Christmas Radio Times 1977 Stigma

Its BBC Ghost Story for Christmas Stigma.

Need I say any more? 

 

Radio Times Christmas 1977

Ghosts of Derbyshire by Clarence Daniel (Dalesman Books, 1977)

To mark both Halloween next week and the proper onset of Autumn this weekend… Derbyshire, ladies and gents.

One of my less noble ambitions tin life to try to one day collect enough of these regional ‘ghosts of..’ / ‘haunted..’ / ‘mysterious..’ books to cover the entirety of the UK. I think I have a lot of the more obvious ones, but less exciting / evocative parts of the country can be hard to find, so I was thrilled to be able to tick Derbyshire off the list.

In addition to the usual round of spectral hounds and ladies in white, this particular area of the midlands seems notable for a lot of funny business involving skulls, and, if Clarence Daniel is to be believed, a frankly suspicious abundance of bad local poets, all dedicated to commemorating supernatural events using a fairly similar meter. You can draw your own conclusions.

West Country Tales

West Country Tales was an early 1980s anthology supernatural drama series based on real-life experiences sent in by viewers in response to a BBC appeal. Of the hundreds of letters received, 14 stories were selected and turned into TV scripts. Some of the actors who appeared in the series included Nanette Newman, Jenny Hanley, Anita Harris, Milton Reid, John Abineri, Wendy Richard, Tom Adams, Jack Watson, Keith Barron. Unfortunately of the 14 stories only nine seem to be available. The missing episodes are Tell It to the Marines, Sarah, The Little Bounder, The Healer, The Sabbatical. In some ways this series was perhaps a forerunner of programs like Channel 4's recent series True Horror. The episode called The Visitor tells the tale of A mother and her daughter who live in a remote cottage. One day they receive an unwelcome visitor whose intentions may or may not be malevolent.This is an interesting tale which could have almost been written (but was not) by Robert Aickman. In places this story does have the pace and feel of some of Aickman's short stories, some of which always seem to leave you feeling slightly undecided and unsure but always wanting to know more. If you can track a copy of the series down it is def worth a purchase. But I should add that the quality of some of the episodes on the DVD are quite poor. (I should mention I did not buy my copies, they were a gift from a friend, so do not know where they were purchased from) There are a few episodes of West Country Tales on YouTube