Fright Night

Seeing tourist sites in the Borders can be less than exciting so I jumped at the opportunity of spending a night in two of them with the Borders Paranormal Group and the 'Most Haunted' co-star Derek Acorah, the man Paul Daniels described as 'laughable'. Sadly the completely bonkers and squonking Yvette Fielding didn't manifest. Standing in the queue to sign up for the Anthony Nolan Trust sponsored evening I handed over my sponsor dosh and met my co-conspirators Sally and Susan and the well named Borders paranormal group, although subnormal may be a more appropriate description. But hey getting locked in a cell with a bunch of woman is my idea of fun so bring it on. Wot no fluffy handcuffs? And keep your ectoplasm to yourself.

What was brought on was Derek Acorah at the 'Mary Queen of Scots' house in Jedburgh - so called because she stopped off there to use the lavatory and ended up spending the night. If ghostly smells were going to apparate then her lavatory stench was something that was going to put me off my chicken wrap. Derek went through his vaudeville act, flashing his gold rolex, but then in a move that completely threw me and my plan to use my cold reading techniques to unmask a fraud - he confessed that the Most Haunted series was entirely staged with extras throwing things and kicking stools over. Sceptics if you can't beat them join them. However this heart felt confession was merely an opportunity to promote his new show which was going to be based on 'real investigations' and 'proving' the existence of the spirit world. It may be that on hearing about James Randi's Pigasus million dollar prize, for provable supernatural techniques, that he has decided to line his fast approaching retirement pot with that.

Is there anybody there? I am getting a name 'Jane' - does anyone know or is connected with a Jane in the group? It may well be that he thought I looked a bit like Tarzan, but I was not going to shop my jungle mate to a medium when Susan piped up that her mothers middle name was Jane. I was surprised in an audience of about 30 that there weren't more but Susan took the bait and chow'd down on the 'and you are sensitive but don't know it' line. Who was left handed? Surpringsly only Susan put up her left hand demonstrating that she was not only sensitive but also 'sinister' but she would be comfortable in this house as it had a left handed staircase - who writes this stuff? Derek could sense the 'great lady' (I wasn't too sure whether he was referring to Southpaw Susan, Elizabeth I who was a great lady, but had never visited Jedburgh, or the conniving bitch Mary who was going to sell us down the river to the French (enabling us to all be speaking German now). There were four groups (we were B for Best) and Derek was being time managed carefully by a team of little old ladies who would wrench him from channelling Elizabethan noblemen by the magic phrase 'the bus is here'.

Sally had a cold spot down her back which Susan and I verified by giving her a revigorating back massage and we were bussed back, waving like groupies at Derek enjoying his fly fag (medium tip?), back to Jedburgh Jail for our Fright Night. The night started reasonably frighteningly with sachet coffee (wot no espresso) juxtaposed with the ladies toilet with the dangerous mix of people emerging from trances on the way to the toilet jostling the people greedily overfilling flimsy paper cups with scalding hot Nescafe coloured water. A bunch of bizarrely clad storytellers entertained the captive crowd shouting phrases such as 'bite my clap ridden arse', whilst our Pippi Longstocking spirit guide was doing tarot readings to fleece the gullible.

People started to get very excited because someone had photographed an 'orb' - a hum of anticipation raced through the room as people clambered upon people to stare at an LCD screen on a compact camera as a blurry orb was shown, followed quickly by 'and I have a figure of a lady too'. Orbs for those who spend their life protected from bullshit are a well known photographic anomaly where a camera flash lights dust or pollen particles or especially rain forming a sphere in pictures. Take a photo with no flash you get no orbs, take one with flash you will get an orb - especially in old places that are dusty. Outside is good too, especially when raining as it was. Video, especially infrared is also susceptible. As for the photograph of a ghostly woman - there are several photographs of ghosts in existence. Most have been established as frauds. If one was taken this would be a wee bit more than just an excited paranormal group - this would be a world event. From what I could see it is difficult to tell whether it is an anomaly of the light, or perhaps the Large Hadron Collider time travellers have started appearing already in Jedburgh Jail during a paranormal night - using Occam's razor I tend to favour the simplistic solution of a wandering ghosthunter, or a desperate fraudulent act to court attention or simply a light anomaly. I knew I wouldn't be happy until I had an orb so went roaming around taking pictures until I got one and then a few. Then I got bored and went back to annoy Susan and Sally. The orbs were going to return frequently though in the subnormal group's chatter - although they tended to be orbs that they could see but no-one else could. That was when I realised that an alternative explanation to this was a mild form of mental illness - or perhaps they should have gone to SpecSavers. In any case getting this excited about a photographic anomaly highlights particularly poor research.

We had a tour of the jail which was otherwise a fairly jolly musuem and in reality wasn't that old or terrible so we ended up in a modern unscary room with CCTV and spotlights and labelled artifacts behind glass panels. Derek arrived, the lights went out and the theatre of the bizarre started. First of all as the lights went out a supernatural phenomena happens - everyone grabs a video camera and starts filming in the dark with their faces spookily lit by the LCD screen. Meanwhile Derek is channelling whoever he has read about in the Jedburgh Jail guidebook including a prisoner called Brown who is a nasty man and will start interfering with the women in the room. If this happens we men (there were 2 of us) were to stand in front of the women, presumably to make sure we weren't the ones interfering with them. I wasn't too sure what would happen if Brown had realised that there were more woman than men and he could play an abusive game of chess with the men pawns unable to defend all of their queens. Perhaps one man could defend a conga line of woman. Sadly that didn't get put to the test. The next phenomena is that the lights start cooling and on metal contraction make creaking noises - this is obviously 'proof' of Brown and consequently Life after Death and Derek launches into his potted philosophy of the afterlife and Hell. In the History of European Philosophers I am pretty certain that whoever updates Bertrand Russell's book is not going to have to add a section on Derek Acorah.

Much more scary was the revelation that the Geordie chap in the corner was a medium (in occupation only as this chap and his wife were more on the XXXL side) and he then launched into a potted history of his spirit experiences from his childhood. I initially was sceptical but then slowly realised that we were dealing with someone with a mild, and possibly not so mild, case of mental illness. I couldn't see this as a fraudulent exercise as he wasn't a convincing medium but perhaps this was better than clubbing in Newcastle. He did mention that his parents tried to get him sectioned but I wasn't convinced about his explanation that this was because they were Catholics. I did genuinely believe that some psychiatric input would not go amiss. In fact instead of the tarot readings it might be a good move for the Borders Subnormal Group to bring along some therapists next time.

Just recovering from realising that we were in the dark with a possible maniac, was when the dynamic duo of the lady in leopard tights and the Attractive Acorah Angel decided to get possessed. Incidentally I knew she was an Acorah Angel as she had this sewn on her jacket. She was a platinum blonde who is a gimmee for the live action Captain Scarlet remake as an Angel pilot, but Brown was going to have his evil way with her and before I had the chance to rush in front of her to protect her she disappeared in the arms of some subnormal helpers to the toilet to throw up. Possession or Bulimia - you choose. In any case Mrs Leopard Tights had to rush out feeling a crushing presence and threatening possession - again my protective charm was not called upon perhaps they didn't have faith that someone with a blinking GPS light could battle the undead with his uneaten chicken wrap. The fact these women had driven up from Bristol that morning and were driving back at 4am - was possibly the most frightening thing I learned all evening. Low blood sugar, lack of sleep and an unstable mental state does not make for perfect driving skills.

With Derek gone the most entertaining thing on offer was being locked in a cell with a paranormal investigator who turned out to be claustrophobic and bunch of fake mediums who kept seeing orbs, the cell getting darker and 'the man in the corner' glowing. That man needless to say was me. Susan was told that she was protected because her dead grandfather was behind her, although it has to be said I wasn't sure why she had one frozen buttock (the obvious explanation that I was warming the other one was actually proposed and was simply untrue). Sally announced she had frozen legs and someone whipped out a thermometer and started to tell us the temperature of different parts of the room (expecting them bizarrely to be the same). There was also an EMF meter measuring electromagnetic force which is not of course affected by the large electromagnetic alarm system, CCTV and countless video cameras in each cell. For those in the cell who kept saying that it was chilly I can only suggest swimming in the North Sea to actually experience chilliness or get some bamboo underwear (mine were warm, environmentally friendly, antibacterial and comfortable for lengthy spiritual vigils but not recommended if there are pandas being channelled). I was encouraged to call out the spirits and channelled Margaret Rutherford in Blithe Sprit for a short time before launching into the commanding 'oh come on get a move on we don't have all night here show yourself' which went down almost as well as asking "do you think we might get a visit from Anthony Nolan?"

The evening ended with the Acorah Angel clinging to me as she heard chains in the jail corridor and to which everyone else (apart from Susan, Sally and I) agreed that they had heard them too. The Medium/XXXL announced that he was getting white noise through his hearing aid (really I am NOT making this up) and we all retired at 3:30am (ghosts have to sleep sometime and humans too - unless you have to drive back to Bristol) to watch orbs on a TV screen until I really had had enough and Sally kindly drove me home with the added attraction that her car has dual pedals as she is a driving instructress - everyone who has complained about me as a back seat driver hasn't had me in the front seat with dual pedals...

There was 18,000 pounds raised for the Anthony Nolan Trust and we were assured that this might save a life if they find a bone marrow donor. It has to be pointed out that they don't seem to try too hard as Kim signed up after donating blood, was never contacted and is now apparently too old to be a donor - although perhaps they didn't want her bone marrow. The group have raised a lot of money for charity though which is obviously a good thing unless you subscribe to Oscar Wilde's view in The Soul of Man under Socialism, as I do.

Was it worth it - well it was a bit of a giggle (who is going to take Derek Acorah seriously really?) and it was a sober night (yes really), it raised money in a way which meant I didn't have to swim another bloody 100 lengths of Kelso Swimming Pool and I got to meet another sector of society I would normally be unlikely to meet (and I don't mean the ghosts). And I found the more entertaining badpsychics.com and unbelievably an interesting Paul Daniels interview.

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