In 1992 a television documentary was shown, telling the story of Pamela Early, a single mother who lives with her two daughters, Suzanne, a teenager and Kim who is a little younger – probably pre-teen. Cameras are given access to almost every area of their home, with a live feed to the studio where a parapsychologist and the show’s host, a sturdy middleaged male patrician figure, consider the events of the night. We are told that they live in one of the most haunted houses in Britain.

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Leading the outside broadcast is a well-known chirpy female presenter. She takes us on a tour of the house, with her camera and sound men. Without knocking she enters the girl’s bedrooms as they are getting ready for bed. Unperturbed Pam simply finishes pulling down Kim’s nighty as Kim tries to maintain some dignity by removing her jeans under her nighty, turning away from the camera as she does so.

Later in the programme we are shown clips of both Kim and Suzanne in an apparently clinical setting with the psychologist, Dr Lin Pascoe. These are marked as ‘university research’ as well as from a film recently produced by Dr Pascoe regarding the haunting (Dr Pascoe has apparently also published a book). Their mother is not present (presumably for
scientific reasons) as tests are undertaken. As the drama of the night unfolds, and it appears that Suzanne has been responsible for the ‘haunting’ all along. Though in some distress, she is upbraided for her unacceptable behaviour over the protestations of her mother, by the elder statesman presenter – who appears to be the voice of common sense and authority in the situation. Suzanne looks into the camera and tells the audience “this is what you wanted”…

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This documentary, as will be obvious from the title of this article if nothing else, was GHOSTWATCH. A drama which scared the pants off the British public (including the me, as an extremely credulous 12 year old who was sent to bed part way through) in 1992, and has been the subject of controversy, analysis and adoration ever since. Now, I would like to
clearly state that I adore GHOSTWATCH and the following should not be taken as criticism, but an attempt to look at one of the less discussed areas of satire in the piece – the treatment of the girls, who are central to the plot but seemingly invisible in terms of their needs. I would even go as far as to suggest that if anyone wants to know how the various abusers of popular culture in the 70s and 80s got away with it, watching GHOSTWATCH would be a good place to start.

According to the following weeks POINTS OF VIEW programme, on the night GHOSTWATCH aired there were 835 calls to the BBC switchboard, 382 of which were complaining that the show was ‘an insult to their intelligence’, 275 on the grounds of ‘poor taste’, 62 ‘just had a general moan’, and 116 rang to say how much they had enjoyed it. 1 

The viewer complaints picked to be read out on air were spilt between those who had fallen for the cunning ruse and those who had not. Other estimates suggest that the call numbers were much higher – with producer Ruth Baumgarten suggesting over a million calls were received. 2 Baumgarten and fellow producer Richard Broke were then pulled onto the watchdog show BITEBACK to explain themselves. That is to explain the fright they had caused, particularly among children enjoying a Halloween treat of watching post-watershed TV. There is no indication of anyone calling with concerns for a preteen being shown getting undressed in front of not only strange men but the entire nation - even from those who state that they had believed the show to have been real until the end. It is notable that even in the states of distress none of the characters raise concerns for the well-being of the children (well, not until they get sucked into a hell dimension), which even the curmudgeonly Carmichael Haig manages in the more recent take on TV-gone-wrong LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL.

The unsettling power of children in horror is well known – it has even been suggested that no horror trope carries as much affect as that of the spooky child. 3 However, at the start of the drama the children are not obviously supernatural, a lot of work goes into creating the opposite effect – from the ‘not too rich, not too poor, not too messy, not too clean’ house, the slightly wonky outside broadcast and the jovial to the point of irritating additional host Craig Charles. This cosy familiarity is where writer Stephen Volk turns the horror thumbscrews expertly as things descend into chaos – in the house and then in the safety of BBC Television Centre itself. In later interviews he would state that he used the trusted status of the BBC as part of the drama. 4