[bagpuss_24]

It has to be anything to do with Poltergiests.
I was skeptical about the whole thing; until I started my working life. I worked within a Film Unit for an ITV Regional company (showing my age) Our bread & butter work was producing Features, Documentaries, Programmes for Schools TV (showing age again) which was all shot on 16mm film.

Of the documentaries; we followed up a 1978 film looking at the Paranormal.
This avoiding the usual Prisons, Castles etc – but concentrated on the places people wouldn’t consider as haunted.
This was an eye opener; considering we were interviewing some witnesses at least 20 years after their experience. Many were still quite disturbed.

One feature, surrounded a 1970s built shopping centre in the Midlands; that was plagued with Aparitions and Polergiest Activity – even during construction in 1973. Many builders left site.
This activity continued – the Local Council and Shopping Centre owner took out a “D Notice” (Injunction) to prevent anything being reported.
All shops concerned (that was most of the 30 shop units) were told to keep diaries and issued with pamphlets about Poltergiests.
The phenomina continued throughout the 1970s, into the 1980s – and things took a turn for the worse. Several “clerical experts” and the Bishop of the City carried out numerous blessings – the first kinds of worked, the second made things worse and the third took place just before we made the follow up film

While we were shooting in two of the shops (one was a Woolworth Store, and another was a Freeman, Hardy Willis store) we experienced footsteps and banging in an otherwise locked store room, blasts of cold air, equipment playing up, very bad static on sound and a Directors PA claimed she saw a dark figure stood by a staircase.

Our film was pulled from the air 3 days before transmission – as the Local Council didn’t want it broadcast. The item couldn’t be substituted as it took up a bulk of the programme.

From this experience, and a few others – this has interested me in to the if’s / hows and science behind it all.

A final twist to the story – my partner is a keen on Genealogy and discovered some of my ancestors lived in various houses that were once under the shopping centre.