Chasing the Scare – Guest Author, Jo

The regular author of this blog and I are going to see the Danny Robbins penned play 2:22 A Ghost Story in a couple of months. We’ve both seen it separately and having talked about it, decided it would be great to watch it again knowing what we know now. No spoilers here by the way, just go see it, it’s great.

Deciding to revisit 2:22 did get me thinking about the supernatural. It’s something that’s fascinated me from a very young age and that interest peaked when BBC’s Ghostwatch aired in 1992. I was thirteen years old at the time and it absolutely terrified me. I bought into the premise of it being a genuine ghost hunt and managed to completely miss the part in the credits which noted the ghost was played by a bloke called Keith Ferrari.

I will lay my cards on the table in that I am a sceptic and frequent wielder of Occam’s Razor. Very rarely does the simplest explanation produce the answer ‘it was a ghost.’ Having said that, I remain open-minded to the idea that there might be more out there than we can explain and I believe people when they’ve told me about their strange encounters. I absolutely accept that their experiences happened to them, I just lean towards seeking a rational explanation.

Despite my scepticism, I remain fascinated and, if I’m honest, terrified by the supernatural. I love ghost and folklore stories and have devoured several books, films and podcasts on the subject. No doubt I will continue to do so. I think much of the allure is the lifting of a veil in the hope that something is out there, not necessarily the dead trying to contact us, but other things which challenge our assumptions about how the world works.

In summer last year I took a walk after work in the ancient woodlands which are about a five minute wander from our house. I do this a lot, but on this occasion I was so engrossed in my podcast (on the Hollywood blacklist – excellent subject) I managed to get very lost. After heading down a narrow path I thought was vaguely in the right direction, I was quite suddenly surrounded by the undergrowth and no obvious pathway. As I stood quietly and listened for a distant train passing to help get my bearings, I was instantly overcome with a feeling that I didn’t belong there and really should get moving. I can’t say it was fear exactly as I had nothing to be frightened of. Being lost was not worrying to me – I know the woods well and the nearby train line is a fantastic aural guide if you’re lost. I just felt very unsettled. It was like a small change in the atmosphere had occurred and I knew I wasn’t welcome. After an uncomfortable minute or so I heard a train in the distance and set off in its direction, feeling instantly more relaxed as I moved away.

On reflection it probably was some primordial impulse surfacing, but then I’ve read enough British folklore tales to know that the beautiful countryside scenery can mask things that are anything but friendly. It’s fun to think about now and I still happily wander the woods engrossed in podcasts.

In June, Ed and I will chase the scare again, this time knowing how it all turns out. We can just focus on those atmospheric changes and unsettling moments but from the comfort of a London theatre.

A small sample of my spooky recommendations:

Podcasts

Ghosts in the Burbs – https://www.ghostsintheburbs.com/

Old Gods of Appalachia – https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/

Uncanny – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0010x7c

The Lovecraft Investigations (start right from the beginning with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and go from there) – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p06spb8w

Books

We Are for the Dark: Six Ghost Stories by Elizabeth Jane Howard and Robert Aickman

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Anything by M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft

Films and Television

Robin Redbreast (1970)

Penda’s Fen (1974)

BFI Ghost Stories for Christmas DVD box set

Don’t Look Now (1973)