“I think three women who were pregnant went into labour that evening.”

This is a quote from BAFTA winning horror writer Stephen Volk discussing perhaps his most infamous work, Ghostwatch. A BBC special released in 1992 that resulted in a quantifiable percentage of the British public watching at home believing that the spirit of a child-molesting ghost had flown out of their TV and into their toilet.

Which is a hell of a sentence and one that requires a not insignificant amount of explanation to make any sense, so settle in as we tell you the story of how one of the most infamous moments in British television history came to be.

Firstly it’s important to note that while Ghostwatch was never marketed as anything other than a work of fiction, the efforts the BBC went to, to clarify this fact left a lot to be desired. For starters literally the first thing anybody would see before the program started proper were the name of the writer, the aforementioned Stephen Volk, and the banner for the BBC’s, at the time, flagship anthology drama series, Screen One. Both of which were added, reportedly moments before the show was set to air, specifically to clarify to viewers that the whole thing was fake. Apparently Volk wasn’t too happy with this decision as he believed the British public would realise the events of the show were a work of finely crafted fiction, stating in a later interview –

“I was, I guess, writing for myself – aged between 12 and 14 – and I thought of myself watching and thinking, ‘well this is interesting, I don’t believe it.’”

Which sounds reasonable until you remember that this was a show airing in the early 1990’s, so to anybody tuning in to watch who happened to miss the literal first 30 seconds of the program, all they saw were a bunch of spooky goings-on purported to be real airing on the BBC- a highly respected broadcaster not exactly known for playing practical jokes on its viewers, at least on days besides April 1st. Briefly, over the years the BBC has aired several joke segments on April 1st which it similarly purported to be real. These include but are not limited to a news report from the London zoo about the acquisition of the rare creature from the Himalayas called the Lirpa Loof (An anagram of April Fools) noteworthy for taking massive, purple dumps and a Panorama segment about Switzerland’s annual spaghetti harvest which claimed spaghetti grows on trees on 3 mile long farms.

But in any event, compounding this was the fact that this began airing at 9:25 PM on BBC1, an uncommon timeslot generally used only by the BBC at the time due to the fact that, as a rule, the BBC doesn’t and in fact can’t run ads against its content. (The BBC is publicly funded so doesn’t need to for anyone curious). This meant that for channel hoppers not wanting to watch the fair being offered on the other terrestrial channels available, which at the time was limited to BBC2, ITV and the appropriately named Channel 4, they probably missed the only couple of seconds in the 91 minute broadcast that clarified it was fiction.

Then there’s the fact that Ghostwatch aired directly after the evening news, sport and weather, so for anyone who stood up to leave the room to make a cup of tea or something after the news would have also been likely to miss this disclaimer and make the assumption that the program was, similarly, factual in nature.

To be clear, that’s not us stereotyping about the British and their love of tea here, it is an actual, observable and studied phenomenon that the British powergrid experiences a massive surge in demand every time a popular TV show ends as a quantifiable percentage of the population stands up to make themselves a cup of tea. We’ve, naturally, made a video about this before for anyone curious about the mechanics. So it’s reasonable to assume that a good number of people tuning in to watch Ghostwatch missed the disclaimer for whatever reason.

But we’re not done because the show was also hosted by actual BBC journalists and presenters including Sir Michael Parkinson, one of the most trusted voices in broadcasting at the time, and Sarah Greene who was similarly known for hosting factual programming and was generally a trusted authority figure among both older and younger viewers seeing as she’d cut her teeth in the industry hosting the popular children’s program, Blue Peter.

In any event, with that out of the way we should probably discuss what the show was actually about and the short version is that the whole thing was presented as a “live” broadcast which saw Parkinson (in the studio) and Greene (on location) investigating a supposed haunting in a small British home located on Foxhill Drive in Northolt, West London. In reality there is no Foxhill Drive in Northolt but the name was suitably generic-sounding enough that nobody besides maybe someone who lived in Northolt would realise it wasn’t a real place.

Getting back to the program, after an introduction from the hosts, who play the whole thing completely straight and repeatedly insist that the broadcast is not only live, but intends to conclusively prove whether or not ghosts and the paranormal are real, we cut to an interview with the Early family which consists of a mother, Pamela and her two daughters Kim and Suzanne. During the interview Pamela dryly describes numerous ghostly goings on that have occurred around the home and generally projects the air of someone who is just so freaking tired of all the ghostly nonsense.

Unlike the presenters who were well known British television personalities, Pamela, Kim and Suzanne were all played by relatively unknown actors with the actress playing Pamela, Brid Brennan largely having nothing but minor bit parts prior to starring in Ghostwatch. Kim and Suzanne meanwhile were played by real-life sisters, Cherise and Michelle Wesson, neither of whom were known or established child actors at the time – Ghostwatch is literally Cherise’s only known credit as an actress – which makes their performances in the broadcast all the more impressive. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

During the interview the chief thing the family complains about experiencing is a mysterious banging noise from within the house’s walls. A noise Pamela, in an attempt to comfort her daughters, attributes simply to knocking pipes, prompting the family to refer to the malevolent entity terrorising their home as, Mr. Pipes.

Interspersed with this is supposed archive footage of Suzanne and Kim being harassed by Pipes in which a distinctly humanoid figure can vaguely be seen in the corner of their room. It’s at this point we should also probably note that during the entire broadcast viewers at home were encouraged to call in with their own thoughts and observations and you better believe a whole bunch of people called in to point out the fact the footage, that remember was purported to be real, had what appeared to be a large, menacing man stood in the bedroom of two little girls who were terrified that someone or something was trying to hurt them.

For the curious, the number shown was real and would result in anyone who called being connected to the BBC’s usual call-in line which would play a pre-recorded message informing them that the show wasn’t real but that they were still invited to share any spooky or ghostly phenomenon they’d personally experienced. None of these calls were acknowledged during the show since it wasn’t actually live but the hosts, to maintain the ruse, would frequently act as though they were responding to enquiries, questions or comments from the British public.

Perhaps the best example of this being right at the start of the show when Parkinson, whilst showing the previously mentioned footage of the Early sisters again, notes that many callers had noticed a strange, vaguely humanoid figure stood in the background before adding that he personally couldn’t see what they meant. But here’s the part that makes this decision go from a clever way to draw people’s attention to a detail they may have missed to something that puts the broadcast on par with the likes of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. After a few minutes they show the footage again, this time with the figure edited out and have an actress playing a “parapsychologist” called Dr. Pascoe joke about how people at home are probably seeing things.

To be clear, there absolutely was a figure in the initial bit of footage shown with the entity being physically portrayed a local character actor called Keith Ferrari, but they then digitally removed him from the shot when showing it again and even had the actress playing Dr. Pascoe draw a line around where he initially stood on the footage and laugh about how it was probably a shadow people mistook for a ghost or something. As for what Ferrari physically looked like when playing Mr. Pipes, the nature of the show and the poor quality of the overall footage in some parts make it hard to see for sure, but if behind the scenes images of Ferrari in costume are anything to go by, Mr. Pipes is a large, stocky man with countless bleeding slashes across his face and gouged out, perpetually bleeding eyes.

Getting back to the hauntings, a lot of credit needs to be given to the performances of the Wesson sisters, Cherise and Michelle, in selling the reality of the whole thing, with each sister delivering some truly unnerving performances during the show. For example at one point Kim, played by Cherise, talks about she saw Mr. Pipes staring at her from a crack in the door to the closet below the stairs, describing him as “disgusting” before showing a crude drawing of the entity she made which presenter Sarah Greene, in an attempt to break the tension, jokingly places on the fridge. To which Kim responds that Mr. Pipes will be pleased because he likes everything to be cold.

Likewise Suzanne, played by Michelle, talks about how she first knew something was amiss when she sensed a presence standing at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep. Suzanne then explains how she assumed the presence was her mother until it left without tucking her in.

We cannot possibly overstate how creepily and well-delivered this line is. Oscar worthy.

Moving on, during the early stages of the broadcast the tension is repeatedly broken by actor/comedian Craig Charles who is playing an elevated version of himself and, in the context of the broadcast, is tasked with interviewing residents of Foxhill Drive while Parkinson handles calls and guests in the studio and Greene interacts with the family.

While Charles himself doesn’t appear to be taking anything seriously, he is responsible for one of the earliest scares in the broadcast, leaping out of a cupboard wearing a halloween mask to scare Greene as she initially explores the Early home. There’s also a moment later in the broadcast where Charles is purportedly interviewing a man who tried to exorcise the house where you can just about see Ferrari, in full Mr. Pipes getup, standing in the distance observing the cast and crew

In fact, throughout the broadcast Ferrari can be seen multiple times if you watch closely enough. For instance in one shot he can be seen in the reflection of a glass door and in another he can be spotted emerging from the background of the studio as Pascoe and Parkinson listen to the sounds of guttural screaming purportedly captured in the Early home. This was done to suggest that Mr. Pipes could be summoned by replaying the sounds of his torturous screams out loud, which millions of televisions across Britain were now doing inadvertently.

Back to the broadcast, it largely spends the next few minutes cutting between the studio, the house and Charles and we learn that Mr. Pipes seems to have a special interest in Suzanne with the show noting how she had, on multiple occasions, awoken to find mysterious unexplained scratches and contusions on her face. As this is discussed a photo of Suzanne with such injuries is shown on screen. For the curious, the photo was genuine and made by having a member of the BBC’s own special effects department make up Michelle Wesson as if she’d been repeatedly scratched about the face.

After a few more minutes both girls ask to be put to bed which is when the show starts to get really weird.

You see, up until this point in the broadcast all of the spooky goings on were being reported on secondhand however after the girls go to bed a bunch of bizarre unexplainable things happen that again, the show presents as being absolutely real. For starters the crew notes that the house is inexplicably freezing cold despite the abundance of people and camera equipment present. Temperature gauging equipment that was jury-rigged to always show a specific, lower reading is then presented to sell this as genuine as the host explains that a sudden, inexplicable feeling of cold is a tell-tale sign that somewhere is absolutely, totally mega haunted. Reminder, this show aired on Halloween and British houses are notoriously drafty so you can probably imagine how those watching at home, growing increasingly invested in the narrative felt upon hearing that.

Then a bunch of random stains appear in the living room seemingly caused by a ghost since nobody was in the room at the time and unlike a regular spill or leak, the stains are perfectly round. Which just isn’t right. After this loud scratching and of course, banging can be heard from upstairs.

As the crew become increasingly flustered and attempt to find the source of the noise, a distraught Kim and Suzanne appear to inform the crew that there’s someone in the kitchen. When the crew run downstairs to see what’s going on a loud banging can be heard that increases in volume and intensity until they enter the kitchen, at which point it abruptly stops. Though they do find a bunch of creepy drawings of Mr. Pipes strewn about the floor.

Ultimately it is determined that the noises are being caused by Suzanne who is discovered hiding in a closet banging against the pipes, though she insists through tears that it wasn’t her and that she was only making the noises this time out of fear the television crew were going to leave and nobody would believe or help them.

At this point in the broadcast Parkinson, clearly annoyed and in full journalist mode, begins to aggressively grill Suzanne and insists to Pascoe that the whole thing is clearly a hoax and that no further investigation is required.

The broadcast then cuts to Parkinson in the studio as he takes calls from viewers who share their own stories of the paranormal, none of which phase the veteran presenter who jokes and dismisses most of what he hears. At one point drawing attention to a call being cut off and a camera glitching out as, perhaps, the work of a bored poltergeist.

Following this the broadcast quickly takes on a decidedly more distressing tone as Greene calls the studio to report that the house is showing signs of ghostly activity. In particular loud, random scratching noises from within the walls which itself is cut off by a blood curdling scream from Suzanne who the camera crew find has fresh, bloody scratches across her face.

What follows is largely considered one of the broadcast’s more disturbing moments when Parkinson dryly states the girl could have easily scratched at her own face, prompting her mother to grab her hands and scream about her neatly trimmed fingernails making this impossible. What makes this moment especially upsetting is just how flatly the whole thing is presented with Pamela’s sheer exasperation with the whole ordeal being palpable. This is in addition to erratic camera work that further sells the broadcast and panic being exhibited by everyone present as genuine.

As the show continues further details about the history of the house and the potential identity of Mr. Pipes are revealed such as the Early home being the former abode of a child murderer known as Mother Seddons who would drown babies in the house during Victorian times, as revealed by a purported caller to the show. Another caller offers an alternate explanation, stating that a “very disturbed man” called Raymond Tunstall had previously lived in the home.

The caller, who identifies as a social worker familiar with the case, explains how Raymond was a child molester that frequently spoke of a mysterious female presence that urged him to commit the heinous acts of abuse towards children he would ultimately be arrested for. Whether this female presence is the aforementioned Mother Seddons is never explicitly mentioned but that’s the jump viewers were likely expected to make in their own heads. Anyway, the caller further explains how Raymond hanged himself in the cupboard under the stairs and that his body was mutilated beyond recognition by his pet cats. Getting back to reality, this is why Ferrari was made up to look as though his face was slashed to hamburger meat and also as if his left eye had been violently gouged from his head. The cats did it.

As this is happening, the footage from the house shows the crew and the Early family becoming increasingly panicked to the point that the, up to this point, staid and professional Parkinson breaks character and urges his co host to remove the children from the home for their own safety. This doesn’t happen as both children display increasingly disturbing behaviour.

For example at one point Suzanne speaks with what appears to be the voice of a violently angry man and screams at everyone to leave and at another point, speaks as though in a trance but is only able to garble lines from well known nursery rhymes and children’s stories. Kim meanwhile scrambles away from the crew only to be found hiding in a corner babbling about how Mr. Pipes thought her stuffed rabbit had been bad and needed to be punished. At which point the camera turns to find said rabbit with its eyes gouged out.

While all this is happening the house displays evidence of an angry poltergeist being present. Things fly off the walls, doors slam and the sound of scratching and banging continues, being occasionally joined by the wailing or screeching of cats. At one point a crew member is even knocked unconscious by an unseen entity, collapsing in front of the camera with a bloody head wound as the feed cuts off. The last audible thing being heard, besides the commotion of course, being one of the children screaming that someone is hurting them.

As the studio scrambles to get the camera feed back Parkinson angrily tells the studio to stop taking calls as Pascoe, noticing a mysterious wind whipping about the set, tells him that they’ve inadvertently caused a seance and brought whatever entity is present into the studio and potentially just placed everyone watching at home at risk of similarly being attacked.

The feed then cuts to footage from outside the Early home showing that the emergency services have been called and are having trouble locating Greene, Suzanne and an unnamed cameraman. All of whom are still trapped in the home and footage shows are still being harassed by, well, whatever the hell is in the house.

The whole thing culminates in a screaming Greene barricading herself below the stairs with Suzanne as the sounds of whipping wind, screaming cats and thunderous banging can be heard. The feed abruptly cuts to show the same thing happening in the studio. The final thing the cameras show is Parkinson stumbling towards the camera in a trance like state mumbling childrens rhymes under his breath in a voice that isn’t his own.

Now with how wild the ending to the broadcast was you’d think that maybe people would have gotten that maybe the whole thing was an elaborate and well-produced work of fiction, especially considering that it aired on Halloween. But remember, the broadcast was played entirely straight and at no point besides the literal first few seconds, was the fact it was fictional ever acknowledged.

As a result a good number of people watching at home were fully convinced that what they’d just seen was genuine. How many is impossible to say with any certainty but we can make an educated guess based on the numbers that we do know.

For starters the broadcast had an estimated viewership of about 11 million people making it the 8th most watched thing on British television that week. Taking into account Britain’s population of about 57 million at the time, this means almost a fifth of British households watched part or all of the broadcast. Of this 11 million people an estimated 1 million called or attempted to call the BBC during the broadcast, which according to a commentary track of the broadcast created by the British Film Institute comprised mainly of –

“a mixture of complaints, praise and enquiries as to whether the show was real or not”

Exactly how this would break down isn’t elaborated upon but the wording would suggest that as many people called to complain or praise the broadcast as did just to ask about its veracity. Which would conservatively amount to a hundred thousand people or so.

One person we know for sure was convinced of its authenticity is Michael Parkinson’s own mother who, according to the presenter, was one of the thousands who called in to ask what was going on. He apparently hadn’t bothered to tell her about the fictitious nature of the program and she’d tuned in thinking he was presenting a genuine documentary and become worried when things in the studio turned, poltergeisty.

Perhaps the most affected though were children and many complaints came from parents who were annoyed, frustrated or angry at the BBC for scaring the everloving shit out of their kids. Ironically, this exact complaint was raised during the broadcast by one of the aforementioned staged calls, during which a distressed mother chastises Parkinson for upsetting her children. Adding that they’re watching the show in an apparent trance and that their father was injured when a glass table exploded, covering the walls in blood and also that all of the clocks in her home had mysteriously stopped at exactly 9:30 PM. In response a bemused Parkinson shrugs and tells the mother that her children should probably be in bed and not watching a show airing so late. Seemingly unbothered by details like the clocks stopping at the time the program began to air, her children being almost catatonic or her husband being injured.

And initially the response from the BBC and producers on the show was basically this, that the show was clearly a work of fiction and aired after the watershed (the time in the UK where it’s acceptable to air shows with more adult themes or content as it’s assumed young children will be asleep) so they didn’t have anything to apologise for. Also, it’s worth mentioning that like the staged call in the show, numerous people reported experiencing things that they credited to ghosts or the innumerable forces of darkness like clocks stopping or objects falling off of shelves. It’s impossible to verify any of these of course but according to the BBC they received a lot of calls from people making such claims, including one from a vicar chastising them for potentially allowing the devil into people’s homes.

The attitude at the BBC shifted when the Broadcasting Standards Commission weighed in and deemed that producers actually hadn’t done enough to establish the show as a work of fiction and that their insistence on the show being unsuitable for children fell kind of flat when one of the presenters, Sarah Greene, was explicitly known for their work on children’s television. With the BSC ruling, in part that –

“In Ghostwatch there was a deliberate attempt to cultivate a sense of menace.”

Drawing particular attention to the graphic and unsettling nature of some elements of the broadcast like a child being attacked on camera and repeated references to sensitive subjects like child abuse and baby murder. It was also revealed during this time that the BBC only had five operators working their phone lines during the broadcast of Ghostwatch so a good number of people calling never would have gotten the message about the show being fictional.

After this ruling producers quickly changed their tune and apologised while the BBC shelved the broadcast indefinitely and told staff to never talk about it ever again. Contrary to a popular rumour, Ghostwatch is neither banned nor all that hard to find, it can be bought on DVD, Blu-Ray and even found on streaming services like Shudder. Not to mention the countless gloriously low quality clips of it you can find on YouTube. However, Ghostwatch has never been broadcast in its entirety on British television since 1992, which is probably where the stories of it being banned stem from. Exactly why isn’t clear though the most common explanation is that BBC execs simply didn’t want to deal with any more controversy related to the broadcast and shelved it. At least in the UK as the BBC has re-aired Ghostwatch in other territories.

Back to the UK though and the aftermath of that initial airing, the newspapers of course had a field day with the broadcast, gleefully reporting on the scores of terrified children and adults left in its wake. Our favourite example of this undoubtedly being the story of a woman who sent the BBC a terse letter requesting that she be compensated for the price of a single pair of jeans because the broadcast had literally caused her husband to shit himself in fear.

Likewise there were reports of pregnant women going into labour, although to be fair we’re pretty sure that happens all the time regardless so…., and parents who had trouble getting their kids to sleep for weeks following the broadcast. The latter being something that was especially frustrating for parents because the noises described on the show, loud, random knocking from the walls at night, is very common in older British homes as they settle. Also, and we probably shouldn’t ignore this, the broadcast very specifically said that the malevolent entity on the show targeted children and was, in all likelihood, the vengeful spirit of a child molesting serial killer who themselves was possessed and influenced by the spirit of another child murderer.

As mentioned though, Ghostwatch has aired unedited in other territories and can now be easily obtained on DVD or viewed online which we recommend people do as the show’s notoriety results in one aspect of its production being overlooked. It being arguably one of the earliest modern found footage horror movies, predating the likes of The Blair Witch Project by almost a decade. In fact, it has long been rumoured that The Blair Witch Project was partially inspired by Ghostwatch and there are a number of similarities in tone, style and content between the two ideas. Most notably the commitment to the documentary style and use of unknown actors to sell the idea as real. Blair Witch director Eduardo Sánchez has denied any link between the two, stating that he only became aware of Ghostwatch after the release of his film. Oren Peli, the creator of the Paranormal Activity franchise meanwhile has directly listed Ghostwatch and writer Stephen Volk as an influence.

To be clear it’s by no means the first found footage movie with stuff like Cannibal Holocaust which purports to be real being released way back in 1980, but the actual look and style of Ghostwatch is curiously modern despite being over 3 decades old.

In addition Ghostwatch predates almost every single one of those crappy ghost hunting shows by well over a decade and features elements present in them to this day like the use of night vision cameras and temperature sensors to “detect” any paranormal presence. Again, something that is rarely acknowledged or noted in discussions of Ghostwatch in favour of talking about its notoriety or the fact it made a guy shit himself. Which admittedly is a pretty good hook and is why it’s how we’re ending this video.

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