YOU might have noticed that BBC appears to be undergoing something of a renaissance of occult-themed shows, with Uncanny, Paranormal, Myth Country and, most recently, Hauntings all appearing on our screens in the last year or so.

Certainly it’s a distinct comeback from the events of 32 years ago, when the corporation gave viewers a uniquely spooky experience, after which it seemed for decades similar shows were pre-emptively exorcised by Auntie.

Some would say a shame that after Labour’s election victory, Tory revenants such as director-general Tim Davie, sinister “active agent” (E Maitlis) Robbie Gibb, and on-air fellow-travellers Fiona Bruce and Laura (“Boris Johnson ate my homework”) Kuenssberg weren’t similarly cast out, perhaps to haunt the corridors of equally creepy GB News.

Anyway, getting back to the theme of the piece.

Halloween 1992: BBC1 scares the living crap out of those viewers who fail to understand that the PTSD-inducing Screen One-billed drama presentation Ghostwatch was not an actual investigation of Enfield-Poltergeist style paranormal activity, but a cleverly staged entertainment, despite some pretty obvious acting by a cast of real-life presenters (including talk-show legend Michael Parkinson) and jobbing thespians, as well as actual crew members, playing themselves — rather better than some of the actors, as I recall.

Scripted by Stephen Volk (The Awakening) and directed by Lesley Manning (who also provided the voice of the ghoul), the show was part of the BBC anthology drama series Screen One.

Recorded weeks in advance, the programme was presented as live; on the night of Ghostwatch’s only British transmission, there were a million phone calls to the BBC, a combination of terrified complaints and some praise from the less gullible.

The number of calls was so heavy that a reassuring BBC recorded message saying the show was just a drama was blocked by the sheer volume. Oh dear.

There’s a ghost in my house

A suburban London house in the fictional “Foxhill Drive.” Pam Early and her daughters Kim and Suzanne are hounded by a spectre named “Mr Pipes” by Kim, initially because the disturbances were thought by Pam to be simply rumblings along heating pipes. The sinister basement-dwelling Pipes possesses and tortures young Suzanne.

From a BBC studio, chat-show behemoth Michael Parkinson presides over a special Halloween investigation of the affair with Dr Lin Pascoe (actor Gillian Bevan), as kids’ TV presenter Sarah Greene and TV crews spend the night with the Earlys, while outside comedian/actor/DJ Craig Charles investigates the street’s history and talks to the locals.  

As the show progresses, increasingly strange phenomena occur in the house. Suzanne is first exposed for making up some of the past events, but speaks in an unearthly voice as scratches appear on the child’s face.

The house is revealed to possess a sinister history, previously home to Victorian child-killing “baby-farmer” “Mother” Seddons, who at first was thought to be Pipes. But he is later believed to be infant molester-murderer “Raymond Tunstall,” a previous occupant at Foxhill Drive, now suspected of being an ancient prehistoric evil who has dwelt in the spot for millennia, undergoing numerous evil incarnations. 

Events become increasingly unhinged, as Suzanne disappears and Pipes takes supernatural hold of the broadcast; Greene attempts to rescue Suzanne from the basement, but she is dragged through the door to a demonic realm. Back in the studio, Pipes’s hold increases, causing Parkie to attempt flight, but he is possessed by the entity, and addresses the watching masses, saying “Fee-fo-fum,” the implication being that Mr Pipes is now present in every TV tuned to Ghostwatch.

Auntie put to the question

Over 11 million people tuned in to see Ghostwatch, a very decent audience for the time. BBC1 BARB rankings for the week of October 26-November 1 1992 show Ghostwatch as the eighth-most watched programme. 

The Broadcasting Standards Commission concluded that the BBC had made a mistake by not making it clearer that Ghostwatch was entirely fictional, but to me personally it was abundantly clear that the show was a Halloween leg-pull, admittedly one conducted with both pitch-black humour and a heavy degree of seriousness (aside from the jokey contributions of Craig Charles that is).

Ghostwatch was the first television programme claimed to have caused post-traumatic stress disorder. The March 12 1994 issue of the British Medical Journal reported that two 10-year-old boys were left traumatised by the show. 

Much more seriously, Ghostwatch was linked to the suicide five days after transmission of Martin Denham, an 18-year-old man with learning difficulties. Denham’s home, where he lived with his mum and stepfather, had defective central heating, the noise from the pipes, making him believe the show’s poltergeist had now taken up residence there.

April and Percy Denham, his mother and stepfather, claimed Martin had become obsessed with Ghostwatch, directly leading to his death. Britain’s High Court compelled a reluctant BBC to listen to the Denhams’ complaint and 34 others affected by the show.

April Denham: “I blame the BBC — it is all their fault. They said it was based on a true story but it was all a hoax.”

Percy Denham: “He was a very nervous lad. He was really into it — he was just gone. I had to keep asking him if he was all right. He thought there were ghosts in our home. In my own mind I hold the BBC completely responsible for his death. But I won’t be suing them — I can’t afford it.”

Martin, who had a mental age of 13, hanged himself in a local park with a length of plastic hosepipe. Heartbreakingly, his farewell note read: “Please don’t worry — if there are ghosts I will be a ghost, and I will be with you always as a ghost.”

Was there ever a sequel to Ghostwatch?

Indeed there was — Stephen Volk later wrote a short story called 31/10 aka Ghostwatch 2: Return to Studio One, using the same (surviving) characters and set 10 years after the original programme. Maybe an updated version will be made at some point now that the paranormal is back in vogue at the corporation, although sadly Parkinson and Mike Smith are no longer with us.

On the show’s 18th anniversary, in 2010, a live event took place where fans were asked to simultaneously play their personal recordings at 9.25pm (when Ghostwatch was originally broadcast) and then tweet about the experience as it played;  it has since become a yearly Halloween tradition.