On the 31^st of October 1992 I knew the true meaning of fear, and that fear, which infected my mind and the minds of everyone who saw it, was called GhostWatch. I was twelve years old and had gone round to a friend’s house for a Halloween party. We were all laughing and joking and telling spooky stories and having a blast until my friends mum puts the TV on and we all sit down to watch a live ghost investigation documentary on the BBC. Soon after, the laughter, smiles and jokes ended. The premise was that two tv presenters, Craig Charles and Sarah Green, were sent with a live TV crew to a normal semi-detached house on a British housing estate to investigate strange disturbances a single mother and her two daughters were experiencing. They were joined by a ‘live’ link to a BBC studio with Michael Parkinson and Mike Smith, who hosted the show, interacting with Charles and Green and interviewing paranormal experts about the goings on in the house. We were all convinced it was real despite credits at the beginning of the show stating that it was ‘written by’ Stephen Volk. There was also the BBC number at the time 181 811 8181 (remember that one?) which came up at the bottom of the screen from time to time encouraging viewers to phone in and share their ghostly experiences. When viewers got through to this number they were told the program was fictional but because the phone lines were jammed up with calls, very few people could get through, making the program all the more convincing.

Now anyone who remembers GhostWatch will certainly recall the main ghostly antagonist, Mr Pipes. Even now I hate saying that name as it sends genuine chills down my spine and for good reason. We first see Mr Pipes as a rudimentary child’s drawing of a man with a bleeding face, drawn by one of the daughters. Sarah Green then asks the young girl where she saw Mr pipes, the girl then leads Green and the camera crew to the door under the stairs and says something along the lines of “In there…he’s there now”. For some reason this in particular chilled us to the bone, maybe because as we thought it was real then just behind that little door was a real malicious entity. It was actually there. Mr Pipes also makes several physical appearances throughout the program as a man with a bloody face. Reflections in windows, stood by bedroom curtains in the dark and even in the studio with Parky et al. All blink and you’ll miss it appearances but enough to start making you twitch. Another chilling moment was when a recording was played of Mr Pipes talking to one of the girls and that unearthly sound will haunt me till the end of my days.

Certain aspects of the program when watched today seem obviously fake, like the acting skills of the psychology expert brought into the studio, Sarah Green and the two kids in particular. Easy to spot these days in hindsight but when you’re twelve it’s utterly convincing. Even though you know it to be fake GhostWatch still has the power to completely terrify you, I’m even getting slight freaked out just writing about it and I’m in the house on my own which isn’t helping. Terrify the nation it did in such a way that the BBC was probably not prepared for. Thousands of complaints flooded in from the British public, there were genuine cases of post traumatic stress disorder caused by the show in children and most tragically and eighteen year old man committed suicide five days after the program was shown. Apparently there were faulty water pipes in the house and he linked it to the show in some way. It was all rather extreme for a programme shown in an evening family slot and pimped out to kids by Sarah Green on the Saturday morning show Going Live.

Watch the program below, ignore some of the bad acting and you will still witness an utterly terrifying film, from its subtle beginnings to its quite frankly apocalyptic ending which to this day is one of the best scary movies ever made, not just by the BBC but by anyone. Watch it but seriously, I’m warning you now, if you’re at all sensitive to this kind of thing then do not watch it alone. I watched it for the first time since it was first on while writing this article and it still scared the shit out of me.

The following link is from the shows writer’s website.
http://www.stephenvolk.net/page19.htm