Notes On Ghosts

001 I don’t generally like anything that starts with a dictionary definition, but I was curious to see how ‘ghost’ was described. The OED answer is –

1. An apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous being – OR –

2. A slight trace or vestige of something – OR –

3. A faint secondary image produced by a fault in an optical system.

At least one of those answers also speaks volumes when questioning what a ghost is, not just what we mean by the word. I don’t know which one is right, but I’d probably say two with a touch of three, but I’m not sure how, in this context, you could have two without one.

002 I’ve never properly seen a ghost, but then I’ve never looked very hard. I once went to the site of Borley Rectory with some friends and we all got stupidly scared at standing on a patch of grass that once apparently had a haunted house on it but it was very dark, we were quite drunk and we were expecting to be frightened, so frightened we were. I have subsequently heard the tale re-told to include a mysterious floating light which could have been a ghost, but I have no recollection of that whatsoever. I was probably peeing up a tree at that point, although you think someone would have said ‘oh, by the way, while you were urinating we saw a ghost’. On a tangential note, why do men insist on pissing up against things? If there is a single tree in an acre of bushes, you can bet that it will be singled out for a visit. Is it shame, safety or the primeval urge to mark your territory? Our animal instincts always assert themselves in intensely personal situations. I need the toilet now.

003 When I was 10, my Nan died. It was terrible, and I took it badly. My Dad tried to make sense of it for me (and perhaps for himself, she was his Mum) by saying that ‘death is just a part of life, and no-one really knows what happens next. Maybe she is in another place, and can see us now – maybe she’s here, sat over in the corner – but we just can’t see her’. It was the single most terrifying thing I had ever heard. It still is, I think. I have to say that I do sometimes believe that my house is haunted, but I think it’s more likely in need of better draught excluders. In any respect, I’m okay with the ‘ghost’ – I’ve lived there for ten years and whatever the intermittent late night presence is, it hasn’t yet tried to touch me up or take me over, so I’m not bothered. Perhaps I’m not its type.

004 Ghosts always seem to me to be figures not of fear, but intense sadness. I mean, what sort of life is that for a dead person? Tied eternally to a single spot, compulsively re-enacting the same rituals, walking the same battlements, rattling the same chains? It’s horrible. And everyone you encounter is scared of you. Perhaps ghosts are like a bad scratch on a record or a locked groove, doomed to repeat the same few seconds over and over again - or like a goldfish, by the time they realise what they are doing they forget what they are doing. I hope ghosts lack consciousness, or at least sentience: the idea that they know that they are ghosts is too awful to contemplate.

005 You may have noticed that I write about ghosts as if they are real. I think they are real. I don’t necessarily think that they are ‘an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous being’ but they are something, perhaps psychological, perhaps psychogeographical, perhaps a natural phenomenon that we haven’t discovered yet. But then I watch a lot of horror films and TV, I read a lot of horror books, so a ghost to me is like true love for a romantic novel reader, magic for a Harry Potter fan. That said, I don’t believe that vampires or werewolves exist. Mummies, yes.

006 There’s a great deal to say about ‘A Ghost Story For Christmas’, but I’ve run out of steam a bit so I’ll just say that it is one of the greatest things the BBC ever did. These Ghost Stories are not just for Christmas, they’re for life.

007 ‘Ghost Stories for Christmas’ debut at the Showroom Cinema on Tuesday 3rd December with ‘Whistle & I’ll Come To You’, ‘Lost Hearts’ and ‘Stigma’. If that doesn’t excite you, check your pulse, you may be a ghost yourself. On Tuesday 17th December it’s ‘A Warning To The Curious’ and ‘The Ash Tree’. White sheets are optional. More HERE and HERE.

There's Nobody There

As with 'The Ghosts Of Motley Hall', no matter how much paranormal mischief went on, there was always something inherently depressing about 'Nobody's House' (1976), a comedy about the ghost of a Victorian pauper child (who didn't even have a name) and his fun and games with a contemporary family.

Great music (by Anthony Isaac, who worked on 'Survivors' and, later, 'Supergran'), but these are unsettling credits, particularly the spectral outline disappearing into eternity.

Sad, Spooky, Silly

'The Ghosts Of Motley Hall' ran for three series on ITV from 1976 to 1978. The premise was straightforward: the various ghosts of a stately home band together to protect their way of death against developers, prospective tenants, vagrants and, most of all, much more malevolent spirits who want to take possession. Despite the obvious hilarity that ensues when an invisible entity kicks an estate agent up the arse, a deep undercurrent of melancholy ran through the show from the opening credits onwards.

   

Developed as an obvious response to BBC's 'Rentaghost', 'The Ghosts Of Motley Hall' was infinitely superior, with great, thoughtful scripts by 'Catweazle' creator Richard Carpenter and a fantastic cast of proper actors (Sir Freddie Jones; Nichola Le Provost; Sheila Steafel; Peter Sallis; a subdued Arthur English) who were all able to convey the intrinsically unhappy situation of a trapped spirit inbetween the more obvious knockabout stuff.

The show occasionally got pretty dark with plenty of ouijja board play, some scary special guests, electric exorcisms and, of course, the constant threat of the ghosts losing their place in the world and being forced to wander a nameless, formless astral hinterland alone for all eternity. It used to make me feel rather sad sometimes, but I watched it every week.

Valerie Leon, Show Girl

Valerie Leon has a small but pivotal role as a showgirl in the Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) episode 'That's How Murder Snowballs'. She's a fine looking woman. I'd pay money to see her standing around in a feather head dress.

F*** Me, It's Freddie!

FMIF as Sir George Uproar in the melancholy 'The Ghosts Of Motley Hall' (1976-1978), a sort of Rent-A-Ghost scripted by Ibsen.

Stone Age Highway

'The Ridgeway' is a short tourist information film which was broadcast constantly on television up until the late eighties. A 5,000 year old man made thoroughfare which once stretched from Dorset to the Wash in North Norfolk, the 87 miles of The Ridgeway which weave between Avebury in Wiltshire and Tring in Buckinghamshire was opened as a protected national trail in 1973, and the promotional film was made shortly afterwards.

It's usual for films like this to place a strong emphasis on the echoes of history, but here the ghosts are shown literally, long dead figures which fade in and out of vision, but are indelibly recorded on the landscape.

I wasn't going to post the whole film (all two and a half minutes of it), but, now I think about it, it seems mean not to, so here it is.

Oh, and if you do have any queries, please don't write to the Countryside Commission as they ceased to exist in 1999 and their offices in Cambridge Gate have been converted to flats, albeit flats that cost £8,000,000 each.

Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)

‘Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)’ was not a success when broadcast in 1969 and 1970, although it later proved itself a favourite in syndication.

ITC’s only supernatural / comedy / action series is, as you might expect, a strange show,  and is underpinned by an all pervading atmosphere of melancholy. It is, after all, a story where one of the main protagonists (Hopkirk) is dead and, worse than that, condemned to wander the earth for a hundred years with only his business partner (Randall) to talk to. As I watch I always find myself wondering what will happen when Jeff Randall dies, or when Marty’s widow Jeannie re-marries? What if Jeannie marries Jeff? & where does Marty go when he’s not in ‘our’ world? It’s pretty depressing when you think about it.