 were upset. Even Parky's mum thought it was real. Stephen Volk later described some of his favourite complaints: a vicar who believed that the show really had conjured up evil spirits; and a soldier who was so scared he'd soiled himself – his wife wanted compensation to buy him a new pair of jeans. The tabloid reaction was immense, with headlines that included 'Heads Must Roll at the BBC,' 'Viewers blast BBC's 'sick' ghost hoax,' and 'Halloween hoaxers dropped a ghoulie'. Questions were raised in parliament and the British Journal of Medicine cited Ghostwatch as the first TV programme to cause PTSD in children. Sarah Greene, host of Saturday morning show Going Live!, had to go explain on kids' TV that she had not in fact been killed in the cupboard under the stairs by a dress-wearing child molester ghost. 'The furore in a sense was to do with the BBC-ness of it,' says Volk. 'People didn't like the BBC doing this kind of thing without warning them. It was all about that trust in the BBC. I find that ironic, because as a drama it's about trust. What do you trust when you're watching TV? Do you trust that person's an expert? Do you trust a presenter is telling you the truth? Do you trust the pictures you're shown? And in a ghost story, do you trust your eyes?' Five days after Ghostwatch was broadcast, an 18-year-old with learning difficulties, Martin Denham, took his own life. His parents blamed the programme, saying that he had become obsessed with Ghostwatch. The coroner didn't link Martin Denham's death to Ghostwatch, though the Broadcasting Standards Commission said that BBC had 'a duty to do more than simply hint at the deception it was practising on the audience. In Gh){kind=link}
Thirty years ago, Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and a poltergeist called Pipes pulled one of TV’s greatest pranks – and spooked the BBC
What you are about to read is true. Well, sort of. In late 1992, I was nine years old. I had just returned from a holiday to find the playground hooked on a ghost story. Not one of those apocryphal tales that happened to someone’s cousin’s friend’s sister, but a real ghost story. As my school chums told me, they had seen it play out live on television. So it had to be true.
Ghostwatch aired on BBC One on Saturday October 31 1992 – Halloween night. Hosted by Michael Parkinson, it was an on-the-ground paranormal investigation-plus-live studio phone-in. Kids’ TV presenter Sarah Greene and her camera crew reported from a haunted house in Northolt, where a poltergeist called “Pipes” – named for the clanging noises it made – had been terrorising a mother and two daughters.
Outside, Craig Charles mucked around in the street, interviewing neighbours. Back in the studio, Mike Smith took calls from viewers about their own supernatural experiences, and the skeptical Parkinson assessed the spooky goings-on with a paranormal expert.
This is where the truth ends, of course, because it wasn’t real. It wasn’t even live. Ghostwatch was a staged drama, produced and presented as if it was factual television – a smart spin on programmes such as Crimewatch and 999. But people believed it, creating a considerable moral panic: 30,000 complaints; three pregnant women shocked into labour; traumatised children; soiled trousers; a tabloid frenzy; and a 10-year ban from the BBC.