidewalk in front of her house a year later and broke her hip. She spent the next few years in a hospital care centre until she passed away in 1980. The Yellow Hotel now sits vacant, a little run down the bright yellow paint fading in the hot Wyoming sun. Visitors to the house claim feeling a bit strange and overwhelmed while in the building. Some have even reported the smell of perfume floating through rooms seemingly following you around the house. Outside the house residents claim to have seen lights and hear music coming from the house long after Dells death.

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Lesley Smith

R U O Y D N I M “

N I F F E

G A U G LAN

In the ten years that I have been heavily involved in ghosthunting and met thousands of enthusiastic ghosthunters, I have always been fascinated by the use of language people use when attempting to contact a spirit, particularly through a Ouija board. Although I am a specialist in the 16th. century, I have an broad understanding of how people were educated in other centuries, my initial degree choice was Greek Literature ( in translation - don’t be impressed). The truth of the matter is, within the British Isles and across Europe, until the 18th. Century or even 19th. Century, a vast majority of people couldn’t read of write. They may be able to cope with their name

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and even home town in some cases but prayers and other regular usage passages were simply learned by heart, from repetition. Pub signs and at one time, shop signs were brightly painted with images on so that people could see at a glance what type of shop it was. The often glorious pub sign swinging in the wind is almost the last trace of real medieval advertising still in action. The “Quiet Woman” in Leek in Staffordshire is one of my favourites – the woman in question would indeed be quiet – she is shown with no head! So let us consider, when we have all these letters spread out around the Ouija Board is “ghost wanted, literate types only need apply!”. Imagine if we had contacted a spirit from the other side. It is his big moment, he has been trying to tell us something very important and he is asked to spell out what he wants – great! The frustration! No wonder some ghosts are reputed to

thrown things around a Ouija room. They simply would not be able to do it for a vast majority of contacts that go back beyond a couple of hundred years. Maybe on the “other side” we acquire knowledge we didn’t have in life.? Or maybe only the educated are allow to contact us, or there is always the other option which is somebody may be pushing the glass. There are logical answers to this dilemma for believers. At the beginning of making contact, show the spirit with the glass “Yes” and “No” so at least they could remember than much to respond with. A few years ago I spent ages one evening drawing up an alternative Board with images rather than words than can be used. You can all start shouting about some images being not representative across the centuries or indeed from different cultures so I picked carefully. “Yes” and “No” are still there but there is

G N

GE!”

a dark side to the board and a light side. One shows hearts and a sun and such friendly images whilst the other has a dagger and a hangman’s noose to name but two of a number. In the next edition of this magazine will be a pull -out double page spread of my design and you can use it courtesy of “Haunted” magazine and I am sure the editor would be fascinated to know how users got on with it. I would argue it should be a lot more effective in getting results . In theory – the ghost may be lying of course, as in life then death. If this all seems a bid random, I did once have a fascinating bit of evidence pop up. I was talking to David Wells through an earpiece. We were in Wales and I was looking at the death certificate of a maid who it is thought may have been murdered. I have piles of material with me usually and only use about 10 percent as a rule as I don’t know who or what might pop up. I asked David to get a Welsh speaker to ask this maid something about herself.

David told me that the spirit had said she didn’t understand. That was a tremendous moment for me as I knew the maid was English and spoke no Welsh. The maid had lived a along time ago and David, nor, I suspect many others would expect that girl to be English particularly as it was so far from the Welsh borders. In Shrewsbury for example, an ancient settlement, a maid may well cross the boundary backwards and forwards to go to work and return home. Sometimes you may hear me speaking in French or Latin – neither very well, in an attempt to stimulate an answer. I can certainly swear like a trooper in Latin which would be viewed as either aggressive or sexually provocative to the ancients. One thing for sure, this fairly useless skill of classical obscenities of mine causes a great deal of amusement I am told by those who do understand when they hear me.

and the rapping response I got was extraordinary and very clear. Maybe he was annoyed, or maybe he was turned-on – trust me to get someone fancy me who has been dead for at least 1400 years. Just my luck.. I know some Mediums will tell that spirits contact us through our minds which transcends language or education I know equally there are many out there ghosthunting who also have theories about communication. One of my academic friends in California is fairly fierce about his particular point of view. In fact, as I am sure lots of readers have noticed that there are plenty of views expressed fiercely about what spirits are and how to contact them. The debate rolls on…

Lesley

Happy Ghosthunting Once, I remember swearing violently at a spirit who was claiming to be a Roman

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Haunted Seaside Locations

HAUNTED SEA LOCATIONS Skegness is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. Located on the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, 43 miles (69 km) east of the city of Lincoln it has a total resident population of 18,910. The first Butlins holiday resort was opened in Skegness in 1936. Partially due to this, the resort is one of the better known seaside resorts in the United Kingdom. The name would appear to indicate that Skegness has its origin in the Danish period of settlement of England although there is no reference to a village named Skegness in the Domesday Book. Local historians say that the town took its name from Skeggi (meaning ‘bearded one’), one of the Vikings who established the original settlement

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to the east of the current town which was washed away by the sea in the early sixteenth century. However, it is much more likely to have derived from words which appear in modern Danish as skæg, beard and næs, nose or in geographical terms, headland. Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lincolnshire from a very early time, for governance, the parish of Skegness was in the Marsh division of the ancient Candleshoe Wapentake in the Parts of Lindsey. In August 1642, a consignment of arms and money, probably raised by Queen Henrietta Maria, in the Netherlands for the support of King Charles I’s campaign in the Civil War, was forced into Skegness by the ships of the Parliamentarian Earl of Warwick. Skegness was primarily a fishing village and small port until the arrival of the railway in 1875. In 1908, Great Northern Railways commissioned a poster to advertise excursions to the resort, the first being from King’s Cross, London on Good Friday 1908, leaving London at 11.30 am.

The ‘Skegness is so Bracing’ poster featuring The Jolly Fisherman helped to put Skegness on the map and is now world famous. The poster, derived from an oil painting by John Hassall (illustrator), was purchased by the railway company for the 12 guineas. Paradoxically, Mr Hassall did not visit the resort until 1936. He is said to have died penniless. The following are the notes taken from a meeting held by the Skegness Young Conservatives in 1947 (note: Norman Tebbitt, Margaret Thatcher & Michael Heseltine were not in attendance) A legend of a ghostly bell which is said to be heard at times tolling off Skegness Pier head, and a suggestion that at least one well-known local hostelry had its ghost, were among the points raised at the debate held by members of the Skegness Young Conservatives on the subject of “There are no such things as ghosts” back in 1947.

ASIDE

Coun. Reuben Rowe, Chairman of the Skegness Branch, presided over an attendance of nearly fifty members, and some interesting anecdotes were told during the course of the debate. The case for the existence of ghosts was opened by Miss Sutton, who told of two friends of hers, a perfectly normal, happily married couple living in the north of England, who realised that separately each of them had seen an apparition pass through one of the rooms of their house. As a test they both sat up one night to see if they could see it together, and, contended the speaker, they did! Mr. Tom Winning, for the other side, contended strongly that such experiences were nothing more than the result of an overworked imagination, and cited instances to support his statement. Another speaker, telling of a ghostly bell that can be heard on foggy days tolling beyond Skegness Pierhead, said the town had ghosts on its doorstep. He added that it was well known that, a few miles out,

was a church which had been swallowed up by the sea. This suggestion was strongly opposed, and Mr. Peter Piant, leading the opposition, said that he did not question the hearing of the bells, but undoubtedly they were shipsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bells, sounded in fog. A well-known Skegness Senior Conservative vouched for seeing an apparition on the stairs at Carrington Hall, an occurrence which so startled her that she sat down voluntarily on the stairs. The same speaker alleged that a house in a well known Skegness Avenue might have claims to be haunted. Then came a story from Mr. Tom Williams, of a clock which, awaiting repairs, had been stopped for a number of years. One day, at midday, the clock suddenly struck twelve. Not another sound came from it till midnight when it struck twelve again. On the following noon, the same thing happened. According to Mr. Williams, he then threw it out into the yard, and nobody dare touch it for a week! Mr. Hathaway told a story of his sisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seeing

the shadow of her dog pass along a hedge, at a time when the dog was nowhere about. She was very agitated, but her husband assured her that it was purely imagination. On the following day they learned that the dog had been killed by a bus about the time that the shadow had been seen. Mr. Tom Winning made the point that there was much which science did not yet know, and that 100 years ago radar, about which a great deal was now known, would have been looked upon as more impossible than ghosts. He suggested that in another hundred years time, the ghosts of today and the ghosts of tomorrow would be on the best of terms with each other, a remark which drew the that the space in which ghosts exist must be getting rather overcrowded. A show of hands revealed level voting, and the Chairman gave his casting vote in favour of the existence of ghosts. If only it were that simple now.

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Taken from the Skegness, Mablethorpe and Alford News, 13TH November 1912 On Thursday night last two certain Skegness ladies and two certain young Skegness gentlemen attended the football club’s whist drive, and upon its conclusion the former were escorted home by the latter. The farewells having been taken in timehonoured fashion the escort retraced its steps in the direction of home, when suddenly one clutched the arm of his companion, and both stopped as dead as a squad of Territorials at the word “halt.” There, a little distance ahead was—a ghost! A real big one, clothed in white! Horrors! Ditto!! More so!! ! A few moments of speechless terror, and then one suggested that they make a combined rush, grapple with the spook, and draw his teeth — painlessly, of course ! The other didn’t fancy the idea greatly but thought that if a couple of pills (highly recommended), or a good stiff dose of lung tonic (reduced to 7 1/2d.) could be administered unawares, they could master the ghostly one. Just at this moment the “spook” did a left-wheel movement, and almost automatically the two heroes “aboutturned” and fled! Returning to the girls’ home they fortified themselves with a glass of cold water each, and after borrowing a couple of hockey sticks they aimed for home once more. But the “ghost” had disappeared – probably he got cold or hungry. It only remains to say that they did not see the spook, neither did they look particularly hard for him, and that they are both teetotallers! Ghostly goings-on have been reported at H Samuels jewellers, Skegness, where a series of unexplained events have led staff to believe that the shop is haunted! Since the jewellers first opened in 1988, staff have noticed bizarre happenings – the number of which has intensified over the last few months. Recent incidents include files flying from the shelves, disappearing and reappearing objects and unexplained sliding drawers. Other incidents involve a plastic watch stand and drawer which appear to have mysteriously changed shape overnight! The shop stands on the site of the old Hildred’s Hotel which, it is said, was haunted for a number of years. Could old Joseph and Sarah Hildred, proprietors of the old Hildred’s Hotel, have come back to keep an eye on the Hildred’s Shopping Centre, their namesake? From the 1930s a Serpentine Beast has been spotted in an area of sea between Skegness and Mablethorpe. The creature, or possibly creatures, has been reported on and off for many years now - its humped form moving quickly and quietly through the water.

Skegness beach is home to a number of ghosts, mainly a Greek woman who walks into the sea and a man who follows a path near the Pleasure Beach, according to reports. The ghost of a woman, Margaret Massingberd haunts a path near Gunby Hall. Margaret fell in love with a servant and tried to elope with him. Her father found out about the plan and shot her lover dead as the pair set off to get married. Both Margaret and her lover are now seen, reunited in death. A number of spooky occurrences have taken place in a house in the Winthorpe area of Skegness, including a large man in priest’s clothing, with a bunch of keys hanging from his belt. A child sits on the edge of a bed and the sounds of furniture moving have also been witnessed here. A ghostly brown figure has been seen by four people on two different occasions, haunting Skegness Grammar School. The second appearance of the figure occurred in 1977 during the rehearsals of the school play in the assembly hall. Two prefects in the play, David Reeves and Eric Stewart, went outside the main entrance to check on the weather about 7:15pm. But as they came back into the building, by the left-hand door leading to the assembly hall, they saw a dark brown shape – the outline of a man, with no detail. The boys saw the figure drift towards the door leading to the corridor on the left. There was no noise. David said that it went out of sight for no more than a second as they made for the hall door, and all they could see down the corridor were the doors, which usually squeaked and banged shut. It was strange because they’d heard nothing at all. Although the boys assumed the figure was an ordinary person, they were now getting a little nervous, as all the lights were on in the entrance hall but the corridor was pitch black. David and Eric started searching all the rooms leading off the corridor, including the girls’ cloakroom from where they could hear banging. But there was no one to be seen! Then, as they were about to switch off the lights and give up the search, both the fire doors at the far end of the corridor opened wide towards them. But there was no one there! The boys turned off the lights and ran. The boys reported the incident to the teacher in charge who dismissed the incident saying it was most likely to have been the caretaker, Mr. Roy Foxon. But when they asked him the next day, they discovered that he’d left the premises about an hour earlier! David couldn’t suggest an alternative explanation for the bizarre incident but

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said if it were a joke, then it was a very elaborate one. After the incident, David had learned that around 1962, a boy who was to have played the part of a monk in the school play was accidentally drowned a week before, and the shape he and Eric had seen could have been a monk’s brown habit. Coincidentally, this latest apparition appeared just SIX DAYS before the play was due to be performed! When the boys told Mr. Foxon, who had been caretaker for the previous 13 years, of the strange goings on, Mr. Foxon admitted to having seen something very similar the year before (in 1976). It seems that on that occasion Mr. Foxon was with his wife and they both saw a dark shape pass across the doors leading from the assembly hall to the entrance hall. It was like a shadow, he recalled, a head and body but without a face. Neither had they heard any sounds or footsteps. Mr. Foxon said that he had told the other cleaners about the strange sighting, but had since forgotten about it until the two prefects had related their story of seeing the same thing in the same place. The caretaker said that one of the boys was very shaken by the incident, even the following morning. “If I hadn’t seen it myself” he added, “I would have thought they were making it up.” The Vine hotel, Skegness A spirit of a man dressed in 18th century clothes has been reported wandering around the corridors of the hotel guests have also seen the same apparition in room no.8 this is said to be the spirit of a customs and excise officer who was found bricked up in the walls of the hotel. The spirit of a former tenant called Alfred Lord Tennyson has also been seen by staff wandering around the garden walking his two dogs. Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, 20 miles east of Norwich. It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea. For hundreds of years it has been a fishing port dependent on the herring fishery, and today it services offshore natural gas rigs. The town has a popular beach and two promenades. Yarmouth lies near the site of the Roman fort camp of Gariannonum at the mouth of the River Yare. Its situation having attracted fishermen from the Cinque Ports, a permanent settlement was made, and the town numbered 70 burgesses before the Norman Conquest. Henry I placed it under the rule of a reeve. The charter of King John (1208), which gave his burgesses of Yarmouth general liberties

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according to the customs of Oxford, a gild merchant and weekly hustings, was amplified by several later charters asserting the rights of the borough against Little Yarmouth and Gorleston. A thirteenth century charter was granted by Henry III (1207–1272) to the town of Great Yarmouth. The town is bound to send to the sheriffs of Norwich every year one hundred herrings, baked in twenty four pasties, which the sheriffs are to deliver to the lord of the manor of East Carlton who is then to convey them to the King. In 1552 Elizabeth granted a charter of admiralty jurisdiction, confirmed and extended by James I. In 1668 Charles II incorporated Little Yarmouth in the borough by a charter which with one brief exception remained in force until 1703, when Anne replaced the two bailiffs by a mayor. A grammar school was founded in 1551, when the great hall of the old hospital, founded in the reign of Edward I by Thomas Fastolfe, was appropriated to its use. It was closed from 1757 to 1860, was re-established by the charity trustees, and settled in new buildings in 1872. From 1808 to 1814 the Admiralty in London could communicate with its ships in the port of Great Yarmouth by a shutter telegraph chain. The town was the site of a bridge disaster and drowning tragedy on 2 May 1845 when a suspension bridge crowded with children collapsed under the weight killing 79. They had gathered to watch a clown in a barrel being pulled by geese down the river. As he passed under the bridge the weight shifted, causing the chains on the south side to snap, tipping over the bridge deck. During World War I Great Yarmouth suffered the first aerial bombardment in the UK, by Zeppelin L3 on 19 January 1915. That same year on 15 August, Ernest Martin Jehan became the first and only man to sink a steel submarine with a sail rigged Q-ship, this off the coast of Great Yarmouth. It was also bombarded by the German Navy on 24 April 1916.

GHOST SIGHTINGS

St Nicholas Church, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk After the incomplete burial of an Egyptian Princess, mysterious rapping’s occurred at the church, vicarage and a few more surrounding buildings. The rapping ceased when the burial rite was completed. Another local legend says if you run around the church three times and shouted ‘Bloody Queen Mary’, her face appears through a window. It’s common local knowledge that an underground passage runs from St. Nicholas’ church to ‘the priory’ - but which one no one seems to know, as there were once four in the town. Disappearing Shop, Great Yarmouth Exact location not known In 1973 a coin collector in Yarmouth reported visiting a shop to buy envelopes for his collection. He thought the shop looked old fashioned, as did the lady who served him, but thought no more of it until he returned a week later - and found the place had gone. Henry, Great Yarmouth Fire Station Built upon an area that housed bodies, the fire station has developed a reputation for being haunted, particularly by a monk nicknamed Henry. Footfalls have also been heard down empty corridors. Suicidal Architect, Great Yarmouth Nelson’s Pillar, Admiralty Road A local myth says that the architect behind the construction of this statue of Britannia killed himself after realising that it had been built facing the wrong way. Small Child, Great Yarmouth - Queen Anne’s Road area In late 2009 and according to the Great Yarmouth Mercury, residents along this row of terrace homes have spotted a small child along their landings, and heard sounds of small feet walking around.

Seashore Camp, Caravan B77, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Black Hound, Great Yarmouth Southtown Road

During the early 1970’s a family were driven out of their holiday caravan by a phantom that kept them awake at night by constantly prodding various members.

This stretch of road is said to be home to Old Scarf, a black dog that haunts the area. Running Dog, Great Yarmouth - Suffield Road, near the police station

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Since 2006, an animal resembling a dog with long legs was seen running along the path, vanishing within seconds of being spotted. The same entity was also observed along the High Street by the same witness, though years previous. Key Hiding Spirit, Great Yarmouth - The Duke’s Head Hotel Possibly the spirit of the old local baddie Baron Scarfe, this shade hides various items and plays around with electrical equipment. Flying Food, Great Yarmouth - White Horse public house (no longer open), Northgate Street The chef came close to quitting this pub after a beef stake was thrown at him in the kitchen by an invisible entity. A few customers have reported seeing shadowy figures lurking around, and one ghost hunter claimed to have filmed contorted faces behind the bar. Only a few are left of the 145 narrow alleyways called ‘rows’ that once scored the old town of Great Yarmouth. In one of these, Money Office Row, a chest of treasure was said to be buried, that had the habit of disappearing every time anyone came near to dig it up. The Rumbold Arms on Southtown Road enhanced its reputation for being haunted during a charity-inspired vigil by three local ladies. In the early hours of the morning the three were disturbed to experience a glow, temperature drops, and sign lights shining brighter. The pub dog also appeared desperate to leave the premises.

BLACKPOOLS TOP TEN GHOSTS Frenchman’s Cove Frenchman’s Cove is in the South King Street premises which once housed Duckworth’s Tobacco warehouse. Reports from owner Billy Johnson have included that workmen building in the cellar have thought that someone or something have been watching them. Billy got sent an article and photograph from the time the warehouse was built, this revealed that the ghost in question came from Scarborough and was called Laura Schoons. To this day late at night staff still feel that someone or something is watching them.

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The Foxhall Blackpool may owe its early reputation for healing the sick in mind and body to the priests who took refuge in the isolated building of ‘the Foxhall’ in the 17th century. The original building was far from grand. It was a long, low three-gabled residence which resembled a farmhouse. Its three storeys each had 4-5 rooms with low ceilings. The ground floor also included a private chapel. There was a small lead tower on top of the house (Blackpool’s first tower?) gained from within by a staircase and the thick walls contained many hiding places (priest’s holes) and secret passages. Over the years this house turned into a hotel and public house. Many spirits over the years have been seen that have ranged from priests, smugglers and aristocracy.

The Old Coach House The Old Coach House is a former vicarage reputed to be the oldest building in South Shore. Owner Claire Smith has been told by guests about the spirits that reside and watch over the guests. Allegedly the guests told her a male figure was staring at them eating a meal and was wearing a cap and black cloak. A second spectre is female and has the name of Shirley and looks after the dinning room, many guests have seen them but to date the owners have not. Blackpool Pleasure Beach Blackpool Pleasure Beach has not one but several ghosts that reside in the world famous amusement park. If you dare, visit the Ghost Train itself where the footsteps of Cloggy, a former ride operator who always

wore clogs, have been heard. My late grandfather worked as a joiner there and at times had to repair the track, when I asked him, he said “Oh yes, there was something or someone that watched over us!” At the Star Pub there have been sightings of shadows and a male figure in the cellar, living accommodation and Morgan and Griffin Bars. He is said to bear a resemblance to Karl Mar. Five years ago two workmen claim to have spotted him. Four years ago a figure was seen at 3am walking through the bar before disappearing. Other goings on include the moving of pictures on the walls of the first floor in the building, the sound of a woman singing, glasses and bottles being moved and lights being switched on and off - not to mention the disturbing black figure in the cellar. The ghost of a

small female child, aged about nine, is said to have been seen at Sir Hiram Maxim’s Gift Shop. Sir Hiram Maxim’s Flying Machines is the oldest ride at the park, built in 1904, and about three years ago an item moved itself overnight to a completely different spot. The Ice Rink claims to have several ‘spooks’, various things have been seen backstage in the dressing rooms, perhaps previous show skaters of year gone by. Late at night I myself have heard someone or something skating on the ice, when I have gone to look, nothing was there. Lights and equipment move of their own accord and doors have been wide open when they have closed with padlocks. Staff working late at night, walking across to the tractor

bay, have felt really cold, chilled to the bone and an “awful” presence. The Eagle and Child The Eagle and Child pub claims to have a ghost that goes by the name of Murph, apparently sometimes after midnight you can hear him moaning at the bar and scaring away the customers. Rumour has it he was an old highway robber from London who came to hide from his previous crimes. Carleton Ghost In December 1936, the Blackpool Evening Gazette carried an article entitled ‘Carleton Ghost?’ A Layton taxi-driver claims he has seen a ghost with a green face, near the gates of Carleton Crematorium where five years previously a lonely widow had been

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battered to death in nearby Robins Lane – a quiet area near to Carleton - and perhaps the green face had been this poor woman’s ghost? The taxi driver, Harry Hodges, picked up a young lady from North station and took her to the crematorium. He pulled up to the gates and found himself staring into the face of an old man, ‘with sunken eyes, long dark hair, a Punch-like nose and prominent chin’. The woman screamed and jumped out of the cab and ran off, Harry watched as the face moved in front of his cab and then disappeared. Illuminations building The Illuminations Department building on Rigby Road is an old building which has a history as a donkey stable prior to taking on its current use. Due to the nature of the work, involving a lot of nightshifts, staff are often in the building late at night and, after several of them having had what they perceived as supernatural experiences. One of the fitters, Frank Murray had often complained of feeling cold and of a presence hanging around when he was working in the fitting shop early in the morning and other staff have reported strange noises. A medium has also identified the spirit as a “Ted” who had owned a boat and drowned. After all the regular trams have stopped running for the night, a phantom tram is reported to travel slowly and silently down along the rails. Unknown ghost In 1994, Blackpool woman Jill Cook called in a priest, two psychics and even a Mormon missionary to try to help her get rid of a ghost which she claimed regularly attacked her. The attacks began in early 1994, when she felt something climb into bed beside her and pull off the towel which she was wearing wrapped round her head. She felt a ‘vile’ sensation as it touched her – “like tiny needles trying to pierce my skin”. While she continued her quest to be rid of the haunting, she discovered that placing an ioniser in her room moved the ghost from one room to another. Kitty Breaks In the early morning of Christmas Eve 1919 the body of 26 year old Kathleen (Kitty) Breaks was found among the sand dunes at Lytham St. Annes near Blackpool. She had been shot three times with a revolver. Frederick Rothwell Holt, who had been her lover, was arrested and charged with her murder. Holt’s footprints together with his Webley service revolver and blood stained gloves were found in the dunes. Many

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holiday makers and locals over the years have claimed to see the sad wandering spirit of this woman.

over by psychiatrists. He was hanged by John Ellis on the 13th April 1920 at Strangeways prison in Manchester.

Raikes Hall Raikes Hall was previously a private dwelling and is now a public house in Blackpool. Once a convent, one of its former inhabitants who drowned herself nearby comes back to visit from beyond the grave and move items around the pub. Late at night regulars have heard strange noises from cellars.

It’s interesting to see who else that John Ellis dealt with and what effect being a hangman eventually had on him. John executed 156 during his macabre career including many famous criminals, which we will come to later. He tended his resignation due to poor health, having executed a total of 203 people. Before his suicide (slitting his own throat) on September 20th 1932, Ellis wrote his memoirs “Diary of a Hangman” which has been recently reprinted. John Ellis took the responsibility of his position very seriously and hoped to “despatch” the condemned person with as little fuss and pain to the individual concerned. George Smith was the famous “Brides in the Bath” murderer whom Ellis hanged on 13th August 1915 at Maidstone prison.

BLOODBATH BLACKPOOL written by Juliette Gregson What does the town of Blackpool mean to most of our reader’s? Kiss me quick hats, donkeys on the beach, the tower, the pleasure beach, happy days as a small child building sandcastles on the promenade to think of a few. But what of its murky paranormal past and stories of murder and mayhem? Here are just a few tales of the town’s strange history….. An ex-World War I soldier put his crime down to post-traumatic stress disorder, but he still ended up on the gallows. Lieutenant Frederick Rothwell Holt had murdered his girlfriend, and then tried to plead insanity. But there was a huge question of a £5,000 life insurance policy hanging over the case. Near Blackpool Airport there are a stretch of sand dunes than run along the coast for a fair few miles. As a young child I actually used to go and play on them! On Christmas Eve 1919 the body of Kathleen Breaks (known as Kitty) was found, she had been shot three times by a revolver. In the sand dunes the police found a Wesley revolver, stained gloves and the footprints of her ex-lover Frederick Rothwell Holts. At the trial Frederick pleaded insanity which was rejected by the home office psychiatrists, he accused the police of setting mad dogs on him and trying to kill him with germ-ridden flies and poison him with gas. In other words, he was claiming post-traumatic stress and depression. However his plea of insanity fell on deaf ears and the jury found in favour of the prosecution. He then appealed asserting that he’d caught syphilis while serving in Malaya and this had tipped him over the edge. But the Home Office refused to entertain the idea after he was checked

George Joseph Smith (alias Oliver George Love, Charles Oliver James, Henry Williams and John Lloyd) was found guilty of the murders of Bessie Williams (nee Mundy) who was found dead in a bath in 1912, Alice Burnham who died in a bath at Blackpool in December 1913, and Margaret Elizabeth Lofty who was found in a bath in Highgate in December 1914. Blackpool Landlady Margaret Crossley had the couple turn up on her doorstep, claiming to be newly-weds and giving the name of Smith. They seemed to be quite genuine. Shown to the first-floor front, Smith beadily noted that the price included use of a bathroom down the landing. The Smiths had first viewed a room in Adelaide Street, but decided that without a bath, the accommodation would not suit. George Smith explained that his wife, Alice, was a former nurse and particular about hygiene. At 16 Regent Road, the bathroom has now been converted into a small bed-sit with its own bath, previous owners never knew of the house’s infamous history, ‘There’s always been something strange about that little flat at the back. People take it, but never stay. I must have had 10 tenants through it since I took the house a couple of years ago’ says a former owner who does not wish to be named. The arrangements at Regent Road suited Smith perfectly. What only he knew was that he had already drowned his first wife, Bessie Mundy, at Herne Bay the

year before, and had identical plans for his new bride, Alice Burnham. Smith had already insured Alice’s life for £500, and persuaded her to transfer money from her savings account into his. Just days before travelling to Blackpool, she had made a will in his favour, much to the anger of her parents. Then Alice asked if she might take a bath. Down in the kitchen, the Crossleys were having their evening meal when one of them noticed a large patch of water on the ceiling. It grew bigger and dripped down the wall. Knowing that Alice was bathing above, they discussed who should go up to complain. Just then, George Smith appeared, breathless and rumpled, with a paper bag. “I’ve bought these eggs for our breakfast in the morning,” he said, and went upstairs. Moments later, he appeared on the landing, shouting to Mrs. Crossley to fetch a doctor. He found Smith in the bathroom, supporting Alice’s head and she lay in the hot suds. “Oh, she is drowned,” the doctor announced. “She is dead.” Smith slept the night at a neighbour’s, but returned to Regent Road next morning to make funeral arrangements. In the afternoon, he played Mrs. Crossley’s piano in the parlour and drank a bottle of whisky, rendering him weepy and emotional at the inquest, hurriedly convened that very evening and hastily concluded. Verdict: accidental death from a fit in the bath. Alice was given the cheapest possible funeral and her body buried in a pauper’s grave. Derided for ordering a cheap coffin, Smith retorted: “When they are dead, they are done with.” He fled Blackpool, leaving an address with Mrs. Crossley on a postcard. On the back, she wrote “Wife died in bath. We shall see him again.” As Smith sped off down Regent Road, Mrs. Crossley hollered “Crippen!” after him. Alice’s estate, willed to Smith, amounted to £600. From the Bow Street dock, Smith hurled insults at the witnesses, branding his Blackpool landlady Mrs. Crossley “a lunatic”. At his Old Bailey trial, the Regent Road bath in which Alice Burnham died was used to demonstrate Smith’s murder method to the jury. In a back room of the court, the bath was filled with water and a nurse, wearing a bathing suit, got in. A detective inspector grasped her feet and pulled the nurse’s head under the water. So realistic was this demonstration that

the nurse had to be revived by artificial respiration. The jury took just 22 minutes to turn Smith over to the hangman. The water mark from Alice’s last bath stayed on Mrs. Crossley’s kitchen ceiling until she surrendered her £32-a-year lease and left the house around the time of the trial. The bath water had left a brown stain, and had marked the back of the pictures hanging on the kitchen wall. The house has recently again just been converted into flats; I wonder if the new owner knows what horrid history has transpired there. One hanging in the north of England that didn’t get the same prominence was that of Louisa Merrifield for the murder of Mrs Sarah Ricketts. The last woman to be executed at Strangeways Prison was 46 year old Louisa May Merrifield who had been convicted of poisoning Mrs Sarah Ricketts. Mrs Ricketts was a 79 year old, bedridden widow who lived in Blackpool, North shore and had hired Merrifield and her husband Alfred to look after her in March 1953. Shortly thereafter, she made a new will leaving her bungalow to Merrifield. Merrifield added the rat poison, Rodine, to the jam which Mrs Rickets subsequently ate. Her death was considered suspicious and an autopsy was performed which revealed the presence of poison. A record of the sale of the Rodine to Merrifield was discovered at a local chemist and the police arrested her and her husband, Alfred. Unfortunately for her, Merrifield had openly boasted of inheriting the bungalow which threw suspicion on her. On 9 April 1953 Louisa asked a Doctor to certify that Mrs. Ricketts was fit and sane enough to make a new will. On 14 April 1953, Mrs. Ricketts died. Her post-mortem revealed that she had died from phosphorous poisoning. The police searched the bungalow and its garden, with the Merrifields still in residence, although they found no poison. Louisa and Alfred Merrifield were both tried together with murder at Manchester in July 1953. The prosecution’s case was that the Merrifields had murdered Mrs. Ricketts with phosphorous in the form of a rat poison, and that they would benefit financially from Mrs. Ricketts’ death. Witnesses’ also testified to the earlier remarks made by Louisa Merrifield about her wealthy old women who had not died yet. Louisa Merrifield was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The jury failed to reach

a verdict on Alfred Merrifield. He was released and inherited a half-share in the late Mrs. Ricketts’ bungalow. He died, aged 80, in 1962. Louisa Merrifield was hanged at Manchester’s Strangeways Prison on 18 September 1953. It’s interesting to note that the house is now up for sale...But would you really want to live there?

Juliette Gregson (in her own “blackpudlian words”) I am 37, live with my partner have small (well I think she is !) dog called Christo and work as a Team Leader/contact centre civil servant for the DWP. Going to be taking a OU degree is history in Oct and actually have from my local college (yes even accredited) A level in Parapsychology! Born and raised in sunny Blackpool I began in my teens to widen my outlook on life. Helped my Father in a hypnotic show and also learnt the trade myself, joined a UFO group but never really saw anything paranormal. In later years went to college and gaining an A level in psychology and parapsychology which fuelled an interest in (NLP) neuro linguistic programming of which I have a foundation diploma. I have also been trained as a mentor which I believe gives me a grounding in being unbiased in matters of the paranormal. My current project is to compile evidence and historical research on the “Ghosts of Blackpool“, have written various articles for magazines, local paper’s and even the BBC! Also done guests talks at the local Library on the subject as well! I also have my own website: www.blackpoolghosts.co.uk

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Lesley Smith, Queen of Parts: Character Profile

Queen Elizabeth “She is of great incantation.” Said a 16th. century observer of Elizabeth of England. That intense spirit and cloak of power was enough to make hardened courtiers and some overseas visitors fall upon their knees at the very sight of her. No wonder, she was magnificent and her intelligence and biting wit stared out of that white leaded face through black eyes that seemed to bore holes through the person looking at her. She made grown men tremble.

As a young teenager , during the Tom Seymour sexual scandal that involved her, Elizabeth stood her ground against some tough interrogation by lawyers. In fact she stood so firm some of the investigators cast doubt as to whether she was human, wondering if she was “a Changeling”. This means the human child was replaced by a fairy child to be brought up in the court. This view was not a joke comment. Consider the opening part of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in which the fairies battle over a human child they had. The play does not tell us what they wanted with him or what they would do with him. There are vast tracks of contemporary papers written by ambassadors to other courts that give a clear picture of both her

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physical presence and personality. This apparently strange creature was front page news and of great interest. We have to be careful to pick over this evidence and be constantly aware that sometimes being insulting about Elizabeth was what the receiver wanted to read. Politicians don’t change that much over the centuries. Elizabeth ruled England for almost 45 years when in the earliest days of her reign, she was not expected to last more than months. She broke the rules by being a protestant queen in a cold bed with most of catholic Europe expecting her to conform by getting married and bending the knee to her husband and the country that he represented. Her council were keen for her to marry too and Cecil particularly pressed her to consider one country or another for an alliance that could bring protection and wealth to the now poor England. King Henry VIII, her father had known six marriages, six coronations and a taste for expensive clothes and jewels as well as great display such as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. His martial ambition was also expensive. The coffers filled so carefully by King Henry VII were now almost empty and England was in a weak state because of it. Elizabeth at 25, when she first came to the throne in 1558 decided to play a different game of chess (a game she was particularly good at) by suggesting she might marry one Prince or King or Duke and declaring herself unable to choose but would one day. The next moment she declared coyly that she wished to remain in the virgin state.

This game was the game of waiting for the suitors who desired this green and pleasant land, this happy breed of men. In the meantime, they made rich trading agreements to England’s advantage, remained friendly in tense political moments and sent Elizabeth personally some rather expensive presents. England quickly began to get on her feet with such a policy. War is expensive in so many ways and Elizabeth brought peace and prosperity. Unusually for a European monarch of the time, Elizabeth did not display martial ambition although it was not unknown for courtiers and council alike to be on the receiving end of physical violence from her including her popular choice of a smack with her shoe. “I will be Master and Mistress in my own Kingdom” she had cried and indeed that desire to utterly hold onto power became her trade mark as much as her virginity. There has been lots of speculation over the years and doubtful, in terms of source, papers and books about her sex life and negative views as to whether she really was a virgin. The truth is there is no real evidence of this matter and bed chambers were full of people as were other private rooms. Privacy was simply not an option, and even less so for the monarch who was born, gave birth and died in front of a full audience. Earlier, there are recorded cases of consummation being witnessed following a state marriage to ensure the contract was completed.

Personally I believe she enjoyed to flirt and did wildly but am not convinced she would pass the power of sharing her body with another.There is no doubt though, she loved Robert Dudley, very much. One glance at a childhood where Queens in her own extended family were humiliated, executed – including her own mother, and simply cast out, must have made Elizabeth determined to sail her own ship and that ship was called England. She even refused to name her successor until the last moments of her life when she weakly signalled with her hand when the name James of Scotland was given as a choice. The Queen knew if she had named her successor earlier that would encourage plotting. Her interest in the occult is well known but then again not as shocking as it might sound. It was quite usual for the

Renaissance man (and queen) to dabble in a range of ideas. This was a time of art and music and the ancient philosophies and world explorers. The Philosophers stone and Alchemy were merely part of this exploration of heaven and earth – and occasionally hell too. Elizabeth had her own black magician Dr. John Dee who chose many important dates for significant events for her, such as by tradition, her coronation. Dee travelled in many places in Europe including Prague where he spent much time at the court of Rudolph II who had a particular interest in magical ideas. When I play Elizabeth 1st. I am aware of the importance of this woman who transformed not only England but Europe’s view of powerful women. There had been others such as Isabella of Spain and Jean of

Navarre but not like Elizabeth. History has not given us another Elizabeth. I sit in a fantastic costume lined with steel (yes we had steel, so did the Romans) in my white face and painted mouth and cheeks, a mask that frightens the living daylights out of many visitors. I move oddly which is also spooky to watch but hardly surprising I move so strangely as my dress weighs 4stones 3 lbs . The huge ruffs and glittering embroidery makes her presence seem very real but I believe just a mere echo of the real thing and I remember with a smile only this week a child from a large school visit.I ask the children to help understand the power or diplomatic marriage “If you marry me boys what would you be?” up comes the cry “King” but not from one small chap aged about nine with freckles who said earnestly “frightened!”.

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So you want to work in...

SCARE NT

ENTERTAINME

If you spend your time imagining ways to make people scream with delight as they experience the deepest horrors of your mind made manifest, then working in the burgeoning UK scare entertainment industry just might be for you... I can remember my cousin’s stag weekend in Blackpool some years ago, twelve grown men descending on the Lancashire coast, we were like the Dirty Dozen except a) we weren’t soldiers b) we weren’t on a secret mission to kill a few Germans and c) none of us was Lee Marvin or Telly Savalas BUT we were twelve grown men who were reduced to quivery wobbly jelly type creatures after visiting Pasaje Del Terror for a laugh. LAUGH?? It got to the point where half way through not one of us wanted to go first nor last so we all held hands and slowly stumbled our way through what seemed like hours of heart pumping nightmare scenarios. Upon reaching the end we knew that they would try and scare us some more, as if we hadn’t had enough but we were safe in the knowledge that our embarrassment factor was nearly over and we could release our white knuckled hands and laugh at our experiences over a few beers and a hot dog. The inevitable happened and they did indeed scare us one last time making us run for the exit, some of us screaming like big girls (Billy & Stefan) although knowing that beyond that door was ‘sanctuary’, little were we to know that the door opens into a pub and there is no time to change from jellymen to toughnuts and out we came screaming, running and holding hands into a bar full of people, real live people who know doubt had probably gone through the same experience but still felt the need to ridicule us some more by laughing at us, not with us....

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PRODUCTION DESIGNER who is responsible for designing the layout and individual show elements within the attraction. SHOW WRITER who develops a storyline and creates a script around the narrative.

‘Scare entertainment’ is an umbrella term for any form of theatrical entertainment which is intended to frighten it’s audience, this includes (but is not limited to) theme park style immersive scare attractions, site specific theatre shows and interactive street theatre. In the last decade an industry has grown up in the UK and is now coming of age. Following an American blueprint the industry now boasts year round scare attractions, annual theme park and agricultural attraction horror-fests, and an array of sundry year round entertainment forms including travelling rides, national street theatre and even an online TV channel. There are many disciplines within the scare entertainment world, primarily these fall into two distinct categories; creatives and performers. Those who work in the creative side include Producers, Directors, Designers and Technicians, while those on the performance side bring the shows, attractions and productions scarily to life. Like any discipline in the entertainment world, there are no clear cut routes to making your way into the industry, some creatives come from the theme park amusement sector, while others come from theatre, television or film production. On the performance side you will find people from theatre or circus backgrounds, and even some from the live role-playing, historical re-enactment, murder mystery or

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burlesque industries. What they all have in common is a passion for horror and a flair for scare... DEATH BY DESIGN There are now several established production companies specialising in scare entertainment creation in the UK and these work year round to operate successful scare attractions either over short temporary periods, such as at Scare Kingdom Scream Park in Lancashire, or at year round sites such as Pasaje Del Terror in London and Blackpool. Companies tend to use freelance contractors rather than employ full time staff, engaging them in project specific contracts for the duration of a given attraction, production or show. Theme park operators, most notably Merlin, are now showing increased interest in offering these types of entertainment solutions at their sites and now work many months in advance to produce ‘Scarefest’ at Alton Towers - arguably the UK’s biggest annual scare entertainment event. At the beginning of a scare attraction project, the Senior Show Producer will contract a team of creatives including; SHOW PRODUCER who will be responsible for the show throughout the project. They are also responsible for ensuring that Health and Safety guidelines are adhered to, and are the point of contact for everyone else working on the project.

MODEL MAKER who will create a three dimensional or CAD model of the attraction design. After the attractions design, storyline and theme have been ‘locked’, a secondary team will begin working on the project, these include; PROPERTIES MASTER who will commission special properties from third party manufacturers and source other properties from worldwide suppliers. WARDROBE DESIGNER who will design, commission or make a set of costumes for the live characters, following a brief from the Show Writer and Producer. The same person usually also sources wigs for the characters. MAKEUP DESIGNER who will design makeup around the theme, look and ‘feel’ of the attraction. This will usually include prosthetic pieces and in some cases masks.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER who will oversee a team of construction workers who will build the attraction either from scratch, or into an existing space. SCENIC PAINTERS who will paint the attraction exterior and interior once construction has taken place.

PLACEMAKING TEAM who will populate the attraction with properties, wall and floor coverings, furniture, curtains, drapes and effects. TECHNICAL PRODUCER who will install the technical effects including lighting, sound systems, scent and fog machines and animatronics. This will usually include sensors and a computer which control effects throughout the attraction. As the attraction is being built, another team is working to ensure that it is brought to life in an effective manner by casting a team of talented scare actors. Lead by the Casting Director a series of auditions will be held in which actors will be asked to perform scripted pieces and take part in workshop and improvised pieces. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS One of the most exciting things about working in scare entertainment is that you can flit between creative and performance roles, so that no two days are ever the same!

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which he said took place at a haunted manor house in Shropshire.

Without a doubt Harry Price is a seminal figure in the field of modern day ghost hunting. Paranormal investigators of today, even though they may know little about Price himself are following the procedures that he used to bring the scientific study of psychical research firmly into the public eye over fifty years ago. However, several of his cases – the most famous and long lasting of which is the haunting of Borley Rectory – have been the subject of much critical study in the years since his death, as has Price’s own personal reputation. Controversial amongst his colleagues in the field of psychical research during his lifetime, this critical attention continues to this day and as an individual he continues to arouse interest and comment. Recent studies have uncovered much about Price the man that will of course be used by his critics to dismiss his work and the achievements obtained during his lifetime, but although as a person he was indeed a shrewd, complicated and at times calculating

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individual, his writings and adventures provide a legacy that continues to inspire to this day. Notwithstanding his claim to be born in Shropshire, apparently changing the details of his early life, claiming that he was the son of wealthy parents and came from Shropshire, Harry Price was born in Red Lion Square, New Cross, a far from wealthy district of London, on the site of the South Place Ethical Society’s Conway Hall. His father was a traveling salesman for a firm of paper manufacturers and after trying his hand at several diverse types of work Harry entered this line of employment himself, becoming a salesman for the same company as his father. Despite being famous as a ghost-hunter Price never actually gave up his day job and worked in the paper industry all his life. Evening classes at Goldsmiths College where Price studied amongst other things photography and engineering gave him practical skills that he later used to his advantage. He was educated in London at Waller Road School and Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College, the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Boys School. When he was 15 years of age Price founded the Carlton Dramatic Society and wrote small plays including a drama about his early experience with a poltergeist

A few years later, Price came to the attention of the Press when he claimed an early interest in space-telegraphy. He set up a receiver and transmitter between Telegraph Hill, Hatcham and St Peter’s Church Brockley and captured a spark on a photographic plate, though according to the most recent biography of Price by Richard Morris, this was nothing more than Harry writing a press release saying he had done the experiment. Nothing was verified. The young Price also had an avid interest in coin collecting and wrote several articles for The Askean, the magazine for Haberdashers’ School. In his autobiography, Search for Truth, written between 1941 and 1942, Price claimed he was involved with archaeological excavations in Greenwich Park, London but in earlier writings on Greenwich denied he had a hand in the excavation. In 1904 he was appointed honorary curator of numismatics at Ripon Museum and in May 1908 Price continued his interest in archaeology at Pulborough, Sussex where he had moved to before marrying Constance Mary Knight that August. The couple set up their home in the village of Pulborough, West Sussex. The Knights were a somewhat affluent family and Constance had the benefit of a small trust fund that supplemented Price’s income, enabling him to establish what would become the greatest occult library in the world. Price became interested in magic at the age of eight, developing into a competent amateur conjuror and these skills gave him an insight into the workings of the many mediums that he became interested in before and especially after the Great War ended. As well as working for paper merchants Edward Saunders & Sons as a salesman he wrote for two local Sussex newspapers the West Sussex Gazette and the Southern Weekly News where he wrote about his remarkable propensity for discovering ‘clean’ antiquities. One of these, a silver ingot, was stamped around the time of the last Roman emperor Honorius, a few years after another celebrated Sussex archaeologist Charles Dawson found a brick at Pevensey Fort in Sussex which was purportedly made in Honorius’ time. In 1910 Professor E.J Haverfield of Oxford University, the country’s foremost expert on Roman history and a Fellow of the Royal Academy announced it a fake. A report for the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (number 23, pages 121-9) in the same year reported that:

‘...the double axe type of silver ingot was well known and dated from late Imperial times but the one recovered from Sussex was an inferior copy of one found at the Tower of London, with alterations to give it an air of authenticity. Both the shape and lettering betrayed its origin.’ In his autobiography, Search for Truth, Price said the “Great Sequah” in Shrewsbury was “entirely responsible for shaping much of my life’s work”, and led to him acquiring the first volume of what would become the Harry Price Library, Price later became an expert amateur conjurer, joined the Magic Circle in 1922 and maintained a lifelong interest in stage magic and conjuring. His expertise in sleight-of-hand and magic tricks stood him in good stead for what would become his all consuming passion, the investigation of paranormal phenomena.

make his mark in a career in which he was passionately interested. As a person he had a great desire to be famous and felt he had a lot to contribute to the subject. Eventually he made up his own mind that he would reorganize psychical research in Britain on his own terms and used his contacts in the SPR to gain experience of the scientific study of the paranormal before putting his plans into action.

Fake psychics and mediums abounded during the 1914-1918 conflict, feeding off the slaughter in the trenches. Price knew many of their tricks and became exceptionally scathing towards Spiritualism, which he described in his writings as being riddled with fraud. He came to the firm decision that when he was able he would establish a scientific facility where mediums and psychics who claimed supernormal powers could be tested to prove their claims. At this time, the dawn of the 1920s, the phenomena of the séance room was the area where paranormal study was most heavily focused. Price claimed to have had his first psychical experience at the age of 15. Initially, his interest in psychical research led him to make a point of exposing the many frauds and tricksters operating therein. He spent years undertaking experiments to show how mediums and their assistants could falsify ‘spirit photographs’, trances, the appearances of familiars, and messages from the dead. He joined the Society of Psychical Research, but quickly made enemies among the members. His strong personality and talent for self-promotion antagonised others and it was not long before he parted company with the SPR and set up his own organisation.

Price’s first major success in psychical research came in 1922 when he exposed the ‘spirit’ photographer William Hope. Price secretly marked Hope’s photographic plates, and provided him with a packet of additional plates that had been covertly etched with the brand image of the Imperial Dry Plate Co. Ltd. in the knowledge that the logo would be transferred to any images created with them. Unaware that Price had tampered with his supplies, Hope then attempted to produce a number of Spirit photographs. Although Hope produced several images of spirits, none of his materials contained the Imperial Dry Plate Co. Ltd logo, or the marks that Price had put on Hopes original equipment, showing that he had switched prepared materials containing fake spirit images for the provided materials. Despite Price’s findings, Hope still retained a noted following, including author and spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who refused to accept any evidence that Hope was a fraud and went to great lengths to clear his name, going so far as to write a book supporting spirit photography, The Case for Spirit Photography, in response to Harry Price’s claims of fraud and trying to convince Price to withdraw his story.

Price’s uneasy relationship with organized British psychical research began when he was elected a member of the English Society for Psychical Research in June 1920 to whom he gave the benefit on loan of his by then vast library of occult literature. Price came onto the paranormal scene when he was nearly forty and was looking to

During the same year, Price traveled to Germany together with Eric Dingwall and investigated Willi Schneider, where he became

convinced that genuine paranormal phenomena did exist. The following year, Price made a formal offer to the University of London to equip and endow a Department of Psychical Research, and to loan the equipment of the National Laboratory and its library. In 1923, the National Laboratory of Psychical Research was established in Bloomsbury and Price had his first sittings with mediums Stella Cranshaw, a young nurse, who claimed to have had strange experiences including poltergeist phenomena. Price organized a series of sittings with Stella at the London Spiritualist Alliance and published impressive results in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. Sittings with Jean Guzik and Anna Pilch soon followed and shortly after, he outlined a scheme for broadcasting experiments in telepathy for the BBC and, in 1925, was appointed foreign research officer to the American Society for Psychical Research, a position he was to hold until 1931. In 1926, the National Laboratory of Psychical Research moved to new premises in Queensbury Place, South Kensington, and Price was to experience his first sittings with Rudi Schneider in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria, and to conduct his first experiments with Eleanore Zugun in Vienna.

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The investigation of mediumistic phenomena still took up much of his time but Price was prepared to allow all and sundry who claimed paranormal abilities to be examined including contortionists, thought readers and performance artists whose real home was undoubtedly the fairground rather than the laboratory of an organization whose aims were the scientific study of the occult. This being the case, Price’s National Laboratory attained in the eyes of mainstream science, and particularly bodies such as the SPR, a vaudeville atmosphere that consigned his work to the fringes of recognized science. Price wrote often amusing accounts of many of these experiments in several of his books but the result of all this was that by the end of the decade, Price was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the way his work was not only progressing but the response it was receiving from orthodox scientific bodies. One year later, Price publically opened the ‘box’ of prophetess, Joanna Southcott at a Church Hall in Westminster. The University of London Board of Studies in Psychology responded positively to this proposal and, in 1934, the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation was formed with Price as Honorary Secretary and Editor. In the meanwhile, in 1927, Price joined the Ghost Club, of which he remained a member until it (temporarily) closed in 1936. In 1929, Rudi Schneider was brought to London for experiments into his mediumship and Price began his 10 year investigation of hauntings at Borley Rectory in Suffolk. In 1932, Price, along with C.E.M.Joad, travelled to Mount Brocken in Germany to conduct a ‘black magic’ experiment in connection with the centenary of Goethe, involving the transformation of a goat into a young man. Price’s work shows an amazing dichotomy between the undertaking of serious scientific study and blatant publicity seeking and sensationalism. There are times when it can clearly be shown the great pains that Price went in achieving scientifically acceptable conditions in which to carry out his experiments, while on other occassions they are clearly headline generating escapades designed to keep Price and his organization firmly in the public eye. Consequently newspaper editors loved him as anything that involved Price was guaranteed to generate good copy and he soon became the most well known psychical investigator during the late 1920s and this notoriety was to continue.

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In 1934, the National Laboratory of Psychical Research took on its most illustrious case. £50 was paid to the medium Helen Duncan so that she could be examined under scientific conditions. A sample of Helen Duncan’s ectoplasm had been previously examined by the Laboratory and found to be largely made of egg white. Price found that Duncan’s spirit manifestations were cheesecloth that had been swallowed and regurgitated by Duncan. Price later wrote up the case in Leaves from a Psychist’s Case Book in a chapter called “The Cheese-cloth Worshippers”. During Duncan’s famous trial in 1944, Price gave his results as evidence for the prosecution. Price’s psychical research continued with investigations into Karachi’s Indian rope trick and the fire-walking abilities of Kuda Bux in 1935. He was also involved in the formation of the National Film Library (British Film Institute) becoming its first chairman (until 1941) and was a founding member of the Shakespeare Film Society. In 1936, Price broadcast from a supposedly haunted manor house in Meopham, Kent for the BBC and published The Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter and The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap. This year also saw the transfer

of Price’s library on permanent loan to the University of London, followed shortly by the laboratory and investigative equipment. In 1937, he conducted further televised experiments into fire-walking with Ahmed Hussain at Carshalton and Alexandra Palace, and also rented Borley Rectory for one year. The following year, Price re-established the Ghost Club, with himself as chairman, modernizing it and changing it from a spiritualist association to a group of more or less open-minded skeptics that gathered to discuss paranormal topics. He was also the first to admit women to the club. In the same year, Price conducted experiments with Rahman Bey who was ‘buried alive’ in Carshalton and drafted a Bill for the regulation of psychic practitioners. In 1939, he organized a national telepathic test in the periodical John O’London’s Weekly. During the 1940s, Price concentrated on writing and the works The Most Haunted House in England, Poltergeist Over England and The End of Borley Rectory were all published. Harry Price’s organisation existed until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 when he closed his office and retired from active investigation. 1934-1939 could well be described as Price’s true ‘ghost hunting’

years. As well as the Brocken Experiment he investigated an alleged talking mongoose on the Isle of Man, carried out fire-walking experiments in Surrey, investigated the Indian Rope Trick and made the first live radio broadcast from a haunted house. In all these investigations he projected the role of a modern paranormal investigator. His ‘ghost hunter’s kit’, a suitcase containing cameras, measuring equipment, a thermograph and other devices reinforced the impression of the scientific study of the supernatural. The equipment of today’s investigators may be far more sophisticated but the application of Price’s gadgets was the same. Price’s archives were deposited with the University of London between 1976 and 1978 by his widow, and include his correspondence, drafts of his publications, papers relating to libel cases, reports on his investigations, press cuttings and photographs. During his lifetime, he was a controversial figure, partly due to his interest in psychical research and partly because of his habit of self-promotion. That he made a contribution to parapsychology is beyond dispute, but his love of publicity made him enemies as well as friends. A charismatic and enigmatic character who bestrode the world of psychical research for something like thirty years, Harry Price’s achievements were original, far-reaching and of considerable value to those who sought to follow his search for truth. They included an exhaustive, remarkable and unique collection of books and pamphlets devoted to magic in its widest sense; the longest, most comprehensive and original investigation of a haunted house ever carried out; scientific exploration of supernormal phenomena (mediumship, spiritualistic and psychic activity, haunted houses and such like ); the first broadcast experiment in fire-walking; the first live broadcast from a haunted house; the revival of the Ghost Club in its fourth span of life and some twenty books of which perhaps the best known are The Most Haunted House in England (1940), Search for Truth (1942), Poltergeist Over England (1945) and The End of Borley Rectory (1946). He was also European Research Officer of the American Society for Psychical Research and an enthusiastic contributor to scientific journals, psychic publications and newspapers and periodicals such as The Listener and Light. After the deaths of Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Price became the embodiment of

psychic research worldwide and anyone, British or foreigner, wishing to obtain information and advice on problems of psychic activity, in nine cases out of ten it was to to Harry Price that everyone turned. He had already contributed authoritive articles to the Encyclopaedia Britannica while among his more bizarre cases there was the ‘exploration’ of Gef the talking mongoose on the Isle of Man, spending part of a night in a reputedly haunted bed in a museum in Chiswick in the company of Professor C.E.M. Joad and attempting to turn a goat into a handsome yound man in a ‘magic’ ceremony in the Harz Mountains. At the time of his sudden death in 1948 he was busy on several lines of research into the unknown. Whatever critics might say - and of course with hindsight some things could have been better handled - Harry Price fought a long, lone battle against those who derided the whole world of the occult on the one hand and the fanatical believers in spiritualism on the other. He was especially well-prepared for exposing fraudulent mediums and indeed charlatans and mountebanks of every description since while still a youngster he became fascinated by conjuring, ‘magic’ tricks, unusual claims, apparent wizardry, illusionists, hypnotists, thought-readers and fortune tellers and in later years he became an adroit conjurer himself. Soon he became a member of the Magic Circle, was elected to the Society of American Magicians and, in 1921, was the Honorary Librarian of the exclusive Magician’s Club. He addressed the Occult Committee of the Magic Circle and repeatedly took to task those formidable conjurers, such as the Maskelynes, who refused to accept that any psychic activity was genuine. He founded

and ran a National Laboratory of Psychical Research (another first) and attracted to its membership such luminaries as Professor A.M. Low, Professor R.J. Tillyard, Professor (later Sir) Julian Huxley, while his Ghost Club members and guests included Algernon Blackwood, Dr C.E.M. Joad, Professor S.G. Soal, Siegfried Sassoon, Sir Ernest Jelf (Master of the Supreme Court), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.J. Yorke, Sir Albian Richardson KBE, author and artist Robert Gibbings, Osbert Sitwell and actress Mabel Constandurous. It has been said that in his search for truth every kind of seemingly abnormal happening came under his careful scrutiny, from mediumship and the Indian Rope Trick to fire-walking and strange and persistent poltergeist activity. Some magicians did appreciate what he was trying to do. Will Goldston, Vice-President of the Magician’s Club wrote in one publication: ‘Harry Price has a unique position in the magic world. He is the Hon. Director of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research and has sat with every spiritualistic medium of note in this country and on the Continent. He possesses the largest library of magical books - probably in the world - and he has invented many magical effects and has given me some of the most valuable secrets for inclusion in my book, Great Magicians’ Tricks.’ Later Price was elected a Vice-President of the Magicians’ Club and a member of the Inner Magic Circle, an almost unknown honour for an amateur conjurer. The case of haunting most closely associated with Harry Price is undoubtedly the Borley Rectory case. He first visited the remote Essex rectory in 1929 and for the rest of his life, on and off, he continued

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his interest and investigation. At the time of his death in 1948 he was engaged in preliminary work for a third volume on the mysteries of Borley, as intrigued as he had been the first time he heard about the case nearly twenty years earlier. On his initial visit to the area he asked his way to Borley Rectory as he passed through Sudbury and the local inhabitant replied, ‘Oh, you mean the most haunted house in England’. The phrase stuck in Price’s mind and ten years later he called his famous book on the case ‘The Most Haunted House in England’, being careful to put the words in inverted commas since they were a quote and not, as many people have thought, his own judgment. Over the next few years Price and his associate Sidney Glanville interviewed everyone they could who had personal experience of the haunting; an exercise that resulted in ‘The Locked Book of Private Information’ which contains many surmises, suggestions allegations and libellous statements. The most remarkable case of alleged materialisation which Price ever witnessed was in 1937 and has become known as ‘the Rosalie case’. The apparent materialisation was that of a naked young girl who died in 1921. Price published the story in the book that he was always especially proud of: Fifty Years of Psychical Research, subtitled ‘A Critical Survey’ and although he only had the one sitting and had been permitted to be present only on strict conditions that included not revealing the identity of any of the sitters or the exact locality of the house

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where the séance was held, a house in south London. He was not allowed to use a torch or do anything but observe, but he was permitted full control of the room and the sitters up to the beginning of the séance and he was allowed to search the house from top to bottom, seal doors and windows, remove some furniture and generally control things within reason. For the actual séance Price seated himself between ‘Rosalie’s’ mother and the wife of the owner of the house. The other three sitters were the house owner, his seventeen-year old daughter and her boyfriend. In the event, when the child apparently materialised Price was permitted to hold the child and run his hands over the body which was that of a little girl of about six years of age. He felt the pulse, established there was a heart beat, saw the form to an extent by the means of a carefully held luminous plaque and he was allowed to ask the child six questions. He only received an answer to his last question when he asked, “Rosalie, do you love your mummy?”. A lisped “Yes” came in reply. Shortly afterwards ‘Rosalie’ disappeared without a sound. After the séance Price was again permitted to make any kind of search he desired. He found all his seals intact and nothing disturbed in the séance room. He continued to explore and examine everything he could think of and and then, thoroughly mystified, he left the house just before midnight. He never had the opportunity to return to the house and he published the account ‘with considerable hesitation’. Mrs K.M. Goldney, MBE, a prominent member of the English Society for Psychical Research, saw Harry Price and his secretary the day after this remarkable experience and she told me that Price appeared to be deeply disturbed, almost distraught, and undoubtedly shaken to the core by what had happened. He told her the story in great detail but could not bring himself to say that the experience had convinced him that there was life after death. Nevertheless it was an experience that puzzled him for the rest of his life and he was both frightened and shaken by the experience.

Harry Price deposited his collection with Senate House Library in 1937, and bequeathed it to the University on his death, which occurred in 1948, requesting that it be known as the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature. The Library reflects the lifelong interest Price had in magic in its widest sense - from conjuring tricks to psychic phenomena. The collection sprang from an early interest in conjuring brought about, according to Price, by a visit, at the age of eight, to a fairground quack to have a tooth pulled. Price recalls that he was distracted by magic tricks performed as part of the ‘Great Sequah’s’ show, and in losing his tooth gained a lifelong interest in magic. His parents sought to satisfy the young Price’s demands for explanations of how an “empty” hat contained two doves by purchasing a book called Modern Magic by ‘Professor Hoffmann’. Price describes this book as ‘the nucleus of this collection and my first introduction to that vast literature on phenomenal happenings which I afterwards made my life’s study’. Harry Price became an amateur conjuror and began to collect magical literature. The range of topics within his purview can be seen from the keyword list that he drew up as part of the introduction to the published Short-title Catalogue of what, at that stage, was the Library of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, issued in 1929. Price published a Supplement to that catalogue in 1935, with a slightly different list of ‘curious subjects’. His collection developed to reflect his interest in psychic phenomena and the means of testing any apparent manifestation of such phenomena: ‘occult and magical works … useful to the psychical researcher and especially to the student who wishes to conduct his experiments scientifically’. Price himself became a noted psychic investigator and ghost hunter. Harry Price gave himself a very wide bibliographic scope in which to collect. The date range of the collection is from incunabula to contemporary publications. He collected all formats of publication: books, periodicals, pamphlets, ephemera and almanacs. As his collecting progressed Price amassed a significant quantity of works from the hand-press period, many of which can be regarded as Rare Books. Harry Price collected all manner of publications, works of fiction take their place alongside memoirs, biographies, treatises, histories, reports, books of practical instruction and magical texts. The original bequest from Harry Price has been augmented from various sources. By giving an endowment to Senate House Library to

permit the purchase of additional material, Price indicated that he wished his Library to continue to expand. Some items have been added from the stock of Senate House Library, and others have come from the bequest of Allan Heywood Bright, made in 1942, of 1,951 books on psychical research and related subjects - other items from this bequest have been incorporated in to the general stock of Senate House Library. Another source was a collection of relevant books donated by the Wellcome Institute Library. In recent years the collection has benefited from books given by Mr Robert Loomis and Mr Patrick Lindley. In the forward to the Supplement to the Shorttitle Catalogue, Harry Price explains further the nature of his collection: ‘Apart from its bibliographical and historical interest, the main purpose of the Research Library is to assist the student in the investigation of alleged phenomenological happenings; to help him detect the psychic imposter and charlatan; and to enable him to recognise genuine phenomenon, if and when he sees one. There are so many facets to the alleged miraculous, that the student is compelled to explore a great number of queer by-paths of literature in order that he may acquire knowledge with which to combat fraud in its various disguises.’ The total number of books, pamphlets and periodical titles in the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature amounts to nearly 13,000 items. A proportion of those published between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries is available as digitised facsimiles on the database Victorian Popular Culture. The selection of texts was made by Professor Peter Otto, Chair of Literary Studies, University of Melbourne, and published by Adam Matthew Digital. During his very active life, Harry Price generated an enormous Archive of sundry papers, correspondence, press cuttings, photographs and artefacts, all of which has now been catalogued and is available for consultation. The psychic telephone was an instrument invented by F. R. Melton of Nottingham, UK, consisting of a box containing a rubber bag connected with a pair of earphones from a wireless set. The idea was that, if a medium inflates the bag with her breath and then seals it, the bag takes the place of the medium and directs voices to be heard through the earphones in the medium’s absence. Harry Price subjected the instrument to a thorough test in the National Laboratory of Psychical Research. He concluded that it did not work.

Harry Price & Borley Rectory Borley Rectory has become the classic haunted house and one that now has legendary status. Situated in a lonely district of rural Essex, Price first became aware of it in June 1929 through his good relationship with the editor of the Daily Mirror. Over the years the Bull family who lived at the Rectory from 1863 until 1927 reported at a local level many ghostly incidents including footsteps, strange lights and apparitions. When the new rector and his wife curiously brought these occurrences to the attention of a national newspaper, the arrival of a reporter and a day later Harry Price, they set in motion the most controversial case in the history of paranormal investigation. Initially Price was unimpressed with Borley but this was to change. In October 1931 Price returned to Borley but again was unconvinced with

full-length books on Borley. In both he stated his total belief that Borley Rectory gave incontrovertible proof of a genuine haunting. Price was preparing a third book on the Borley case when he suffered a massive heart attack and died at his home in Pulbough on Easter Sunday, 28 March 1948. Borley Rectory was a tragedy for Harry Price in many ways. The case came to him when he had lost his critical stance as a practical and skeptical investigator. With the watering down of his own organization to little more than an honorary title he used Borley as a means to generate interest in not only himself but also the subject in which he was still passionately interested – psychical research. By playing up the sensational side of the case he in fact missed the evidence that does exist for a genuine case of haunting at Borley.

the phenomena the new rector Lionel Foyster and his family were apparently experiencing. Price told the vicar to his face that his wife was playing the ghost and the two men parted on bad company.

A particular tragedy is that Borley has diverted attention away from his most important contribution to paranormal research, namely the studies of Stella Cranshaw and the Schneider brothers. Here, by using the stringent methods demanded by orthodox science he demonstrated the existence of paranormal forces, which at the present time this same orthodox science cannot explain. A full length Borley Rectory feature is planned for a future issue of Haunted.

The Foysters left Borley in 1935 and in 1937 Price himself rented the Rectory, carrying out a yearlong observational experiment using a hand picked team of observers recruited through the classified section of The Times. On the night of 27/28 February 1939 the next owner of Borley Rectory torched the building in an insurance scam and the ruins were eventually demolished in 1944. With his organisation disbanded the journalist in Harry Price came to the fore and by 1946 he had published two

On Easter Sunday, 29th March 1948 Harry went out to post a letter, upon returning home he settled himself into his favourite armchair and promptly suffered a fatal heart attack.

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Books by Harry Price: • Revelations of a Spirit Medium - Edited by E.J. Dingwall & Harry Price (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd, London, 1922. LXIV+VI+327pp. Second edition, 1930. LXIV+327pp.) • Cold Light on Spiritualistic “Phenomena” - An Experiment with the Crewe Circle (Reprinted with a Preface from the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research for May 1922. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1922. 15pp.) • Stella C. A Page of Psychic History compiled from the Records of Thirteen Sittings (John M. Watkins, 1924. 32pp.) • Stella C. An Account of Some Original Experiments in Psychical Research (Hurst & Blackett Ltd., London, 1925. 106pp with 16 illustrations & a forward by C.R. Haines)

• Exhibition of Rare Works from the Research Library of the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation, from 1490 to the Present Day - Foreword by Harry Price (University of London Council for Psychical Investigation, 1934. 48pp. with 8 illustrations) • Supplement to Short-Title Catalogue of Research Library From 1472 A.D. to the Present Day (Bulletin I of the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation, 1935. 112pp. with 9 illustrations) • A Report on Two Experimental Fire-Walks (Bulletin II of the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation, 1936. 15pp. with 20 illustrations and a Bibliography) • Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter (Putnam & Co. Ltd., London, 1936. 396pp. Second edition with slight alterations, in the same year)

• A Report on the Telekinetic and Other Phenomena Witnessed Through Eleonore Zügen (Proceedings of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Volume I, Part I, January 1927. 1-63pp.)

• The Haunting of Cashen’s Gap: A Modern “Miracle” Investigated - With R.S. Lambert

• Short-Title Catalogue of Research Library From 1472 to the Present Day (Proceedings of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Volume I, Part II, April 1929. 67-422pp.)

• The Alleged Haunting at B----- Rectory - Instructions for Observers (University of London Council for Psychical Investigation, 1937)

• Rudi Schneider: A Scientific Examination of his Mediumship (Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1930. XV+239pp with a portrait of the medium & 11 illustrations.) • Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship (Bulletin I of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, 1931. 120pp with 44 illustrations.)

(Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1936. X+211pp. with 8 illustrations)

• Instructions for Using “Telepatha Cards”: Extra-sensory perception (John Waddington Ltd., 1938. 16pp.) • Fifty Years of Psychical Research: A Critical Survey (Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., 1939. XII+383pp.) • Christmas Ghosts (St. Hugh’s Press Ltd, London, 1939)

• An Account of Some Further Experiments with Rudi Schneider: a minute-by-minute record of 27 séances (Bulletin IV of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, 1933. 199pp with 22 illustrations.)

• The Most Haunted House in England: Ten Years’ Investigation of Borley Rectory (Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., London, 1940. 255pp.)

• Leaves from a Psychist’s Case-Book (Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1933. 404pp. with 32 illustrations)

• Search for Truth: My Life for Psychical Research (Collins, London, 1942. 320pp with 20 illustrations)

• Rudi Schneider: The Vienna Experiments of Professors Meyer & Przibram (Bulletin V of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, 1933. 31pp.)

• Poltergeist Over England: Three Centuries of Mischievous Ghosts (Country Life Ltd., London, 1945. XII+423pp. with 12 plates & 43 line illustrations by John Hookham)

• Official Science and Psychical Research - Compiled by Harry Price (Bulletin VI of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, 1933. 47pp.)

• The End of Borley Rectory (Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1946. 358pp with 26 plates & 10 illustrations in the text.)

For more information on Harry Price visit the excellent website www.harrypricewebsite.co.uk

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Scooby Doo

SCOOBY'S

ALL-STAR LAFF A LYMPICS The Scooby-Doo Show was the blanket name for the episodes from the third incarnation of the HannaBarbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo. A total of 40 episodes ran for three seasons, from 1976 to 1978, on ABC. Sixteen episodes were produced as segments of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour (aka The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Show) in 1976 (see Haunted issue #2 for an episode guide), eight episodes were produced as segments of Scooby’s All-Star Laff-ALympics in 1977 and sixteen episodes were produced in 1978, with six of them running by themselves under the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! name and the final ten as segments of Scooby’s All-Stars. Despite

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the yearly changes in the way they were broadcast, the 1976-1978 stretch of Scooby episodes represents, at three seasons, the longest-running format of the original show before the addition of Scrappy-Doo. The episodes from all three seasons have been rerun under the title The Scooby-Doo Show since 1980; these Scooby episodes did not originally air under this title. Like most Saturday morning animated series’ of the era, The Scooby-Doo Show contained a laugh track. Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics was a two-hour Saturday morning animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977 to September 2, 1978 on ABC. It contained the following segments: The Scooby-Doo Show, LaffA-Lympics, The Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.

The Curse Of Viking Lake Airdate: September 10th 1977 The gang heads off to a fishing trip with Velma’s uncle John, only to find Uncle John missing--and long dead Vikings and their ship haunting the area! Scooby Villains: The Viking Ghosts of Viking Lake aka The Museum Curator and the two missing geologists Scooby Gaff: Throughout the entire episode, Scooby and the gang are wearing winter clothes. However, during the closing scene the gang is shown in their regular clothes, even though Uncle John was still wearing his winter ones.

Scooby Banter: Shaggy: And if your uncle hadn’t caught them at it, Velma, they might have gotten away with it Scooby Trivia: In the 1977-1978 season, The Scooby-Doo Show shared an hour with the popular All-Star Laff-a-Lympics show that placed all of the most popular Hanna-Barbara stars in three competing teams: the Yogi Yahooeys, The Scoobys, and the Really Rottens.

Vampire Bats And Scaredy Cats Airdate: September 17th 1977 The gang goes to visit their friend Lisa Banoh at Great Skull Island. But as it is her 18th birthday, she inherits the island’s hotel, haunted by a vampire. As they get an unexpected and unwanted visit by a

vampire, she finds out she is from a long family line of vampires. Scooby Villains: The Great Skull Island Vampire aka Uncle Leon

When the gang find a torn paper in a coffin it is written exo-6 and something else. They find later that exo is the first part of exotic. The way the paper was torn, you should be able to see the lower part of the missing letters.

Scooby Gaff: In an effort to protect themselves against a vampire, Scooby and Shaggy barricade themselves in a room by piling furniture against a door, which is to their left.

Scooby Trivia: There are two versions of this episodes. One version is Mr. Dracle speaking with his normal voice. The other version is Mr. Dracle speaking with Dracula’s voice.

However, when it is obvious that they are still in danger, they start removing that furniture in an attempt to escape. This time the same furniture and door are to their right.

Guest starring: Scooby-Dum

When Lisa’s Uncle shows her her grandfathers picture it changes from one shot to another

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Scooby Villains: The Ghost of Milo Booth (The Phantom of Dixie) aka Jim, the detective Scooby Trivia: The only appearance of Scooby-Dee, and the last of Scooby-Dum.

On a trip to a hang gliding contest the gang encounters a Pterodactyl ghost who tries to scare everyone away from the cliff. But why? Scooby Villains: The Pterodactyl Ghost aka Johnny, owner of the catering truck and Mr. Bohannen

Episode title screens are reintroduced, for the first time since Season 2 of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

Scooby Trivia: The Pterodactyl ghost appears in Scooby Doo 2, Monsters Unleashed Scooby Banter: Mr. Bohannen: Meddling kids, you’ve ruined a perfect million dollar operation!

Airdate: October 1st 1977 Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Dum’s cousin Scooby-Dee are remaking a movie originally made by Milo Booth, a great movie director. So the gang must protect her from his ghost, who decides to haunt her from remaking the film.

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At the Osbourne Grand Prix Race 1977, a Phantom Racer makes the other drivers disappear when they enter in the fog. As they get deeper into the mystery they find possibly the strangest mystery they have ever seen from the race track to the junkyard. Legend has it of a driver who died by driving off a cliff and they think the Phantom Racer is his ghost. Finding new clues gives them new pieces to the puzzle, so the gang asks Shaggy to race the Phantom Racer and find out what happened to the drivers.

Scooby Trivia: The episode’s finale which sees Scooby pursuing a floating phantom bone parallels a similar ending to original series episode “A Night Of Fright Is No Delight.”

Airdate: September 24th 1977

The Chiller Diller Movie Thriller

Airdate: October 8th 1977

Scooby Villains: The Phantom Racer aka Ken Rogers

Hang In There, Scooby-Doo

Scooby-Gaff: In the cavern Scooby and Shaggy dig holes in the ground. The rest of the gang notice being driven by the Pterodactyl going towards them. Discs and Cassettes fall from it, In the next shot the stones have disappeared and the discs are a different shape

The Spooky Case Of The Grand Prix Race

Episode title screens are reintroduced, for the first time since Season 2 of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Scooby Gaff: When Shaggy, Scooby and Scooby Dum fell from the bridge, there was a splash and that means that they landed in water but instead they landed on Fred, Daphne and Velma’s boat Possibly the greatest of all goofs in preScrappy, Scooby Doo history. While inside the train, as the gang is traveling, the usual backdrop is windows and tables, but when there is a close up of Fred for a couple of seconds there is an obvious castle back drop, with cracked bricks and cob-webs and all!

Scooby Banter: Ken Rogers: And I would’ve succeeded if it hadn’t been for you nosey kids. Shaggy: And Scooby-Doo. Scooby: Yeah. (Scooby giggles)

The Ozark Witch Switch Airdate: October 15th 1977 The rivalry from the 1800’s between the Hatfields and McCoys continue in the year 1977. The mystery machine breaks down and the gang stays in the Hatfield’s cabin. The Hatfields say their long time enemies, the McCoys, are all dead. But the ghost of Old Witch McCoy is out to get them for revenge. Then Old Witch McCoy comes and turns the Hatfields into frogs. While the gang investigates, they encounter a zombie man who is very mysterious.

Scooby Villains: The Ghost of the Witch McCoy and The Zombie aka Aggie Wilkins and her boyfriend, Zeke Karkins

Scooby Villians: The Creepy Heap From the Deep, The ghost of Captain Clemens aka Captain Clemens and a wanted thief

Scooby Banter: Velma: Uh oh, a fork in the road. Shaggy: Which reminds me. I’m hungry!

Scooby Gaff: When the gang entered the sunken ship, the ship had no water. Sunken ships are supposed to have water inside.

(After Scooby sees the witch on their bed) Scooby: Wanna switch sides? Shaggy: I guess we were having the same nightmare! (Shaggy rises from their bed) Shaggy: I see a witch.

The Creepy Cruise Airdate: October 22nd 1977 After winning a contest, the whole gang goes on a cruise, on board the ship is a rather nice professor, along with some investors of his who are interested in his time machine. Testing out his time machine, for his investors, the professor unleashes a five thousand year old monster into our modern world. Trapped on the boat, the gang have nothing else to do but return the mean monster to the past. Scooby Villains: The Future Shocker aka Professor Von Klamp and Mr. Grady Scooby Gaff: When the monster raised the table full of food to look for Shaggy and Scooby, only the chicken fell from the table. Scooby Banter: Professor Von Klamp: A perfect swindler ruined by you meddling kids. Scooby Trivia: Episode title screens are reintroduced, for the first time since Season 2 of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

The Creepy Heap From The Deep Airdate: October 29th 1977 At their beach party, the gang discovers a vicious monster from the deep. They meet a local captain that says he’s familiar with the monster and says legend has it he steals peoples souls to stay alive. Then the monster steals the captains soul and they find a flashing light coming from the ocean and the captains house.

In the episode with Don Adams in The New Scooby Doo Movies, Shaggy doesn’t know how to swim when they are tossed into the pool. But in this episode, Shaggy can swim. Scooby Trivia: The Creepy Heap From The Deep is in the game Scooby Doo: Night Of 100 Frights. Episode title screens are reintroduced, for the first time since Season 2 of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Following the final first run episode on October 29th, reruns of the first season were broadcast alongside reruns of the second season. Scooby Banter: Fred: But what’s the creature doing in land? Captain: Aye, probably searching for victims so that it can steal souls. Shaggy: Whoa! Then my spirit is unwilling.

One season of 16 episodes was produced in 1977-78, and eight new episodes combined with reruns for the 1978-79 season as Scooby’s All-Stars. The sporting competitions that the characters would be called upon to perform in would often be comical and offbeat versions of Olympic sports and scavenger hunts. Each segment took place in a different location somewhere on the planet, including excursions to Africa, Italy, Canada, Washington D.C., and even the North Pole, apart from one event in the last episode, which occurred on the Moon as a climactic ending after a rocket race to the moon was held as the previous event. Each episode was presented in a format similar to an Olympic television broadcast, with hosting/ announcing duties and color commentary provided by Snagglepuss from The Yogi Bear Show and Mildew Wolf from the It’s the Wolf segments of The Cattanooga Cats (though unlike It’s the Wolf, Mildew was no longer voiced by Paul Lynde; he is now voiced by John Stephenson). Noncompeting Hanna-Barbera characters such as Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble, Jabberjaw and Peter Potamus made appearances as guest announcers and judges. Since the show was airing on ABC, Snagglepuss and Mildew wore the thentraditional yellow jackets of ABC Sports announcers.

Laff-A-Lympics Laff-A-Lympics was the co-headlining segment, with Scooby-Doo, of the package Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby’s All-Star LaffA-Lympics, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show was a spoof of the Olympics and the ABC television series Battle of the Network Stars. It featured 45 HannaBarbera characters organized into three teams - The Scooby Doobies, The Yogi Yahooeys and The Really Rottens - which would compete each week for gold, silver and bronze medals.

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The Scooby Doobies This team drew mainly from the 1970s HannaBarbera cartoons, particularly the “mysterysolving” series derived from Scooby-Doo, whose titular character served as team captain. The early production art for the series showed Jeannie and Josie and the Pussycats as members of the “Scooby Doobies” team, but legal problems with Columbia Pictures Television, Screen Gems’ successor, prevented it. Hanna-Barbera owned Babu, but Columbia controlled all rights to Jeannie’s image. As a result, Babu appeared alone as a member of the “Scooby Doobies”. The Laff-A-Lympics competition was based upon a point system. Various events were worth a certain point total for the first, second, and third place winners (usually 25, 15, and 10 respectively, but the last event usually was worth either double points or a larger point bonus for the winner), and the team that had the most points by the end of the half-hour—usually the Scooby Doobies or Yogi Yahooeys—was declared the winner and received the gold medal. Points could also be subtracted for treachery and sabotage, which were the specialties of the villainous Really Rottens team. The two “good guy” teams, the Scooby Doobies and the Yogi Yahooeys, were good friends and their respective team members gladly helped each other whenever they got into a jam. The Really Rottens, however, always cheated and pulled dirty tricks—and ultimately they would wind up the losers in most episodes. Much like Dick Dastardly typically the Really Rottens would be just on the verge of winning, before they would make a fatal error at the very end that allowed one of the other two teams to end up at the top. Occasionally, though, the Rottens’ cheating technique wouldn’t actually be against the rules, with them actually winning in a few episodes (there was even one episode where they won through sheer chance). The final episode, climaxing on the moon, was a three-way tie.

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Among its members are: • Characters from The Scooby-Doo Show: Scooby-Doo (team captain), Shaggy Rogers, Scooby-Dum, • Characters from Dynomutt, Dog Wonder: Dynomutt, The Blue Falcon • Characters from Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels: Captain Caveman, Brenda, Dee Dee, Taffy • Characters from Speed Buggy: Speed Buggy, Tinker

• Wally Gator from The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series • The Great Grape Ape The Really Rottens This team is composed of villainous characters. With the exception of Mumbly, all of the members are original characters, many of whom are based on various characters that appeared in cartoons and comics prior to Laff-A-Lympics. Although the Dalton Brothers appeared in 1950s and 1960s shorts, these particular three characters were new. Prior to Laff-ALympics, Mumbly was a heroic detective rather than a villain on his original show. Following the character’s revision as the villainous team leader, he remained a villain in Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose, which was also Dread Baron’s only other role. Among its members are: • Mumbly (team captain from The New Tom & Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show; he bears a strong resemblance to Muttley) • Dread Baron (he bears a strong resemblance to Dick Dastardly)

• The Dalton Brothers (villainous cowboys; other Dalton brothers appeared previously on Quick Draw McGraw and The Huckleberry Hound Show) • Dinky, Dirty, Dastardly (no relation to Dick Dastardly),

• Babu (from Jeannie) • Hong Kong Phooey The Yogi Yahooeys This team drew mainly from the 1950s and 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoons and is the only team made up completely of anthropomorphic animals. Grape Ape is the only post-1962 character in the line-up. Among its members are: • Characters from The Huckleberry Hound Show/The Yogi Bear Show: Yogi Bear (team captain), Boo-Boo Bear, Cindy Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Pixie, Dixie, Mr. Jinks, Hokey Wolf, Yakky Doodle,

• The Creepleys (a villainous version of the Gruesomes): Mr. Creepley, Mrs. Creepley, Junior Creepley • The Great Fondoo (an evil magician • whose spells never work as intended) • Magic Rabbit (the Great Fondoo’s pet, who is more annoying than evil and only said one word, “Brak!”) • Daisy Mayhem (a mean-spirited hillbilly that bears a strong resemblance to the Li’l Abner character Moonbeam McSwine) • Sooey (Daisy Mayhem’s patch-eyed pig)

• Characters from Quick Draw McGraw: Quick Draw McGraw, Snooper, Blabber, Augie Doggie, Doggie Daddy

• Orful Octopus (a villainous version of Squiddly Diddly)

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Jason Karl’s Scarezone

Jason Karl’s

Scarezone Jason Karl is one the UK’s most experienced location based scare entertainment producers and currently Creative Producer for AtmosFEAR! Entertainment Group www.atmosfearuk.com, the UK’s oldest and most experienced scare entertainment company; he is also a freelance journalist, author and TV presenter, you can contact him through his website at www.jasondexterkarl.com

In each issue of ‘Haunted’ he will explore different aspects of the worldwide scare entertainment industry in this exclusive ‘Scare Zone’ feature. In this issue he gives an insider look at the creation of two new scare attractions in Cornwall - Buccaneer Bay and The Sunken Village of the DAMNED. In summer 2009 AtmosFEAR! was commissioned by TwoFour Broadcast and Virgin Media TV to re-imagineer a tired and failing seaside waxworks museum into a brand new interactive tourist attraction which would appeal to a new audience while staying true to its core theme of Cornish myths and legends. The brand new attraction is now open for the 2010 season and is set for a successful year. Since the making of the programme the owners have decided to retire and the attraction is now for sale, having been valued at £120k since AtmosFEAR!’s makeover. The project entailed a complete makeover of the existing attraction including a complete visual re-design, re-brand, demolition and new construction, new electrical systems, sound systems as well as a new direction with brand new content, themes, lighting, music and sound effects, live actors, animatronics, projection effects, smoke and haze and placemaking. Everything from casting, wardrobe, makeup, script writing, lighting design, properties, construction, branding, technical planning and installation, re-launch and a complete re-decoration was handled by a huge team of creatives, technicians, performers and producers from AtmosFEAR!

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Working in partnership with TwoFour Broadcast and business guru Duncan Bannatyne, the project was filmed as an episode of TV series ‘Duncan Bannatyne’s Seaside Rescue’ for Virgin 1 (broadcast 2010). A NEW ‘PIRATITUDE’ At the beginning of the project, lead creative Jason Karl considered a ‘pirate’ theme for the new attraction, this lending itself to its native position in Newquay,

Cornwall, and being a popular timeless theme that appeals to children and adults of all ages. With high profile films, television shows and books featuring pirates in recent years, AtmosFEAR! believed that creating an overlay with a pirate theme would successfully re-launch ‘Tunnels Through Time’ as an interactive pirate adventure. The existing museum relied totally on static manikins and printed storyboards to tell stories of Cornish legends from both fact and fiction. The environment was over lit with outdated technology and sound effects were practically non-existent.

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Overall the experience was unrewarding, unimaginative and lack lustre. A prominent feature was a separate area known as the ‘Dungeon’ with much attention given to this area as being very scary and unsuitable for children - in reality this area was equally disappointing as the rest of the attraction, being neither scary or exciting and featuring a variety of static dusty scenes depicting forms of torture from the past. BENEATH THE WAVES, AN ANCIENT EVIL AWAITS... AtmosFEAR! decided early on that this ‘Dungeon’ area could be re-worked as Cornwall’s first scare attraction, becoming effectively an ‘attraction within an attraction’, and ensuring that a new audience of thrill seekers would be attracted to visit. This separate scare experience could be bypassed by those who did not want to be frightened. Drawing on research carried out by AtmosFEAR! into Cornish myths, the tale of a village beneath the sea was selected as the theme of the new scare attraction, to be named The Sunken Village of the DAMNED. During the experience guests would venture to the bottom of the sea and encounter the ghostly denizens of the sunken village, including legendary pirate ‘Captain Davy Jones’, a macabre seaweed covered bell ringer named ‘Brother Grim’, a talking pirate ‘Ghost Bust’, an animatronic skeleton and ‘Killigrew’ an oversized giant pirate zombie wielding a huge hook. The creation of the new attraction called for the removal of several walls and the building of new ones to ease navigation and allow a better use of the available

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space. AtmosFEAR! commissioned an animatronics specialist to create an animated skeleton which would jump from a coffin and introduced a unique piece of technology which would present the preshow via an impressive projection effect never seen in this part of the UK before. With live actors, sound, smoke and scent effects, plus a special lighting rig which created the effect of being underwater, The Sunken Village of the DAMNED was deemed a critical success by the public on opening day. It’s mix of intense atmosphere, tension, storytelling, impact and distraction scares, plus unique effects combined to create Cornwall’s first true scare attraction. A SWASHBUCKLING CORNISH ADVENTURE For the main attraction, AtmosFEAR!’s task was to add to existing storylines and properties to create something new that would appeal to a modern audience. With a weak original theme ‘Tunnels Through Time’ needed a strong new verbal, visual and thematic presence, and with pirates as our chosen storyline we renamed the attraction Buccaneer Bay with the tag line ‘A Swashbuckling Cornish Adventure’. Our plan, forged with Duncan’s approval, was to re-invent the museum as an interactive actor led immersive experience. After creating a detailed job plan including the installation of a complete new digital sound system, licensing a brand new musical score, new lighting and environmental effects, we oversaw the removal and replacement of a floors, barriers and manikins. Our scenic painting and theme teams installed hundreds of new

properties including bottles, crates, barrels, lobster pots and a dizzying assortment of nauticalia sourced from all over the UK. We even re-dressed the existing ‘giant’ with a pirate’s eye patch to ensure he was in line with our theme! We completely re-designed the gift shop in keeping with our theme, retaining only the existing counter and cash register in our new vision. Outside we created a dynamic new look incorporating a new colour scheme, graphics, fencing, beach shale and flagpoles. A local graphic artist created ‘pirate’ and ‘pirate ship’ decals which, combined with our logo’s for Buccaneer Bay and sister attraction The Sunken Village of the DAMNED completed our overall exterior re-design. In keeping with our original brief to appeal to a wide demographic, we targeted the main Buccaneer Bay experience to families and sister attraction The Sunken Village of the DAMNED to thrill seekers and brave families, while for younger guests we devised an interactive treasure hunt. As children under 10 enter Buccaneer Bay they are given a ‘treasure map’ on which are marked several places inside the main attraction which they must visit. At each point they discover ‘treasure chests’ in which a series of alphabetical letters are to be found. After collecting all the letters and re-arranging them in the correct order, they can plunge their hand into the treasure chest in the gift shop, and grab some pirate booty in the shape of chocolate golden coins! Creative Producer Jason Karl worked with Casting Director/Show Producer Monica Vaness and Show Producer Gary Oke to create a storyline and script which could be delivered by live actors as they lead guests through the attraction. We segmented Buccaneer Bay into three zones to allow easy navigation and control of guest throughput. In the first zone ‘The Cornish Coves’, guests would encounter ‘Scallywag’ the Boatswain who would lead them through a variety of stories until they reached zone two, ‘Old Penzance’, where ‘Anne Bonny’ the plague wench would lead them down the alleyways of the old town and into her ‘plague house’. After a horribly close encounter with the disease, guests would be given a choice - whether to enter The Sunken Village of the DAMNED, or bypass it and go straight to zone three ‘The Neptune’, where ‘Captain Calico Jack’ would teach them how to steer his great pirate ship through the high seas.

CASTING CREEPS AtmosFEAR! led a nationwide search to find a team of talented performers to bring our characters to life, not only for the launch and television show, but potentially to take up the roles on a permanent basis. Following our tried and tested formula, actors were asked to perform a pirate script and then to ‘scare’ a panel of judges lead by Monica Vaness and including Creative Producer Jason Karl, Show Producer Gary Oke, Duncan Bannatyne and attraction owner Mike McLaren. The calibre of auditionees was extremely high and attracted seasoned scareactors as well those new to live performance. After careful consideration AtmosFEAR! selected

a fantastic cast, some of whom went on to work at the attraction long after our project was complete. Following two days of intense rehearsals in a local church hall and later amidst builders, scenic painters, producers and electrical technicians, the actors delivered witty and humorous performances in Buccaneer Bay and suitably terrifying scares in The Sunken Village of the DAMNED when the public and invited guests visited the new attraction on launch day. Combined with street theatre characters ‘Captain Jack-ie’ and ‘Polly Rogers’, the ‘secret family’ visited the attraction once again, enjoying their day immensely.

Buccaneer Bay and The Sunken Village of the DAMNED are permanently located in Newquay, Cornwall. If you plan to visit please check with the attraction for opening times and admission prices before travelling. Please note; AtmosFEAR! Entertainment Group have no control over any changes which may have taken place since our reinvention project was completed in August 2009, and that certain elements may have changed or no longer be available.

For more information on Buccaneer Bay and The Sunken Village of the DAMNED visit www.buccaneer-bay.co.uk or for information on AtmosFEAR! visit the brand new website at www.atmosfearuk.com

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Haunted Happenings

THE DEAD SHOW AT MORECAMBE (or Morecambe & Dies) The impressive Winter Gardens Theatre sits on the front pier of Morecambe and dates back to the 1870’s. Originally it was the local swimming baths, as it grew extensively it then became known as the People’s Palace. In 1896 the building was sold to Messrs T Baker and RB Abbott who were the directors of a west end pier company and after a huge transformation project the building was opened as the Victoria Pavilion and incorporated the most wonderful oriental ballroom designed by Messrs Magnel and Littlewood. It also housed the largest auditorium in the world. The Theatre itself grew immensely popular. Its popularity bringing with it a further 2,000 seats. However this did not last and by 1908 the company went into liquidation. When the company was purchased the following year by Broadhead & Sons they added new dimensions to the Theatre such as a funfair outside and a billiard room underneath the ballroom.

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In 1953 the building was again sold and began its slow decline. The running of the Theatre was taken over at this point by Louis Benjamin who managed to turn things around for the Theatre and stopped the building from closure. He was able to use his foresight to ensure that the Theatre kept up with the times. It was leased out to Trust House Forte and the following year the ballroom was converted to the Dixieland Palace. However this did not improve the numbers attending the Theatre and in 1977 the Theatre was again closed. The ballroom was demolished to make way for an amusement arcade and lack of funds caused the permanent closure of the Theatre. In 1986 the Friends of Winter Gardens managed to save the now run down building. Work has continued ever since to attempt to save the building. There is a wealth of history attached to Morecambe Winter Gardens and numerous reports of strange and ghostly goingson have been reported. It is reputed to be one of the most haunted buildings in Lancashire. Phantom footsteps have been heard, running along the stage and corridors when nobody is there, bangs, knocks and thumps have been heard throughout the building when nobody is present. People who have visited the building have been touched, shoved and

pushed by unseen hands. Voices have been heard on many occasions including talking in people’s ears and only they can hear. The building was also used by the RAF and some visitors have reported seeing a woman dressed in an RAF uniform on many occasions. Interestingly the Military hospital was just across the road and part of their convalescence was to watch the shows at the Winter Gardens. It has been a running theme amongst paranormal groups that the Winter Gardens has a good side and a bad side - Evil versus The Good. When Haunted Happenings went there with some of the crew from Most Haunted we endured a night of terror in every respect. Splitting our team up into three groups we worked throughout the night to see who or what we may encounter at this amazing location. It was easy to forget that the cameras were with us as the activity was so intense and the Winter Gardens were so active.

This has to be the first time that I have ever felt overwhelming fear, where your heart pounds and your body is too frightened to do anything other than stay glued to the spot. Under the stage has to be the most active area in any haunted building in the country. Growls, whispers, large bangs near your feet and light anomalies in abundance were just a few of the things we witnessed. An apparition was also seen by many of the team members at the same time. We also got a lot of response knocks and taps and many team members were touched by unseen hands. Our table tipping here was extraordinary as it walked across the stage. The names we were getting were beyond belief and one name that kept cropping up was Hardy. Could this be Oliver Hardy as both he and Stan Laurel appeared here? Another name that was recognisable was Morecambe but could this be the place or the famous name of Eric Morecambe?

Objects were thrown frequently and a piece of wood crashed down next to us for no apparent reason. There is no doubt that something evil is going on at the Winter Gardens. We put some team members into a particular area and they were all feeling terrified for no reason. Many were experiencing different emotions but the underlying theme was that they felt extremely uncomfortable. Is this the power of suggestion or were they being affected by the unknown evil entity thought to haunt these famous Winter Gardens? Other haunted areas include the ladies toilets on the first floor where mutterings were heard and a shadow was seen. The dressing room is said to be haunted by a seamstress whose anger is picked up by psychics. The bar is also said to be haunted by a dark entity who did not like people lingering in its space.

It is difficult to catalogue the entire paranormal activity we captured here but what was the most unusual and chilling aspect of the whole investigation was the portal that was experienced in the Cellar, connecting this world to the next. Whether you believe in ghosts and spirits or not if you want a true paranormal experience then join Haunted Happenings on one of our terrifying ghost hunts at this truly amazing location. Haunted Happenings run many overnight ghost hunts at Morecambe Winter Gardens. If you would like to book your place on one of our events here or on one of our many other haunted locations please visit our website at : www.hauntedhappenings.co.uk or call us on 0115 9729312 (m) 07837845912

Hazel Ford

Haunted Happenings the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Leading Ghost Hunting Events Company.

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20 20 Questions with Chris Conway

Y A W N O C CHRIS

QUESTIONS Hi Chris, many thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to Haunted. HAUNTED loves Chris Conway, in a butch manly way of course and we look forward to seeing you on the new show Famous But Frightened, what better way to enjoy “the celebrity set” than to see them being scared sh.. er witless. We loved you on Most Haunted too and was sad to see you go. Now we promise not to besiege you with question after question on you know what. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the HAUNTED experience. It really is a pleasure to have you in Haunted. Right, now we’ve got the bum-kissing out of the way, here are your 20 questions:1) Right from the off, tell us what you are currently up to and what you’ve got coming up that we should all be looking forward to. Here’s your chance to plug whatever you’ve got going on right now before we get stuck into the questions. At the moment i’m working with a great bunch of guys on a new show called Famous But Frightened. This is going to

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be a blast. We will be bringing on a bunch of celebs and scaring the pants off them. I am also in the process of writing a book, planning a stage tour of the UK and Ireland for late 2010 early 2011. I am also planning to become more involved in charity events. This is something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the opportunity. 2) When did your interest in all things mediumship start and have your opinions changed on mediumship since it became a focal point on television in paranormal shows? Do you think that a good ghost investigation hunt type vigil will always work better with a medium in the group? I have always had the gift of mediumship. So I guess the answer to that has to be 21 years ago (ahem I mean 39). To be honest I tend not to watch much television so can’t really comment on paranormal shows. I honestly believe that they do (of course I would ha ha) because it lets the people learn more about what is there and causing certain phenomena rather than just listening for tapping etc. 3) Do you believe in all aspects of the Paranormal, or do you think some of it is, maybe, a form of magic i.e. an illusion in people’s minds?

The simple answer to this question is NO I don’t! I think much of it is in indeed a trick of the mind. But i believe some of it is indeed paranormal. That is why 95% of a ghost hunt can be dead (pardon the pun) but it’s that 5% of stuff with no explanation that makes the night magical. 4) Tell us more about FBF (Famous But Frightened) and the team that you’re going to be working with? It’s a great concept as it will allow the fans of each celebrity to see them in a position were they drop their guard (through fear). When this happens we see the real person behind the celebrity. The guys in the team are fantastic and I love them all already. They have really made me feel like one of the gang and that means so much to me. They’re absolutely bonkers (which I love) 5) LONG QUESTION ALERT! One thing that confuses HAUNTED is the lack of perfect information given by a medium to an audience, they say things like “is there a Lucy here, or a Louise, who knows a man who has passed over recently, he is called John or Jonas”. Why can’t the spirit just say to your guide to say to you what they want to say and to whom... is there a case of ‘lost in translation’. I still get the image of a waiting room type place (like in

Beetlejuice) where spirits are waiting to be called... We’re not being disrespectful to mediums, we just want to know why can’t you or your spirit guides make it easier, instead of all the suspicion and sometimes ridicule that you get. Is it case that actually, ghost and spirits don’t particularly want to come out and play at the click of a finger? Are they laughing at us and thinking what are you doing? The thing is the information we get is not like someone standing beside us talking to us. I explain it like a fog. It’s difficult to try and clear that fog to get the proper information out. It’s a matter of making sense of the information we are getting and also what the images being put into our mind are meaning. Also when the spirit first makes contact the energy isn’t as strong and it takes time to build that up and get the information. 6) Imagine... you’re at a gig and they have only gone and booked a double mediumship performance, the crowd are expecting a double act… You look out your dressing room window and see a menagerie of mediums having a coffee in Starbucks. Which of these six would you work with, and if so, what would you get them to do? Derek Acorah, Doris Stokes, Ian Lawman, Shirley Ghostman, Sally Morgan & Colin Fry.

I would work with them all as it’s good to see each mediums different style and way of communicating with spirit. 7) You were a founding member of UK Ghost Hunters, investigating locations and tracking down paranormal activity in Cumbria and South West Scotland. Do you think that there is room for all these paranormal groups that seem to appear all the time, and do you think that by working together (rather than being somewhat secretive) they can help one another in their hunt for the truth? I think as long as the group has the right reasons for being set up then there is more than enough room for everyone. By that I mean set the group to try and find proof of spirit existence, not to become famous. I agree groups should work together a bit more as pooling resources would help the smaller groups. 8) If you could get into a time machine and visit any period in time, past, present or future, where would you go and why? I’d go to a time in the future where spirituality and mediumship is better understood by the science community. I believe it eventually will be and would like to witness it while on this plane.

9) You’re hosting a dinner party with a difference; all the guests have died (not to get out of the dinner party we hasten to add). You can invite 8 guests, they can be a mixture of real life dead people (!!) and fictional non-real life dead people, who would you invite and why? My real life guests would be: Elvis: So he could entertain the other guests with his fantastic voice and music. Charles Dickens: So he could tell us some fantastic stories. Bob Cratchet: I’d like to give the poor man a great time as in A Christmas Carol he had a terrible life. He could bring poor wee tiny Tim too. Hilda & Stan Ogden: They’d entertain us with all their arguing ha ha. Nostradamus: So I could ask exactly what his predictions were without the codes. Hitler: So I could ask him WHY? My dog Ben: Just so I could give him one more hug. 10) Which would you prefer and why? Famous but Frightened to be a massive hit OR 100% factual proof and acknowledgement from parapsychologists that ghosts are real, and do exist? For the wonderful guys in Famous But Frightened and the charities who will benefit from it would be the first option.

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“I think private vigils are getting closer to proving there is a spirit world rather than entertainment shows. I feel that the spirit world will be proven to exist in the long run.” 11) Tell us about your spirit guide, or guides, are they with you all the time, or do you have to summon them, and are they personal to you i.e. can they be spirit guides for other people? I don’t have a spirit guide. I have various members of my family round me though but they don’t help in my communication with the spirit world. 12) Tell us a joke? My local chemist was robbed the other day, and 300 bottles of Viagra were stolen ... police say they are on the lookout for a hardened criminal! 13) Describe the last time you... Shouted at someone? The last football match I was at...as usual it was the referee. Air-guitared to rock music? Never...honest Didn’t get the job you wanted? Can’t remember Was genuinely scared? When I was a teenager visiting an old tower on my own and I felt over-powered by nasty spirits. It is the only time in my life that I actually ran from spirit. Bawled your eyes out? A few weeks ago when my dog Ben died, he put his head on my lap and passed. I thought I’d never stop crying. I know I’ll see him again but I’d rather have him here on this plane. 14) READER’S QUESTION Can spirits/ghosts from different centuries see each other, or are there different “portals”, levels from different time eras? - Lisa, Dudley Hi Lisa, Yes certain ones can interact with one another. It depends more on what plane they are on as when we pass we work our way up onto the higher planes. 15) READER’S QUESTION... When you are receiving info on vigils, do you see the info and spirits as if they or it are solid visions in colour that look almost real with sound and smell as if you are dreaming? - Matt, Reading

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Hi Matt, Most of the time I see them in the mind’s eye. They are in colour and very vivid. I can hear them and smell them also but it isn’t the way you would see someone standing next to you in the street. I hope that makes sense. 16) There are always going to be non-believers in subjects, such as the paranormal, we believe that whatever your beliefs, people should respect those beliefs. Do you think that shows like Most Haunted are getting closer to proving that there are ghosts and life after death, or do you think that no matter what you reveal some people will never be convinced? And, if so, do you think that magic shows, horror movies, haunted theme parks etc just add fuel to the fire and that ghosts are something that will never ever be proven, one way or another? I think private vigils are getting closer to proving there is a spirit world rather than entertainment shows. I feel that the spirit world will be proven to exist in the long run. 17) Now we said that we wouldn’t ask you any questions about Most Haunted, but we lied, we wouldn’t be the magazine we are, if we didn’t try and get one itty bitty sneaky MH question in... So here goes. There has been quite a public spat between you and (mainly Karl of) MH and we don’t want to get into the legal ramifications of it all; we just want to ask two things! Firstly, do you think there is a fine line between a paranormal investigation show and an entertainment show that involves a paranormal ghost hunt and secondly (and most importantly) who would win in a mano et mano naked (apart from a pair of very tight speedos’) wrestling competition / bitch fight between you two? The first part I can’t answer as I don’t want to drag it all up again. The second part? Karl is about 6 foot and apparently a black belt in some sort of Bruce lee type thingy... I am 5’7” and have no belt (that’s why i’m constantly embarrassed by my trousers

falling down) in anything... I’d kick his ass as I grew up in Glasgow and learned how to street fight. Only joking of course ha ha 18) Your agent calls to say that you’re going to be on a celebrity reality TV show, which one would you prefer to do … and why? Celebrity Come Dine with me, Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity...Get me out of here, Dancing on Ice...etc etc. It would have to be i’m a celebrity get me out of here, I’d get to meet the fabulous Ant & Dec and I’d get to challenge myself physically, mentally and spiritually. 19) What is it going to be like working celebrities on Famous But Frightened, are you there to encourage the spirits of the location that you are in to communicate or say, for example, the dead mother of a celebrity wants to connect, would you bring her in? I’m there to inform them what is there and why. I will also be giving celebrity readings so they will get the opportunity to communicate with spirit. 20) And finally, more of a plea than a question, can you give us something special, something unique to give away as a prize in this issue of Haunted, please? Yes of course I’ll give you my tight speedos from my bitch fight! I tell you what I’ll give you my Ouija board I made when I was a bit younger, it’s big though! WOW!! A Chris Conway designed Ouija Board is up for grabs, to be within a chance of winning the said item, email info@ hauntedmagazine.co.uk with your details and the answer to this question: Who patented the Ouija board (on which the alphabet was printed) on February 10th 1891, which is the date that the patent was granted (not applied for)... Good Luck!! Oh... and to win Chris’s tight Speedos’ just email in and we will pass your details onto the relevant authorities.

Lee Roberts: Paranormal Investigator

Me, myself and the

UNKNOWN: The Clifton Hall Investigations - The Truth In September 2008 Mr Rashid and his family handed the keys to Clifton hall back to Yorkshire bank, He had not paid the mortgage for the ÂŁ5 million mansion in some months and had decided he no longer wanted the property. He claimed this was due to spirits in the house tormenting his family, shadowy figures walking along the staircases, bloodspots found on his daughters head when there was no injury to the baby. The story made international headlines, It only made the press due to it actually being the most expensive property ever to be repossessed; otherwise the story may never have been told that and the experiences I had at Clifton Hall leads me to believe there are spirits that still roam the Old Hall, here is my story of the investigations into Clifton Hall and then you can decide for yourself, was this the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s version of Amityville or was it a man that just could not afford to pay for the property anymore?

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I was luck enough to have been one of the team leaders for the team that Mr. Rashid called to try and banish these spirits and although during that time I was interviewed on TV and radio from not only Britain but Brazil, Australia, Indian, Chinese, German press I never really got to tell the story of my experiences at Clifton Hall. It was in August 2007 when I was asked would we be interested in investigating Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire. As it was local to us and the size of the place I obviously said Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d love too. Cal Cooper our resident sceptic of the team had done some research there a few years earlier when the place was derelict and had wanted to go back to further his research. We found out that the Rashid family had brought the place and had moved in; Mr. Rashid was a wealthy man that had initially bought the place to convert into a wedding venue where couples could get married and stay the night there with their family in the wonderful surroundings. This had sadly fallen through for Mr. Rashid and so he and his family we were led to believe were still living there.

Cal Cooper did all the initial ground work to get us access to the hall, in fact they were more than welcoming to us as the Personal assistant informed us that in fact the Rashid family had been having a few problems that were unexplainable to them. So much so that Mr. Rashid had called a Muslim high priest of some sort to perform a blessing on the house. This was evident as in every room nailed to the wall was a A4 piece of paper with strange symbols on, this I was told was to keep the evil spirits away. We were told that we could have a full weekend there to conduct experiments and research. We were given a key to the front door and left to it. We were told that no one would be there as none of the family members wish to stay the night! For the first night we decided that we would have a limited number of investigators there to do base line tests on the property and just have a feel for the place, no mediums were present on this first night. One of the strangest things that happened at Clifton hall occurred on that night, 4 investigators were present on that night and at one point all four were up in what we called the nursery room which is situated at the highest point of Clifton hall,

and in fact used to be the nursery. A voice came over the radio, a female voice saying “we know you are alone in there”. Was this coincidence and had we picked up on a random conversation through the air waves via a taxi company or baby monitor? We asked around at the new houses that were situated on the site and quite possibly the only houses that could have affected us via a baby monitor, most were empty as they were new built and those that were occupied did not have a baby or a baby monitor. As for the taxi theory, we were quite a fair way away from the main road and had not come across this before, but why was it so clear and saying “we know you are alone in there”. Another theory was kids messing around on the grounds which we can never rule out, but the fact we had an 8 channel radio and they had to get the right frequency and know we were in there in some going. This wouldn’t be the last we heard of this voice... On the second night the whole team was present, we had 3 mediums in attendance and lots of equipment to set up. We spent most of the day there preparing for the night fall to begin our experiments. However the spirits didn’t want to wait and throughout the day we had strange activity

such as doors slamming, footsteps and shadows out the corner of your eye. I put most of this down to the excitement of the team and minds over working, but I had to admit out of all the places I had been to this gave me the goose bumps. It was like something was watching you all the time, waiting for you to wonder off on your own. Even when I was out on the grounds on my own I was nervous and didn’t go up close to look through the window as I was scared of what I may see. The night eventually came and the team were now very familiar with the surroundings of the Hall. I decided as it was such a big place that we were to split into 3 teams to cover more ground. This however didn’t last long; the mediums were not happy after around 45 minutes in and demanded that we come together as a whole team. This was unlike the mediums we had there as usually they love to split into smaller teams. Throughout the night we experienced several strange occurrences, first one being that at 12.55am the gates to the hall opened and then closed again on their own, electrical fault or a resetting device I thought straight away. I was told that this had also occurred on the first night. On speaking to the family after

the investigation they told us that there is no resetting device and this did happen from time to time but they had no reason for it. The second was a strange whistling sound that was flowing through the hall, it was as if a human was in the next room whistling out to us, but the more we chased the whistle the more it moved away from us. This was never explained and even the family had no idea what this could have been. Towards the end of the evening we tried some mirror scrying which is an old method of contact where you sit and stare into a mirror and a spirit or ghost would show themselves through you. Paul, my brother in law and fellow team leader had a go at this as he was always up for anything, although after around 15 minutes of staring into the mirror he turned and seemed to panic, Tracy one of our mediums looked very worried and we tried to calm him down to find out what had happened, it wasn’t until a few days later he actually said anything at all about the event and when he did he didn’t say much. What I do know is that it was something to do with a friend that had passed a few years earlier.

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Night one finished and other than a few scares, bumps, bangs and orbs on camera nothing concrete evidence wise. We stayed a third night but nothing much happened on that evening. The place was amazing and there was defiantly something I just couldn’t put my finger on about the place. I am never scared of locations but this one had me going and I just didn’t know why. In August 2008 I decided to go and see Mr Rashid to see how he was getting on and if they had had anymore problems at the house. On my arrival I was met with a male who didn’t speak much English but he knew I wanted Mr. Rashid and so phoned him for me. Mr. Rashid informed me that he was in fact handing the keys back to the bank as he has had to move his family out of the property due to the activity and the male that was at the property was in fact a security guard and was looking after the place for him. It didn’t take much persuading to let him give me access to the hall again. That weekend I decided that I would take the team back to Clifton hall and take some friends with us to see if we can get the energy going. The Friday night there was around 20 of us in attendance and as there were such a number of us I decided to split us up

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into teams of 10. Firstly I took the guests around the hall to familiarise them with the layout and the rest of the team set up some experiments (motion sensors, tables, trigger objects etc) After that I split us up evenly and Team 1 took the Second floor and Team 2 (which I was in) took the ground floor. It was around 11 am and we had been working our way along the ground floor for about an hour and a half now, holding vigils and calling out. The place seemed really calm and I felt really at ease. My team had arrived at the room that Paul had his scrying incident nearly 1 year earlier. Suddenly I heard on my radio “Lee come upstairs we have an incident”. I left my team with another member of the staff and made my way up to the King Charles room where they said they was. The King Charles room is dead centre of Clifton Hall and is like a ballroom but slightly smaller, it has a grand fireplace and long windows with long draping curtains. As I entered the room I could see that Team 1 was in a fluster, there wasn’t a controlled experiment going on but just people talking amongst themselves and obviously trying to make sense of what had happened. I immediately looked for Paul who was in charge of Team 1 and was told

he was in the next room with one of our mediums and another staff member. I was told by one of the team members that team 1 had sat down to hold a séance in the centre of the King Charles room, all were sat comfortably on chairs and were in the dark, only the moon light to give them a little light. As they began calling out apparently Paul who was facing the front of the house started crying uncontrollably. He was distraught over something and no-one could calm him down. Once he had gathered himself together he told us that he actually saw a figure of a small child (he described as a boy) peers out from behind one of the draping curtains. On doing this he felt sad and this sadness just overwhelmed him making him cry. He didn’t know why and to this day still doesn’t. I asked Paul to gather himself together and go with a staff member downstairs. Also for Team 1 to also move downstairs where they could carry on if they wished with holding vigils. I on the other hand had a plan, I knew that Team 2 had been holding a vigil while all this had been happening and had no idea what had happened other than what was said over the radio “there had been an incident”. My plan was to move

Team 2 into the King Charles room and do the same experiment as team 1 had been doing when this had occurred. I told them nothing and made sure that they had no contact with any of team 1 whilst we were moving upstairs. I sat them all down and explained we would be holding a vigil in the room, if anyone was uncomfortable with this to leave now. Nobody left and in fact everyone was excited to see what I was planning. I asked another member of the team to ask out as I didn’t want to call out and suggest anything; after all I knew what was just seen. I had my back to the curtain in question; to say I was anxious and nervous was an understatement. Then after around 5 minutes of calling out, Bingo, it happened, one of the members started to cry, sobbing at first and then uncontrollably, this was a guest and not one of the team members as before and so I was intrigued to find out what he had seen. After calming him down he said to me, he had seen a figure, a small figure come out from behind the curtain and straight away he felt sad and then couldn’t remember much more. Not only did he see a small figure as did Paul, and start crying and felt overwhelmed as did Paul, but something I didn’t know until after the event was he was sitting in the exact same chair Paul was when it happened to him! Our hearts were thumping and the adrenaline pumping and I couldn’t stop there, was we on the verge of discovering something very special. I tried to keep the team together to hold a glass moving exercise. Obviously the young lad that had just been affected left with his girlfriend and team member to get some air. Leaving 7 of us in the room one of which was Paul’s mum (why I mention this will make sense in a moment) we all stood up while conducting the experiment, 5 were on the table and 2 of us were watching, I and one filming. The experiment was going as normal with a little moment of the glass, it then seemed to get stronger and stronger until eventually Paul’s mum suddenly collapsed on the floor. She went with quiet a thud and initially I though it maybe because she had been on her feet and it was getting late. I radioed down stairs to not only tell the team we had an incident but to make Paul aware he was needed upstairs, the response I got was unexpected to say the least. I was told that Paul was unavailable; he too had just collapsed while holding a vigil.

For the first and only time I have ever had to do this I turned all the lights on and called a STOP to the investigation. I had 2 people that had collapsed and had another still trying to come to terms with potentially seeing a ghost! I had to get a grip of the situation as for the first time I was not in control and I don’t know who was! On looking back at the tapes Paul and his mum fell at the exact same time to each other, something again that surely must be more than coincidence.

Hall for what would be our last time. The panic had gone and the creepy atmosphere had gone too, it was as if whatever had just been playing with us had decided enough was enough. There was just one bit of evidence we did get that to this day still baffles me, as we entered the nursery room again toward the end of the night, we were all together as a team again, when all of a sudden over the radio was the voice from nearly a year ago “so you’ve come back then ”.

The guests decided to leave after a short break and even some of the team left too. I didn’t blame them as I was in two minds whether to call it off anyway. But the investigator in me wanted to know more, so with equipment at the ready the few that had stayed decided to venture into Clifton

To be continued...

Next time: The aftermath of Clifton Hall and the effects if had on me and the team

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20 Questions with Andy Nyman

ANDY NYMAN

QUESTIONS WITH

Hi Andy, Many thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to Haunted. Haunted loved Dead Set, Severance and Death at a Funeral (where you have been described as the thinking man’s Jack Black). We also love your work with bearded legend Derren Brown and now we love Ghost Stories, co-written by Jeremy Dyson, where you make people scream (and I did). It really is a pleasure to have you in Haunted. Right, now we’ve got the bum-kissing out of the way, here are your 20 questions:1) Right from the off, tell us what you are currently up to and what you’ve got coming up that we should all be looking forward to. Here’s your chance to plug whatever you’ve got going on right now before we get stuck into the questions. It’s a crazy time for me at the moment, we are preparing to transfer ‘Ghost Stories’ for it’s West End opening at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in June. Once the show is open I start filming the Channel 4 series ‘Campus’, this means I’ll be filming in the days & doing the play at night. I also have 2 films opening this year, ‘Black Death’ opens in May & ‘The Tournament’ in July. On top of that there are a few other projects that I am beginning to work on for 2011. 2) Like the majority of the Haunted team you hail from the East Midlands, any fond memories of the area whilst you were growing up and do you ever get back to Leicester at all? I do get back there as my Mum still lives there. I have incredibly fond memories of Leicester; I had a very happy childhood so still get that feeling whenever I go back.

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3) When did your interest in all things magic start and have your opinions changed on magic since it became a focal point of your career? I always had an interest in magic & practical jokes when i was a boy, I had a few sets of tricks, but I never really did anything. It really exploded into life when Jeremy Dyson moved to London, I was 21. Jeremy had always done magic & wanted to go to a magic shop, I reluctantly went with him & that was it, it was like getting a shot of heroin, I was hooked. In terms of it being a career point, it has never been that for me. In my head it is my hobby, I include my collaboration with Derren as this as well. That is how I have retained my identity as an actor, the magic is a brilliant, fun hobby & nothing more. 4) Do you believe in the paranormal, or do you think it is, maybe, a form of magic i.e. an illusion in people’s minds? I don’t believe at all. I think it is all part of a fascinating element of the human psyche that requires us to believe in something, anything at all, rather than have no belief.

In terms of mending anything, I can’t hang a picture without knocking 11 holes in the wall first.

Mixes fairground ride tricks with psychological warfare - Liverpool Daily Post

7) Imagine...You’re at a gig and they have only gone and booked a double act, the crowd are expecting a double act...you look out your dressing room window and see a menagerie of magicians having a coffee in Starbucks. Which of these six would you work with, and if so, what would you get them to do? David Copperfield? Tommy Cooper? Penn & Teller? Simon Drake? Paul Daniels? Derren Brown?

I jumped so hard I pulled a muscle Lauren Moody

Ok Penn & Teller are already a double act, so there on the bill & they can do their regular act as they are superb. (Good point – Editor) Copperfield - He was the man in the 80’s. It’s tough for him now as magic has changed, but his early stuff was truly sensational.

9) If you could get into a time machine and visit any period in time, past, present or future, where would you go and why? 1979 To my Barmitzvah. I’d want to go back to that to see all my family who are no longer alive, great to give them all kisses & hugs and say hi again. 10) Which would you prefer and why? Ghost stories to go to Broadway, to win a Bafta, or to meet Mr. Tumble from Cbeebies Tumble of course, no competition.

Tommy Cooper - I’d love to have worked with him, he was sooo funny.

5) Tell us about Ghost Stories; now on the West End (you must be chuffed?) What can people expect if they go?

Simon Drake - Amazing. I’d love to work with him too, his TV show ‘The Secret Cabaret’ was a massive influence on me.

I am so excited that ‘Ghost Stories’ is transferring; it makes me & Jeremy very proud. I urge people to read nothing about it at all, no blurb & no reviews, don’t have anything spoiled. Come in cold. You can expect an 80 minute rollercoaster ride during which we will, hopefully, take you on a journey unlike any theatre experience you’ll have had before. Oh yes, we’ll also make you scream!

Paul Daniels - No thanks. The only one on the list I have no desire to work with.

6) Speaking of the word “chuffed” alot of people might not know that you are on of the voices in the Cbeebies cartoon Chugginton. You voice Eddie, the depot handyman (or the depot andynyman Editor), who lives in a caboose and can turn his hand to all manner of tasks, including track maintenance and fixing signals and points. A) have you ever watched it? B) have you ever lived in a caboose, c) can you fix a train signal and d) can you get us Rr. Tumble’s autograph, please?

A pant-wetter of a night. It’s terrifying! Daily Mail

Actually my main Chuggington roles are ‘Dunbar’ & ‘Chatsworth’ (big slap on internet wrist to wikipedia – Editor). I’ve seen it a couple of times, it’s actually pretty good!

Here are where they are from? (But not in the correct order (that would be easy)): Liverpool Daily Post, Daily Mail, Time Out Magazine, Metro, The Steve Allen Show LBC 97.3, British Theatre Guide, Alan in London, Lauren Mooney in Liverpool.

Derren Brown - He is such a joy to work with, of course I’d work with him. 8) Right, going back to ghost stories, here a few sample quotes from reviews of the plays, see if you can guess where they originate from?

An immaculately crafted evening of entertainment - Time Out I had to sleep with the lights on. A top night out - Metro It’s like Tales of the Unexpected Meets the Sixth Sense - Steve Allen Show The staging of the numerous ‘scare moments’ is exemplary - British Theatre Guide My spine is still tingling - Alan, London

11) What is the most impressive piece of magic that you have a) performed b) watched and c) wish that you had performed? I created a trick known as ‘The Sophie Trick’, iIm prouder of that than any other piece of magic I’ve ever done. 12) Tell us a joke? A man goes into a doctors surgery: Man - I have a terrible pain in my wrist The doctor looks at him for a moment or two Doctor - Ok, you’re going to have to stop masturbating Man - Why? Doctor - Because i’m trying to examine you! 13) Describe the last time you… Shouted at someone? My wife & kids & I are constantly shouting at each other. It’s part of having a lively family. Air-guitared to rock music? Never have, never will Didn’t get the job you wanted? Always happens, that’s part of an actors remit. Was genuinely scared? My son was ill recently, nothing is scarier than that. Bawled your eyes out? See above.

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18) Your agent calls to say that you’re going to be on a celebrity reality TV show, which one would you prefer to do...and why? Celebrity Come Dine With Me, Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here, Dancing On Ice...etc etc? No no no no no no are you getting the message no no no no no no no no no no 19) What is it like working with Jeremy Dyson and Derren Brown, are they similar in personality, and do you prefer to be behind or infront of the camera? They are such different personalities. The similarity in both processes is laughter, it has to be there otherwise it is impossibily hard work and not fun. Fun is the key top keeping the work interesting. I love acting more than anything, I don’t know why, but for whatever reason that’s the thing that makes me happiest.

14) Reader’s question!! What has been your favourite role so far? Julie Alderson via twitter@dsjuliea I have been incredibly fortunate to have played some wonderful roles, but I think that playing Patrick in “Dead Set” has to be a real high. A combination of Charlie Brooker’s superb script & Channel 4’s commitment to deliver a groundbreaking series made it such a joy to be a part of. 15) Reader’s question!! When Ghost Stories went onto the stage, did you ever imagine that it would be so successful? Jack Porterman, Sheffield I had hoped that people would love it as much as they do. We are so excited to play it in the west end. The Duke of York’s Theatre is such a perfect home for it and we cannot wait for thousands more people to scream and jump their way through the show. 16) There are always going to be non-believers in subjects, such as the paranormal, we believe that whatever your beliefs, people should respect those beliefs. Do you think that shows like Most Haunted are getting closer to proving that there are ghosts and life after death, or do you think that no matter what you reveal some people will never be convinced? And, if so, do you think that magic shows,

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horror movies, haunted theme parks etc just add fuel to the fire and that ghosts are something that will never ever be proven, one way or another? I think that people are pretty smart as a rule & understand what they are seeing. I don’t think Most Haunted etc is getting closer to proving anything other than people love camp nonsense. Horror, magic & theme park rides all fulfill a different desire, chasing the unexplained & sailing close to danger, people love it. 17) Quiz time. I am going to shout out some characters that you have played, can you tell me about the character and from which film, show etc? Duncalfe? Crooked House a Second football fan? Birds of a Feather a Gordon? Severance a Dr. Robin fitzgerald? The Bill a Carl? The Bill r (The League of Gentlemen) Robin Hallett? The Bill r (Peak Practice - 2 Episodes) Howard? Death at a funeral a Leo Leitner? Wild Romance a

20) And finally, more of a plea than a question, can you give us something special, something unique to give away as a prize in this issue of Haunted, please? Yes. On the last night of the ‘Ghost Stories’ run at The Lyric Hammersmith, Jeremy & I made a special collectors badge for every member of the audience, I have a few spare. How about that? Thanks for your time Andy, if you would like to say anything else before we let you go, now is your chance... I have nothing to add other that ‘Not Guilty M’Lord’ and am so looking forward to seeing the magazine. Well, what a great interview. Andy is such a warm and nice guy and Haunted had the pleasure of meeting him at Scarecon 2010 at the Magic Circle HQ, and his son Preston (watch out for this young man in the future!!). Don’t go, we haven’t finished yet we have four tickets to give away to Ghost Stories at the Duke of York Theatre. These are for the performances from 25th June to 15th July and for Sunday till Thursday, or the Friday and Saturday late night shows. To have a chance of winning these tickets (we are going to give them away as two pairs) please email info@hauntedmagazine.co.uk and we will draw the names at random. Good luck.

Philip Solomon

Gwrych Castle:

Always was a Most Haunted Building! For my second feature for Haunted magazine I thought I would write about the ghosts of Gwrych Castle, for some of my fans will know I actually lived for quite a few years when I was about seven or eight years old, in the orchard area of that castle, with my mother. Without a shadow of a doubt I had some of my earliest mediumistic experiences in and around the area and it sure was a scary place at times! I expect most of us have seen the photograph of the pale young woman, said to be a ghost, in one of the windows of the castle, in The Sun newspaper in February 2010. The gentleman who took the picture suggested the shadowy figure of the girl appears to be on the first floor of what would have been the Banqueting Hall and that as the floor had fallen away many years ago, there would not now be anything for a person to stand on. It also seems the gentleman concerned, a Clitheroe-based businessman, may well be starting up a new school for psychics and other sensitives in the building in the not too distant future, if all goes to plan in 2012, and also plans to investigate further with a ghost hunting team. I have to say I never saw that particular girl in that particular window myself, but I can tell you many stories of other ghosts at Gwrych and even a little of its history. For hundreds of years the Gwrych Estate has been alleged to be haunted and to have had more than its share of ‘funny goings on’ so to speak, including the ghost of the Grey Lady who we believe was Lady Dundonald, the screaming and crying children, all sorts of noises are always heard in and around the building itself and people were even offered large sums of money to spend the night in the countess’s bedroom which was locked up after her tragic death in 1924. Noises were

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always heard in the building as well as objects being moved around together with the distinctive smell of violets which were claimed to be the Grey Lady’s favourite fragrance. There is also the story of a little boy believed to be John Lloyd, a spirit of about 8 or 9 years of age who may have been buried in the area around 1733, somewhere near to where the new castle stands. Some say he searches for his parents Sir William and Margaret of Gwrych. When I was a little boy, I always felt and indeed as a developing medium that the most haunted place relevant to the building was a tower which was known as Lady Emily’s Tower, some distance from the castle to the west and quite hard to reach on foot as it had become very overgrown by the early 1960s. It was here that I saw a very beautiful lady and two little girls who would draw and paint. Of course they must have been spirits and other people have also reported seeing these people and described them as ghosts. A strange thing over the entrance of the tower were the following words that are said to relate to Psalm 95, Verse 5, “The sea is His and He made it and He prepared the dry land”. I can state this as a fact, many people saw a lady looking out of this tower. But the most terrifying place of all was where two pathways crossed that you could make your way up to the castle itself from the orchard and small farm that was there in the late fifties and sixties, owned as I recall, by a lady called Mrs Mayo, who I think had a daughter called Heather. Once, in the company of my mother, a very excellent medium, and my cousin Robert, one late afternoon we were making our way up to the castle, when all around me at that crossroads I heard the sounds of a battle, men screaming, horses whining, and swords and shields clashing. It was as if I was right in the midst of the battle itself, but strangely neither my mother or Robert heard or sensed anything. I also picked up that what I had actually experienced was a battle led by the Welsh prince Rhys ap Gruffydd (the Lord Rhys) of Deheubarth, this would have been around 1170 and was probably where an original castle stood. I also saw roundheads soldiers of Cromwell’s army in this vicinity, but this of course would have been more relevant to the 17th century. Some locals told me that the original Gwrych Castle was built by the Normans in

the 12th century and I believe a lot of the ghosts come from that time and not the present castle which was built in 1819. I also saw a man in armour on another occasion riding down that pathway and into a small wood and seemed to just vanish. Many strange things have happened at Gwrych and most of the locals just take it in their stride. At one time, I think about 1950, boxers Randolph Turpin and Bruce Woodcock trained at the castle for their championship fights. In the sixties people say they still heard the sound of this type of event in and around the building. Is Gwrych one of those places that can absorb and record such events? When I was a boy I also saw two men running down the pathway who suddenly stopped and talked to me. They told me they were Jewish and were very friendly. Of course, I now realise they were spirits, but what was their association to the castle? They weren’t well dressed, almost in rags one could say, but actually quite modern looking clothes. Another very strange story that I remember my mother talking about, was of a German Nazi-type car that once roared out of one of the entrances to the castle. This particular place was later to be a touring caravan park. I wonder if anyone else ever saw or heard that car? There was also the story of Arthur the butler who would walk down the great stairs on the red carpet and always seemed to stop and look at a large casket with a stuffed fox in it. Perhaps it was he who shot the fox, who knows? But many people have asked who the unusual man in black was. I can’t say I ever heard of or saw the lady in the window, but I do know it is a most haunted place. They say at one time there were approaching 130 rooms, including outbuildings, 28 bedrooms, inner and outer halls and even a billiards room. I was told it was here two ghosts played for the life or soul of the other! In the 60s the fabulous highlight was the 50 plus steps marble staircase. As a very well-known medium and investigator of the paranormal, over the years I have been to some of the world’s most famous places, but I don’t think I have been anywhere as active as Gwrych Castle. Even as an adult and very experienced medium, when I have returned there, the hairs on the back of my neck always stand up on end.

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HAUNTED MAGAZINE JUNE/JULY 2010

Paranormal TV Flashback: 6th January 1976 - Rentaghost

RENTAGHOST Davenport and Mumford’s absences were explained at the start of the series by them having acquired permanent haunting jobs at a stately home. After Mumford’s departure, the business was taken over by Harold Meaker and his wife Ethel, who suffered from the various problems the ghosts brought to their lives. The long suffering neighbours of Rentaghost are the Perkins, who think the Meakers are mad. A musical version of the show written by comedian and Rentaghost fan Joe Pasquale toured the UK during the spring and summer of 2006, continuing to a late summer season at Butlins. In September 2008, it was reported that the show could

Rentaghost was a British children’s television comedy show produced and broadcast by the BBC between 6 January 1976 and 11 June 1984. The show’s plot centred on the antics of a number of ghosts who worked for a firm called Rentaghost, which rented out the ghosts for various tasks. A retrospective season has been scheduled on BBC Four. Rentaghost, the company, located in South Ealing, is run by Fred Mumford, a recently deceased loser who feels he can find work for ghosts whose lives were as failed as his. His first (and only) recruits are Timothy Claypole, a mischievous jester at the court of Queen Matilda (the dreaded tyrant of the 12th century) with a comical lack of knowledge about modern technology, and Hubert Davenport, a delicate Victorian era gentleman who is morally shocked by the modern world. The ghosts work from an office which they rent from Harold Meaker, who discovers the truth about them in the 3rd episode. The Meaker’s next door neighbours, Rose and Arthur Perkins, are convinced that the Meaker’s are a pair of nutters and hire a private detective, followed by a psychiatrist to convince them that they needed treatment.

Over the course of several series, other characters were added: Hazel the McWitch, a Scottish witch; Nadia Popov, a Dutch ghost who suffers from hayfever and teleports away when she sneezes; and the pantomime horse Dobbin, who first appears in a one-off Christmas special called “Rentasanta” and is brought to life by Claypole, who is unable to cancel the spell afterwards – thus allowing Dobbin to remain in the show for the rest of the run. Another key figure is a ghost from the Wild West called Catastrophe Kate (cf. Calamity Jane), played by Jana Shelden, who is collected from outside a magic carpet shop in the Spirit World by Fred Mumford. The two ghosts are transported back to Earth on a flying broomstick, Catastrophe Kate having turned down the alternative of a flying vacuum cleaner. It is Catastrophe Kate who later introduces Hazel the McWitch to the regulars. Adam Painting, a local entrepreneur played by Christopher Biggins, frequently appears in episodes and tries, with limited success, to involve the ghosts in his latest business enterprise. When actor Michael Darbyshire (who played the role of Davenport) died in 1979, Anthony Jackson (Mumford) declined to appear in the next series, leaving Michael Staniforth’s Claypole the sole original ghost;

SONG LYRICS “If your mansion house needs haunting,

Just call... Rentaghost! We’ve got spooks and ghouls and freaks and fools, At... Rentaghost! Hear the Phantom of the Opera, Sing a haunting melody. Remember what you see is not a mystery, But... Rentaghost! At your party be a smarty And hire... Rentaghost! If you want a fright, Climb the spooky heights, With... Rentaghost! You can let our spirits move you, And for fun play ghostman’s knock, Because we aim to shock, We hope your knees will knock. That’s... Rentaghost! Let me say the most terrific, simple ghost, not scientific, Maybe supernatural ghouls of the day. Heavy footsteps in your attic, Means a spectre telepathic, Is descending just to spirit you away. Whay! We are extraordinary fellas here at... Rentaghost! To be another Uri Geller, Come to... RRRRentaghost! For a biography we’ve ghost writers, And not forgetting a ghost script. An apparition quipped, From deep inside a crypt... Ring Rentaghost! An apparition quipped, From deep inside a crypt... Ring Rentaghost! (witches cackle to fade..).”

JUNE/JULY 2010 HAUNTED MAGAZINE

Mr. Meaker: Yes, I’m hoping to get a good picture!

TRIVIA • Claypole actor Michael Staniforth wrote and performed the unforgettable theme tune. His original song had to be re-written as concern grew that it was too close to The Exorcist. • Edward Brayshaw who plays Harold Meaker has also appeared in Doctor Who as the War Chief in The War Games and as Leon Colbert in The Reign of Terror. • Lynda La Plante, crime writer extraordinaire, appeared as ghost-nanny Miss Novak under stage name Lynda Marchal. • Sue Nicholls, having essayed the role of hyper-allergic Nadia Popov, went on to play Audrey Roberts in Coronation Street. • Rentaghost was Block’s second choice for the show’s title, having decided that the original monicker Second Chance wasn’t child friendly enough. • Carry On... stalwart Kenneth Connor (Whatsisname Smith) also turned his talent to ‘mad-cap’ sit-coms ‘Allo ‘Allo and Hi-Di-Hi. • Ann Emery, who plays Ethel Meaker is the sister of Seventies comic Dick Emery, of “Ooh you are awful” fame. • The men inside Dobbin also played the Myrka in Doctor Who’s Warriors of the Deep. Regarded as one of the feeblest of monster costumes of all time, it is famous for electrocuting a karate-chopping Ingrid Pitt and savaging a mattress.

be returning to television after the rights to the programme were obtained by the UK production company, RDF. Rentaghost was meant to be a comedy and some episodes could be considered very camp, with elements of pantomime. The acting in later episodes was frequently over the top, and the scripts contained highly-contrived jokes, as illustrated in the example below. The Meakers have left their house to catch a bus into town. Mr. Meaker, carrying aloft an umbrella, intends to buy a work of art for the office wall. Mrs. Meaker is walking a small dog belonging to a neighbour. Mr. Claypole appears unnoticed behind the Meakers as they wait at the bus-stop, and magically changes the umbrella into a television aerial and the dog into a brass kettle. The Perkinses approach and notice the bizarre appearance of the Meakers, muttering about their madness. Mrs. Perkins: (to Mrs Meaker) What an unusual dog. Mrs. Meaker: (very pleased) Yes, I’m walking him for a friend. Mrs. Perkins: (increasingly disturbed, indicating the kettle) What’s his name? Mrs. Meaker: Rusty!

HAUNTED MAGAZINE JUNE/JULY 2010

Mr. Perkins: (to Mr Meaker, incredulously) Are you going into town like that?

In an early series, the Perkins are given a magical amulet that grants all their wishes. They do not realise this, however, and persist in expressing odd wishes which the amulet then proceeds to grant. Mr. Perkins: (referring to Mr. Meaker) I wish he was here now. For two pins, I’d tell him what I think of him! The amulet is seen glowing. Mr. Meaker immediately walks into Mr Perkins’s livingroom. Mr. Meaker: (in a strange monotone) I am here. Mr. Meaker produces two enormous ‘prop’ pins and hands them to Mr. Perkins, who accepts them in the same somnambulist way. Mr. Perkins: You are a nutter. Mr. Meaker: Thank you. The pair bid each other farewell. Mr. Meaker leaves. Mr. Perkins returns to normal and is confused and somewhat distressed by what has just happened.

REVIEWS This has reminded me that some jokes are only hilarious when you’re little. Remember ‘Knock knock. Who’s there? Doctor? Doctor Who?’ Rentaghost is just like that. The script was based on the contents of the comedy costume department and the worst of the Ha-Ha-Bonk jokebook. None-the-less it’s still good fun for the little ones. There’s even comedy next door neighbours, the Perkins, making it feel like a supernatural One Foot in the Grave (by way of Panto on Skegness pier of course). Steve, Norwich Simple-minded camp spooks in bad drag prance around tiny sets practicising trivial magic, before venturing out on ill-judged open air foolery in suburbia. Nothing has made me feel old and jaded quite as much as realising that Rentaghost is not the shining beacon of wonder I thought it was. It is instead a woeful collection of repetitive jokes, over-eager acting, and generally dreadful puns. And Mr. Claypole is no longer the all-knowing, sprightly hero of my childhood, but instead a grown man in a paisley romper suit with a silly hat. The fact that Christopher Biggins is not the most overacting member of cast says it all. Leanne, Manchester Well, nuance, inflection and rigorous plotting aren’t key. Prime Suspect it isn’t. Silly,’ boisterous, tomfoolery it certainly is. Hurrah! The other day I met a girl who hadn’t heard of Rentaghost, and I suddenly felt very, very old. Anyone over the age of twenty was subjected to it on such a regular basis (it seemed to be on every day after school at least twice, and on Saturday mornings) that it has seeped into the consciousness like the Green Cross Code, and Star Wars. Even before I watched this I could hear the sneezytwang noise Miss Popov makes, and sing you half the theme tune. Was it some kind of brainwashing? Helena, London.

One of the more frequent running jokes in the last series was the cellar of the Meakers’ house. The house’s power was provided by a pantomime dragon called Bernie St. John (note that “St. John” in this instance is correctly pronounced “Sinjun”, making the dragon’s name an obvious play on words); brought to life by Claypole – who served as a furnace. If anyone entered the cellar, typically all characters present would shout “Don’t go into the cellar!” all at once, and a few moments later the unfortunate(s) who went in would return charred and covered in soot. Only the first series of Rentaghost has been released on VHS and DVD. It is unlikely that any other series will be released, due to complicated rights. A number of actors are blocking the release because their contracts at the time did not include video royalties. Some of the actors have been offered small one-off payments that have been rejected, and several cast members (or their families) are unable to be contacted to grant consent. Two minor actors, who have since left the profession, have blocked a number of episodes, and they are unlikely to be shown. In addition, the programme included extracts from many copyrighted songs, often played in the background. Clearance of these is becoming increasingly costly for DVD releases. Some master copies of Rentaghost episodes were junked by the BBC archives in 1993 on the assumption that they were ‘no use’ and that examples of some other episodes were sufficient. However, BBC Enterprises had requested copies of the first three series a couple of years earlier and indeed they were showing at the time on UK Gold – these were later recovered by the BBC Archive. Series 1: Episode 1, 6th January 1976 (episodes were not titled) Recently-deceased ghost Fred Mumford, barely in control of his supernatural powers,

materialises in the middle of the road outside the offices of his new business, Rentaghost. He is interviewing spirits from the afterlife for jobs at the agency. Somewhere in the afterlife, ghost Hubert Davenport, a Victorian gentleman, and poltergeist Timothy Claypole, a medieval jester, await their interviews. They descend to Earth, where Mumford explains the purpose of Rentaghost: to give people who failed in life a second chance to succeed in the afterlife, putting their supernatural abilities at the disposal of the still living. Mumford agrees to hire them. Claypole and Davenport are baffled by modern technology: Claypole attempts to light a candle from an electric lamp. Landlord Harold Meaker arrives to collect the rent. Mumford at first mistakes him for another ghostly applicant, and Meaker is disturbed by the ghostly antics of Davenport and Claypole.

TRANSMISSION DETAILS

The trio travel by train to visit Mumford’s parents, who do not know he is dead, to borrow money. Claypole and Davenport remain invisible to avoid suspicion. On the train, Claypole’s fear of the train and inability to remain invisible panics their fellow passengers; Davenport, outraged by modern manners, transports himself back to the office. At the office, Meaker demands the rent from Davenport, who summons Mumford back from his parents. Confusion ensues as Mumford is transported back and forth by Davenport and Claypole. He manages to borrow enough money from his parents to cover the rent, but Meaker is left with Mumford’s parents’ birdcage attached to his head. Davenport and Claypole help Mumford carry his belongings from his parents’ house, returning to invisibility. Mumford’s parents are astonished to see their son apparently levitating his luggage beside him.

Series Five 5 Episodes broadcast on BBC 1 Fridays/Tuesdays at 5.10pm from 7th - 21st March 1980

Originally titled Second Chance, but fortunately renamed before transmission to appeal more to children, Rentaghost was a pantomine style comedy, complete with pantomine horse, revolving around a house of ghosts-for-hire. Available to spook or scare people, or perform all those little tasks that only a ghost can do. Bob Block, the creator and writer of the show, (who went on to writer galloping galaxies) was originally commissioned to create 5 episodes, but it was so popular that eventually 58 episodes were made and broadcast on BBC1, over 9 series and one Christmas Special, from 1975-1984, with audiences peaking at nearly 10 million viewers.

The first series boasted slightly more sophisticated humour than those that followed. The best of the rest included: Ethel’s glass-shattering voice, the Perkins hiring an undercover psychiatrist to study ‘those nutters next door’ and best of all, Dobbin’s bout of sleepwalking which puts Vic and Bob to shame for pure surrealist comedy!

Series One 5 Episodes broadcast on BBC 1 Tuesdays at 5.15pm from 6th January - 3rd February 1976 Series Two 6 Episodes broadcast on BBC 1 Tuesdays at 5.15pm from 16th May - 22nd June 1976 Series Three 6 Episodes broadcast on BBC 1* Tuesdays at 4.40pm from 22nd February - 29th March 1977 Series Four 6 Episodes broadcast BBC 1 Thursdays at 4.35pm from 14th September19th October 1978 Rentasanta Special broadcast BBC 1 Thursday 21st December 1978 at 4.30pm

Series Six 6 Episodes broadcast on BBC 1 Fridays at 5.05pm from 24th April - 29th May 1981 Series Seven 13 episodes (including the special) broadcast on BBC 1 Tuesdays at 5.10pm from 5th October - 29th December 1982 (It’s Pantomime Time! Special broadcast on BBC 1 Tuesday 21st December 1982 at 5.10pm) Series Eight 5 Episodes broadcast BBC 1 Tuesdays at 4.40pm from 18th October15th November 1983 Series Nine 5 Episodes broadcast on BBC 1 Tuesdays at 4.35pm from 9th October - 6 November 1984

By its final series the gags had worn thin – ending every episode by covering a supporting cast member’s face with soot was hardly the height of inventiveness. With the jokes and the cast visibly tired, Rentaghost was finally laid to rest.

JUNE/JULY 2010 HAUNTED MAGAZINE

15 Questions with Joel Moore

JOEL E R O O M 15 QUESTIONS WITH...

of your busy schedule to t ou e tim ng ki ta r fo ks Hi Joel, many than and Hatchet and ar at Av d ve lo ly te lu so ab talk to HAUNTED...we look and feel of the film l al er ov d an g tin ac e th absobloodyloved Spiral, ms can do far more fil r rro ho w ne at th s ow sh is outstanding and again film. d put buckets of blood on an es di bo up t cu st ju then

The gore factor is not the factor in this film. The story, the intricate characters and the intense twists and turns are the draw. This film is for fans of Hitchcock. Whilst HAUNTED loves bodies being cut up and buckets of blood we also appreciate a story driven with fantastic direction, unparalleled character acting and intense moments. It really is a pleasure to have you in Haunted. Right, now we’ve got the bum-kissing out of the way, here are your 20 questions:1) Right from the off, tell us what you are currently up to and what you’ve got coming up that we should all be looking forward to. Here’s your chance to plug whatever you’ve got going on right now before we get stuck into the questions.

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I have a movie coming out called Janie Jones, starring Abigail Breslin and Alessandro Nivola. Beautiful little piece about a reuniting between a washed out rock musician and his daughter. 2) How did Spiral come about? Give us the story, the low-down. Spiral began as a short story I wrote, my writing partner Jeremy Boreing read it and said it was shit as a short, but it would make a great feature with some work. So we made it a feature. When we started to create the Mason character we sat in my loving room listening to jazz, drinking wine, in a room that was full of new paintings that my friend Coburn painted for me. We said ‘what would this guy do’. So we wrote what we had in that room. A jazz lover, a painter, a

man that people could relate to. We wanted to give him a touch of humanity, so you could still be endeared to a neurotic, out of touch character. We paid much homage to Hitchcock in the writing and creating of Spiral. We wanted to do something that was 180 degrees different than the comedies I had been a part of in the past. 3) How do you think that Spiral went down with mainstream horror fans that are fixated on quick thrills and carnage instead of deep methodical character development with intense writing and no focus put into quick moving thrills or blood letting? I wasn’t worried too much about genre. And Adam (Green, Co-director) promised there were a lot of horror fans who still appreciated style over guts.

4) When did your interest in acting start and have your opinions changed on acting, since you went behind the camera and directed? Some say that a film is an intricate illusion as the finished product that we see in 90 minutes has taken 6 months to do and wasn’t filmed in any logical order. It is. It’s a mess of scenes, sometimes you have to shoot the climax before you’ve shot the introduction of the characters. I think every actor should try to get behind the camera. It changes your perspective. It’s then you realize you don’t know ANYTHING. 5) If you could get into a time machine and visit any period in time, past, present or future, where would you go and why? I’d visit my 6th birthday party and not pee my pants when the cute girl on the block gave me a present. Of course I’d be 32 when I went back so it may be a bit of a creepy scenario. 6) If there was one spirit that you could contact, who would it be, and if you were allowed to ask just one question, what would that be? Michael Jackson. I’d want to clear up a legacy. “Be honest now Mike, you’re dead now, you’ve moved beyond rumour. So... Any foul play?” 7) Describe an average, normal, nonworking day at home with your family and friends. I write a lot. So if I have free time it’s probably spent writing the next project. 8) Which would you prefer and why? Avatar 2, Spiral 2 or Foxfire 2 (where you played ‘First Geek’)? Well, I got cut out of foxfire, and a sequel to Spiral couldn’t happen. It’d just be the same story again... Not to give away the ending. So let’s go for some Avatar sequels. 9) Tell us a joke? A neurotic painter walks into a bar... Oh, you’ve heard this one? (Is it just me, but does anyone else get this? – Ed)

10) Describe the last time you… Shouted at someone? My friend, I live in LA. I shout at people in horrid traffic every day of my life. But it’s through a safety net of thousands of pounds of metal, so it doesn’t make me very tough Air-guitared to rock music? Didn’t answer Didn’t get the job you wanted? Didn’t answer Was genuinely scared? Didn’t answer Bawled your eyes out? Didn’t answer 11) Quiz time (part the first) I am going to shout out some character names that you have played over the years, tell me which films or programmes they were from, and a bit about the character? JP? Grandmas Boy- maybe the funniest character I’ve played. a Guy in the Yellow Hat? Hmm. I think CSi. a Joe Silverman? Shanghai Kiss. a (Claxon sound) LONG QUESTION ALERT… LONG QUESTION ALERT... 12) There are always going to be non-believers in subjects, such as the paranormal, we believe that whatever your beliefs, people should respect those beliefs. Do you think that shows like Most Haunted are getting closer to proving that there are ghosts and life after death, or do you think that no matter what you reveal some people will never be convinced? And, if so, do you think that magic shows, horror movies, haunted theme parks etc just add fuel to the fire and that ghosts are something that will never ever be proven, one way or another... I think there is spiritual activity beyond this realm. But that, literally, is as far as I can get or think on that subject. I believe there are certain things we’re not supposed to know.

13) What was it like working with James Cameron on Avatar, oh and Sigourney Weaver too? They are both amazing in their own ways. Two class acts of the industry. When you work with anyone for almost 3 years on a project you become a family. Recently we went down to Brazil, me Jim and Sigourney, to protest against a dam that was being built that would displace thousands of indigenous people. So the family still travels together. ;) 14) QUIZ TIME (Part the second) I am going to shout out some more character names that you have played over the years, tell me which films or programmes they were from, and a bit about the character? Sam Hane I have no idea. I’d have to IMDB (Internet Movie Database – Ed) myself. Ha! X … It was the Tiffany Problem (2008) Colin Fisher Bones. Another great character to play. Tick Keith Bruning Medium. He was fun, I like playing characters that have a crazy side. Tick 15) And finally, more of a plea than a question, can you give us something special to give away as a prize in this issue of Haunted, please? I’ll have Tej get in touch with you. (Well Tej (agent) did get in touch with us and we have some signed copies of Spiral on DVD to give away). Joel, thank you very much for talking to us.

To win 5 signed copies of Spiral email us your details to info@hauntedmagazine.co.uk and the winners will be drawn out of a very large hat on July 31st.

JUNE/JULY 2010 HAUNTED MAGAZINE

Libby Clark

ibby’s Last Rites Have you noticed how time becomes flexible? I have become so aware of how the length of time changes dependant upon the situation, I find it most frustrating. Special occasions like weddings, family parties, or birthdays that we anticipate and eagerly look forward to, fly past so quickly the clock seems to go into fast forward. Look at your children and grandchildren, when did they get to be so grown up? It seems like just a few minutes ago that they were babies and before you know it they are asking for the car keys and you are on babysitting duties for the grandchildren. Sitting in the dentist waiting room I am sure the clocks go backwards, Sitting in an airport waiting for my flight time seems to almost become still, every time I look at my watch the fingers seem to hardly have moved and yet on the drive to the airport, getting stuck in a traffic jam time was simply zooming past and I was worried that I would be late for check in.

So now you have my examples of time shifting its speed to suit the occasion, how does this affect you? You see I have a theory that we can change time by the way we think about it. When we are children and we look at someone in their forties they seem so old and grandma at sixty seems really ancient. By the time we reach our forties the years appear to passing faster and faster, by the age of seventy plus I am sure they will be slowing down again. This seems to relate to us, as our lives as children are slower and because we have not lived for many years we cannot imagine that there is anything other than today. Once we become adult our lives become busy and involved in the day to day minutia of living and so time moves so much faster as we are packing more and more in. By the time we reach our mature years we are not working, our families have grown and flown the nest and we once again have more time to contemplate and enjoy our time, so it appears to slow down.

So my theory is that if you are able to maintain a childlike appreciation of all that goes on, enjoying every day as if it were the only one and not constantly be living for tomorrow, next year, but to earnestly look ahead with excitement and hope for the future, time would move at a more even pace. Take a moment in your day, stop, and look around, record in your mind; these are the special seconds that can make you appreciate your life and those around you so much more. As we discover the way to ‘shift’ time and create opportunities for ourselves to become more aware of time, hopefully we will be also become more aware of our own spiritual nature and our place within the universe and it’s ever continuing flow of time, energy and hope for the future. Try it, apply it to these next few days and see what a difference it makes. However, until then I will just continue to watch the clock that seems never to move and just sit here waiting for my flight to be called. Take care, God Bless you and yours.

Libby

JUNE/JULY 2010 HAUNTED MAGAZINE