Ghostwatch – 21 years later

Halloween 1992
I was 16 and I was at my aunt and uncles babysitting for the evening while they were at work. I was looking after my cousin, Ashley, who was about a year old. He was already in bed when I arrived so I settled in front of the tv, looking forward to watching something scary seeing as it was Halloween.Little did I know that the program I watched that night would still have an effect on me 21 years later!

I, like many people that night, had no idea that Ghostwatch wasn’t being filmed live; it was advertised as a documentary and Michael Parkinson was presenting it so there was no reason to doubt that it wasn’t real.
Sarah Greene and Craig Charles were at the ‘haunted council house in London’ and in the studio, Michael Parkinson and Mike Smith were joined by an expert in parapsychology.
Viewers could phone in to the studio and reports started coming in of ghostly goings on across the country

As the program went on and got scarier and scarier I started hoping against hope that Ashley didn’t wake up because I didn’t think I’d have the courage to go upstairs by myself to see to him!

I love scary movies and always had but nothing I’d watched before had ever made me feel this scared. I remember a point in the show where the camera was filming each room as the camera person walked past doors and suddenly you caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the bedroom. The camera carried on but then shot back as the camera person realised something had been in the room but when it went back to the room, there was nothing there.

At that very moment, when my insides felt like ice and fear had gripped me, the glass door on the corner unit swung open and frightened the living daylights out of me!

I remember the feeling of anger when the credits rolled at the end and I realised it had all been acted. I felt stupid for believing it and angry that I’d got so scared when it wasn’t real.
Obviously I calmed down and when my auntie Tracy got home from work I told her all about it and she thought it was hilarious!

There was uproar in the press for a while afterwards and it was banned from being shown again.

I found myself being too scared to walk past open bedroom doors at night if the light was off inside the room. I’d imagine the ghost, Pipes, was standing just inside, watching me and when I went to bed I’d have to close the other bedroom doors.
I still have to do that to this day. Ant likes to leave Aiden’s, Kaycee’s and Ella’s bedroom doors open at night when they’re away in Derbyshire but when I go to bed (I usually go later than Ant) I have to close them otherwise I’d never be able to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and I always have to go to the toilet in the middle of the night!

I’ve added the dvd to my wishlist on Amazon; it’ll be interesting to watch it through the eyes of an adult!

How about you….did you watch it? Did it scare the bejeezus out of you like it did me?!