3:32PM, Oct 26, 2009
We chatted exclusively with Most Haunted's Yvette Fielding.
She told us why the show still appeals to so many, if there's any haunted places she would still like to visit and what the essential qualities are for a ghost-hunter.
Plus find out what's in store in the forthcoming live Halloween shows.
What do you think the global appeal of the show is?
It’s a couple of things, it’s a bog standard TV camera crew thrown in at the deep end in these haunted locations and that’s not really been done before.
The first time people really got stuck into night vision was Blair Witch Project where everybody was scared to death, and it went from a movie to an English camera crew spending time in haunted locations and I think that really hit a nerve with people.
And of course millions of people worldwide are interested in the paranormal, because everybody is looking for an answer.
Do you feel that you and Karl are the Richard and Judy of the paranormal world?
I dunno about that – I never heard it put like that before. That’s funny. That’s a compliment then, because I love Richard and Judy – so yeah definitely.
You’ve been across the world for the show, is there anywhere in particular you would like to visit?
Egypt. There’s something that keeps bugging me and I keep getting this image of me being in a tomb. I want a Ouija board made out of hyroglyphics with a translator. Can you imagine? With the Ouija board moving and it being translated – that would be amazing and to uncover a mystery which archaeologists have been trying to find for years.
I’m thinking maybe March. I’ve been nagging the channel and I think they’re fed up of me going on about it, so they’ve sais "right then, go in March".
How did you feel after the first Pendle Hill show when you got angry with the spirits of a witches' coven?
I was very upset and it was interesting because being in that place, you couldn’t see anything but you could see what was happening to the crew around us who were all collapsing and being very poorly.
It made me think, "gosh you can’t see anything, but the atmosphere was really amazing". Afterwards we all had to sit together and talk through what had happened and we were all really dumbfounded by the situation that we had found ourselves in.
We may go back and do more, and in the live show one night we’ll be coming up against the very same people again.
What’s in store for fans at Halloween?
We’ve called it the Eight Faces of Evil purely because each night are going to be taking a different story. So for instance we’ll be going to a location where a gentleman murdered his wife and housekeeper; we’ll be going to his house, the place where he was tried, and the place where he was imprisioned. We’ll be trying to find out if he’s there, if any of the victims are still there and so that’s one night.
Each night we’ll come across different characters, the audience are going to be in Morecambe Winter Gardens in a derelict theatre, and it’s very haunted. We’ve investigated the place twice before and it’s got a horrible evil atmosphere and ghost of a very nasty gentlemen who used to work there, apparently he didn’t like women, did harm to them and makes his presence known to anybody in this particular seating area. He’ll throw stones, touch people, push people – so that will be quite fun for the audience members up there.
Every night the audience are going to be in the thick of it for the first time and we’ve had locations where the audience have been in the main hall of a haunted location, but this time the audience will be in the most haunted place and see if anything happens with them.
It’s going to be a real rollercoaster, the poor audience won’t know what’s going to hit them.
Are you ever worried that after you’ve finished a shoot that ghostly energies follow you from a location?
It’s something that we all talk about and something that we all worry about and we’ll say our prayers. I feel safe in my house and nothing bad would ever happen to us. We feel that we’ve been doing this for so long now that we know the ritual of what to do. We feel safe.
What advice would you give to any amateur ghosthunters out there?
Patience, patience, patience and criticism. Because you are delving into a world where it’s something you can’t see and there’s a lot of sceptics out there and you can’t prove to anybody, scientist, sceptics; even if we filmed the ghost on Henry VIII stood in the corner, people would say "oh you faked that". You can never win, doesn’t matter what you’ve caught on camera people won’t believe you, so you’re kind of banging your head against a brick wall.
What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you recently?
That’s difficult, because I’ve changed my outlook on the way I do it, I’m not running around screaming anymore. I’m more bossy and something will be thrown at you in a cellar, I don’t scream anymore I just pick up the object, is it hot? It is cold? I’m become a lot more investigative. I don’t like being touched, I’ve had it on my hand, ice cold hand touching my hand. And I don’t like breathing in my ear.
So what does she do after a day's work to relax? How do you spot a fake psychic? She tells us more in the first part of our Yvette Fielding interview .
Find out when Most Haunted is showing on TV.
