An episode of What the Ghost? recorded by Georgie Barker.
Recording[]
In Victorian England, the death rate rose so dramatically that church graveyards couldn't keep up. In response, Highgate Cemetery, the first "modern" cemetery, was built. Highgate became very popular, for both prospective inhabitants and ghost sightings.
After the Blitz, the cemetery fell into disrepair, despite not being bombed itself. Even after several restoration attempts, the cemetery remained overgrown and dangerous, to the point where visitors couldn't wander the grounds without a guide. Georgie says this might be to protect visitors from more than just falling stones.
In 1968, on Halloween night, a group of teens broke into the cemetary. They reportedly arranged flowers taken from the graves into circular patterns, with arrows pointing to a new, uncovered grave. The body inside had been disturbed, and an iron stake had been driven through the coffin lid into the corpse's breast. Since then, there were reports of people seeing grey figures walking around. The people making the reports were notably well-respected community members, meaning it was unlikely that all the incidences were the result of drinks and drugs.
The first claim was made by Daniel Tarrant, who Georgie says was an "enthusiastic" occultist. He published his sighting of a grey, tall man wearing a tophat in a letter to a newspaper, encouraging others to report their sightings as well. While many people did claim to have seen things, few of the supposed "sightings" matched Tarrant's description, suggesting that not all of the reports were just copycats. Some even reported the figures being accompanied by the sounds of mournful church bells.
As the number of reports grew, so did the drama of the supposed encounters. One person reported seeing a hideous apperation with glowing red eyes staring right at him. Some even claimed that the coffins had exploded. Georgie says that most of these can be chalked up to tricks that the frightened mind plays, and says that most (but not all) of the exploding coffins were just the result of gas buildup. But even with these logical explanations, there's still one myth about Highgate left: The Highgate Vampire.
According to the legends, the vampire had been trapped in the cemetery, possibly since the Victorian era, but had been released by some unfortunate happenstance. Tarrant was apparently an avid believer in the Highgate Vampire, as was his rival, Shane Sheffield. The two kept the national news focused on the supposed vampire. By the end of the 1960s, the Vampire had become such an iconic tale that Highgate Cemetery was the filming location for the movie Count Dracula.
Despite agreeing on what haunted the cemetery, Sheffield and Tarrant spent their energies trying to discredit each other. The rivalry got so bad that in 1970, the two agreed to have a "wizards' duel" in the cemetery itself. Unfortunately for them, ITV News caught wind of the "duel," and decided to highlight it as a distraction from the intense political news. On Friday the 13th, the station interviewed the two. The interviews caused a mass rush of "hunters" to the cemetery, and by the end of the frenzy, most of the bodies in Highgate had been dug up, staked, and/or disturbed in various ways. After the incident, most of the "hunters" were prosecuted, and the cemetery was bought by a mysterious group known as the "Highgate Friends." The group closed off the cemetery for years, and eventually opened a small section to visitors, but the west side is still closed off, only available to guided tours.
Throughout the podcast, Georgie reads a list of sponsor ads, slightly more convincingly then she did last time. She advertises PawJs, pajamas for pets, which she and The Admiral absolutely love (and the scratches are healing up quite nicely!), Webly, a net service which does everything for you, including thinking, and Steakout, a meat delivery service, which her girlfriend says has very fresh meats.
Trivia[]
- Continuity:
- This episode was recorded sometime after Georgie and Melanie King began dating
- Like What The Ghost? - The Devil's Dance, two of the ads Georgie reads seemingly have a connection to an entity. In this case, Steakout, the meat delivery service, seems to have connections to The Flesh, and Webly, a net service with possible connections to The Web.
- The Admiral makes his third appearance on the show. The last one was in MAG 157: Rotten Core.
- It is revealed that Georgie is a vegetarian.